Horst in Translation ([email protected]) This is a cartoon from 60 years ago that deals with a guy finding a frog. The frog is really talented at singing, but sadly every time his owner wants to put him on display, the frog refuses to show everybody his great voice and instead he makes usual frog noise. No Mel Blanc in here, but Oscar winner Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese came up with it as always. I have to say I am very much surprised that this is one of Chuck Jones' famous cartoons today as I have seen many many which are far superior. As I wrote in the description, this is basically the same joke for 7 minutes and even at this low runtime, it gets repetitive at some point. And what's even worse, they realized it and included a totally random future reference with the very same joke. Not a great short film at all and it annoys me to see that there even is a sequel out there, even if it's not famous at all. I have no idea, but I would not be surprise if it relies on the same repetitive story. In any case, I do not recommend "One Froggy Evening".

ccthemovieman-1 The J.C. Wilbur building is being demolished by the Acme Building and Wrecking company. When they are down to just the cornerstone, a foreman discovers a proclamation, so to speak, about the building being erected in 1892. Suddenly, a frog climbs out of the cornerstone, slowly stretches and then dons top hat and cane and starts belting out a stage tune! The foreman raises an eyebrow and pictures himself a rich man by exhibiting a singing frog.The rest is pure hell for the foreman. He goes to the Acme Theatrical Agency (everything was "Acme" back in these '50s LT; just ask Wile E. Coyote). Of course, the frog does nothing now, just gives a huge belching noise and lies limp. The foreman is booted out, and instantly the frog comes back to life again!The gag continues, and could get tiresome and frustrating but the frog is so darned funny I didn't mind how many times I kept seeing the same schtick. In fact, the frigging frog wouldn't shut up....until other people showed up. I actually felt sorry for the poor foreman. The frog ruined his life.....and will keep doing it to others years from now, as we see at the end of the cartoon when the little monster is re-discovered in the middle of this century! This is a very sadistic story. How nasty can you be? That foreman should have had frog legs for dinner early on and saved himself a lot of grief.

theowinthrop During the early 18th Century there was an incident in which an enterprising impresario rented a theater in London, and then publicized a notice that on a specific day he would present a man of only eighteen inches in height, who would be perfectly formed, but living underwater in a bottle, and who would sing for two hours, and dance for two hours, for the audience. The theater was packed when a troubled looking theater owner came out to explain that everyone had been fooled and the impresario was a liar who had fled with the box office. There was no little entertainer in a bottle, and there was no way to reimburse the swindled audience. The audience started hooting and throwing things, and finally wrecked the theater.I don't know if that incident influenced the creation of ONE FROGGY EVENING, but it sounds like it could have. As for movies the closest that I can think of to this cartoon gem of Chuck Jones is a Cary Grant film ONCE UPON A TIME, wherein an opportunistic producer seizes upon a dancing caterpillar. But Grant finds humility in that film. That is not the case in ONE FROGGY EVENING. The protagonist, a construction worker who thinks he hit the mother load, never realizes that the "asset" he has acquired is no asset at all but a piece of living hell.Michigan J. Frog was the star of only this cartoon, but he has since reappeared as "spokes - frog" for Channel 11, and even in one of the Tiny - Tunes that were made in the 1990s, trying to encourage another character to sing. But for his one starring role, Michigan did splendidly. He comes across as a lively singer, dancer, juggler, and acrobat. One appreciates his warbling of "My Ragtime Gal", "The Great McCloskey Fight" (it is while performing this that his juggling and acrobatics are demonstrated - behind a stuck curtain), and the specially written, bouncy "Michigan Rag". The movie audience fully appreciates that Michigan would be the world's greatest performer, but for one habit (one can't call it a failing): he only entertains his owner.It is the owner's descent into despair, poverty, even madness that occupies the bulk of the action. He knows that Michigan is the world's greatest performer...but he can't prove it to anyone. In the course of the cartoon only one other person hears Michigan (prior to the ironic conclusion): a police officer passing behind a fence hears Michigan's excellent, but loud voice, and arrests the surprised owner whom he believes was disturbing the peace! It is like the fates are totally against the construction worker. He has only two moments of genius in the cartoon: when he finds Michigan and runs off with him, and when he finally gets rid of Michigan. One hopes his later life was more stable and pleasant. And one hopes his futuristic replacement comes to his senses in the end too.The cartoon has had influence beyond it's own seven minutes of running time. Mel Brooks used it's situation in a typical twist in SPACEBALLS, when John Hurt suffers a situation similar to what happened to him in ALIEN, when an alien space organism that got into his body burst out killing him. With Brooks' touch it turned comic. The alien jumps out of Hurt's chest (Hurt looks upset, and says, "Not again!") and proceeds to pull out a hat and cane and sing "My Ragtime Gal!" I think Chuck Jones would have been proud.

MisterWhiplash Among my favorites of the Warner Brothers Merry Melodies shorts is the one with Michigan J Frog (which, like "the Man with No Name" in Leone films, is a marketing gimmick). It's basically a silent film only with a singing, dancing frog, right from the swamp into vaudeville as it were (ho-ho). His owner decides to make it rich with what is, well, a singing and dancing frog in such a reality-driven world as a cartoon. No one notices the frog's talents as it stops just as people are put in front of it; this even extends to an audience promised free beer. In the end, it's fairly tragic, however just in the sense of a Merry Melodies cartoon. This is one of those shorts, like Duck Amuck (my favorite), that brilliantly winks to the audience 'hey, we know this is all so irreverent and absurd, we'll play with it till it drops to the floor'. This time instead of the characters actively talking to the audience, we get the interplay between reality and fantasy played out between a man and an animal. It's funny, of course, because of the owner's attempts to get it to dance in front of others. And its timeless because it has this message of not being able to cross fantasy into reality, which is why all the Merry Melodies shorts, even the lessor ones, have this cool little quality to them. In short, one of Jones/Matleses' triumphs.