Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941) on Netflix

Approved19411h 18mAnimation Comedy Family Fantasy Musical

Hoppity the grasshopper returns to the Lowlands, the bug community beside a broken fence, where the Human Ones trample through. C. Bagley Beetle, a property owner there, wants Honey for himself.

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Netflix3.5/5
IMDb6.9/101,606 votes
Rotten Tomatoes71%

Plot summary

Off Broadway, in a vacant corner lot, a tiny community of bugs calls its home the Lowlands. Hoppity the grasshopper comes back to the Honey Shop, run by old Mr. Bumble, whose daughter Honey is Hoppity's sweetheart. The neighborhood is being wrecked by the Human Ones, who cut through a broken fence and leave litter and cigar butts that flatten and burn bug houses. C. Bagley Beetle, a property owner in the Lowlands, wants Honey for himself, with Swat the Fly and Smack the Mosquito as his henchmen. Word spreads that a skyscraper will rise on the site. Hoppity, undeterred by the doomsaying of Mr. Creeper the snail, finds hope behind the bungalow of Mary and Dick, a struggling songwriter waiting on a publisher's check.

Cast

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The Royal Guardsas Chorus Interpretations(voice)

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

The film was made amid a feud between Max and Dave Fleischer: the brothers communicated only through internal memos while working in the same building, and Paramount's 1941 contract required each to hand in a signed resignation letter it could use at will.
After seeing Mr. Bug's disappointing performance and the initial failures of Disney's Pinocchio and Fantasia, rival producers Walter Lantz, Paul Terry and Leon Schlesinger canceled their own planned animated features.
The film cost $713,511 to make but had earned back only $241,000 by 1946, when it was withdrawn from circulation.
Mr. Bug Goes to Town was the first animated feature to give screen credit to its voice actors, among them Stan Freed as Hoppity and Pauline Loth as Honey.
Mr. Bug Goes to Town was Paramount's last animated feature film until Charlotte's Web, made by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1973.