One Froggy Evening

One Froggy Evening
Merrie Melodies (Michigan J. Frog) series

Lobby card
Directed by Charles M. Jones
Produced by Edward Selzer
Story by Michael Maltese
Voices by Bill Roberts
(All Singing)
Music by Milt Franklyn
Animation by Ken Harris
Abe Levitow
Ben Washam
Richard Thompson
Layouts by Robert Gribbroek
Backgrounds by Philip DeGuard
Studio Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) December 31, 1955
Color process Technicolor
Running time 6:56 min
Country United States
Language English

One Froggy Evening is an approximately seven-minute long Technicolor animated short film written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones, with musical direction by Milt Franklyn. The short marks the debut of Michigan J. Frog. This popular short contained a wide variety of musical entertainment, with songs ranging from "Hello! Ma Baby" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry", two Tin Pan Alley classics, to "Largo al Factotum", Figaro's aria from the opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The short was released on December 31, 1955 as part of Warner Bros.' Merrie Melodies series of cartoons.

Steven Spielberg, in the PBS Chuck Jones biography Extremes & Inbetweens: A Life In Animation, called One Froggy Evening "the Citizen Kane of animated film." (Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 5, Disc 2) In 1994 it was voted #5 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. In 2003 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The film is included in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 DVD box set (Disc 4), along with an Audio commentary, optional music-only audio track (only the instrumental, not the vocal), and a making-of documentary, It Hopped One Night: A Look at "One Froggy Evening".

Plot

A mid-1950s construction worker involved in the demolition of the "J. C. Wilber Building" finds a box inside a cornerstone. He opens it to find a commemorative document dated April 16, 1892. Inside is also a singing, dancing frog, complete with top hat and cane. After the frog suddenly performs a musical number there on the spot, the man tries exploiting the frog's talents for money. However, the frog refuses to perform for any individual other than its owner, instead devolving into croaking in the presence of others. The man frantically tries to demonstrate the frog's abilities to the outside world, first by trying to get a talent agent to accept him, then by renting out a theater for it to perform in, all to no avail.

After these failed attempts to profit from the frog, the man becomes destitute and is living on a park bench, where the frog still performs only for him. A policeman overhears this and approaches the man for disturbing the peace, but when the man points out the frog as having done the singing, the officer takes the man into custody. He is committed to a psychiatric hospital along with the frog, who continues serenading the hapless patient. Following his release, the haggard, broken man, carrying the frog inside the box, spies the construction site where he originally found the box, and dumps it into the cornerstone of the future "Tregoweth Brown Building" before sneaking away. The timeline then jumps to 2056 (101 years after the cartoon's debut). The Brown Building is being demolished using futuristic ray guns, and the box with the frog is discovered yet again by a 21st-century demolition man, who, after envisioning riches as well, absconds with the frog to start the process once again.

Production notes

The cartoon has no spoken dialogue, in fact no vocals at all except by the Frog, otherwise relying on pantomime and other visuals, sound effects, and music. The songs include ragtime and Tin Pan Alley hits with a dash of opera, showing the Frog's versatility.

The singer was uncredited, and for years his identity was shrouded in some degree of mystery. Various names were proposed in the past, but the Looney Tunes Golden Collection unequivocally credits the vocals to baritone Bill Roberts, a Los Angeles nightclub entertainer in the 1950s.

The Frog had no name when the cartoon was made, but Chuck Jones later named him Michigan J. Frog after the song "The Michigan Rag", which was written for the cartoon. The character became the mascot of The WB television network in the 1990s. In a clip shown in the DVD specials for the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Jones states that he started calling the character "Michigan Frog" in the 1970s. During an interview with writer Jay Cocks, Jones decided to adopt "J" as the Frog's middle initial, after the interviewer's name.[1]

The DVD points out that the names of the buildings in the picture, as shown on the cornerstones, are names of Warner production people on the cartoon. A plate-glass window likewise is adorned with the layout artist's name.

The date on the cornerstone in which the Frog was sealed predates most of the songs he sings. Papers found in the box with him state that it was sealed in 1892, but "Hello! Ma Baby", for instance, was not written until 1899.

A production shortcut can be observed in the final scene, in which the futuristic demolition worker finds the Frog in the box. The wide shot of the worker shows modern metal fencing in the background, while the closeup shot of the Frog has the background of rubble identical to the first scene.

In the 1980s, when ABC TV showed the "Bugs Bunny/ Tweety Show", the scene where the show had a sign offering "Free Beer", was omitted, due to the bad influences on kids, dealing with alcoholism, in which some religious groups shunned the film and would not watch it unless and until the "Free Beer" sign scene was omitted.

Sequel

In 1995, Chuck Jones reprised Michigan J. Frog in a cartoon entitled Another Froggy Evening, with Jeff McCarthy providing the Frog's voice. It actually serves as both a prequel and a sequel to some degree. Most of Another Froggy Evening follows, in order, a caveman from pre-historic times, a citizen of the Roman Empire, and a Patriot in 1776 at the time of the American Revolution. All three basically encounter the same scenario as the man in One Froggy Evening: they each find the frog (apparently always in the same box), it performs a musical number for each of them on the spot, the three men try to exploit the frog's talents, and the frog refuses to perform for anyone else. For the caveman, he eventually gets pelted by stones before sliding the frog's box under a rock. The Roman is eventually sent to be fed to the lions, but escapes from the Colosseum and tosses the frog's box into a river. The Patriot, after attempting to show off the frog to George Washington, gets locked up in a pillory.

The cartoon then flashes-forward to "Later (Actually, Quite A Bit Later)" and a man marooned on a deserted, tropical island. He pulls the frog's box out of the water while fishing, but his immediate thought after hearing it sing is to eat the frog instead. But before he can toss it into a cauldron, the frog's box is pulled out of the sky by a flying saucer hovering over the island. Inside the space ship, Marvin the Martian expresses his delight that he has captured a specimen of an "operatic earthling". After opening the box and hearing the frog initially croak, Marvin finds that it speaks Martian. Marvin answers the frog's question (which apparently was what the frog was repeatedly trying to ask all along throughout this cartoon and One Froggy Evening) by replying, "Yes, I would love to hear you sing". Marvin then joins the frog singing "Let the Rest of the World Go By" as the ship leaves Earth's orbit.

Inspirations

The premise of One Froggy Evening closely follows that of the 1944 Columbia Pictures film Once Upon a Time starring Cary Grant in which a dancing caterpillar is kept in a shoebox. It was common for Warner Bros. to parody scenes from well-known live action films for its Merrie Melodies productions.

Some of the Frog's physical movements are evocative of ragtime-era greats such as Bert Williams, who was known for sporting a top hat and cane, and performing the type of flamboyant, high-kick cakewalk dance steps demonstrated by the Frog in Hello! Ma Baby.

The cartoon also had a sequel of sorts in an episode of the Warner Bros. series Tiny Toon Adventures, with the Frog falling into Hamton J. Pig's possession. Another cameo of Michigan J. Frog was in an episode of Animaniacs when a scene from MacBeth is recreated. Michigan J. Frog, wearing his top hat, is placed into a boiling cauldron along with other cartoon characters.

Several of the songs performed by the frog were written after he was presumably sealed into the cornerstone, dated 1892.

Words and Music by Ida Emerson and Joseph E. Howard (1899)
Words and Music by Milt Franklyn, Michael Maltese and Chuck Jones, written for the cartoon
Words and Music by Claribel (pseudonym of Charlotte Alington Barnard) (1866)
Words and Music by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, written for the musical Shuffle Along (1921)
Words and Music by John W. Kelly (1890)
Words by Harry Williams
Music by Egbert Van Alstyne (1906)
Composed by Gioachino Rossini for the opera The Barber of Seville (1816)
Words and Music by Sidney Clare, Sam H. Stept, and Bee Palmer (1930)

The two men who find the Frog are the only persons who see him singing. However, the theatre audience probably heard him behind the closed curtain and the police officer definitely heard him singing in the park. (The Frog stops singing before he can be seen either by the theatre audience or by the police officer.)

Other media

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ebert, Roger (2006-01-15). "Chuck Jones: Three Cartoons (1953-1957)". rogerebert.com. Chicago Sun Times online. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
  2. ↑ "Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)". IMDb.
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