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A Froggy Evening Merrie Melodies (Michigan J. Frog) series
Michigan J. Frog
Directed by	Chuck Jones
Produced by	Eddie Selzer
Story by	Michael Maltese
Voices by	Bill Roberts
Music by	Milt Franklyn
Animation by	Ken Harris Abe Levitow Ben Washam Richard Thompson
Layouts by	Robert Gribbroek
Backgrounds by	Philip DeGuard
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	December 31, 1955
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	6:56 min
Language	English

One Froggy Evening is an approximately seven-minute long Technicolor animated short film written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones. Musical Direction by Milt Franklyn. 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 Brothers' Merrie Melodies series of cartoons.

Some critics and observers^[who?] regard this cartoon short as the finest ever made. 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. The film is currently ranked at IMDb as the fourth best short movie ever.^[1] 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".

Contents 1 Story 2 Production notes 3 Inspirations 4 Censorship 5 Songs featured 6 Other media 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Story

A mid-1950s construction worker involved in the demolition of an 1892 building finds a box inside a cornerstone. He opens it to reveal a singing, dancing frog, complete with top hat and cane. The box also contains a deed dated April 16th, 1892. The man tries exploiting the frog's talents for money, but as it turns out, it will not perform in front of anyone else. For the rest of the cartoon, the man frantically tries to demonstrate the frog's abilities to the outside world (first by trying to get an agent to accept him, then by renting out a theater), all to no avail. Eventually he is homeless (after spending all his money renting the theater) and living on a park bench, where the frog still performs for him. A policeman overhears this and approaches the man for disturbing the peace, but after seeing him accuse the frog of the singing, has the man committed to an asylum. Following his release, the haggard man spies a construction site and joyfully hides the box in the cornerstone of the Tregoweth Brown building that is under construction. The timeline then jumps to the year 2056 (100 years and at least 1 day after the cartoon's debut), where the building is demolished by futuristic ray guns, and the box with the frog is discovered yet again by a 21st century demolition man, who gets visions of dollar signs, starting the process all over again....

Ironically, it is revealed in "Another Froggy Evening" that the frog's croaking noise is actually Martian for "Would you like to hear me sing?" This 1995 sequel actually is an prologue which shows that Michigan J. Frog lifespan actually exists for centuries from the caveman to the space age-and with the same result for both the frog and the luckless finder.

[edit] Production notes

The cartoon has no spoken dialog, in fact no vocals at all, except by the frog, otherwise relying on pantomime and other visuals, sound effects, and music. The songs include past 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 have been proposed in the past. The Looney Tunes Golden Collection unequivocally credits the vocals to baritone Bill Roberts, a nightclub entertainer in Los Angeles in the 1950s.

The frog had no name when the cartoon was made, but Chuck Jones later named him Michigan J. Frog after the original song. The character became the mascot of The WB television network in the 1990s. In a clip shown in the DVD specials for Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Jones states that he started calling the character "Michigan Frog" in the 1970s. During an interview by a writer named Jay Cocks, Jones decided to adopt "J" as the Frog's middle initial, after the interviewer's name.^[2]

The DVD also points out that the names of the buildings in the picture, as shown on the various cornerstones, are names of Warner production people on the cartoon.

The cornerstone in which the frog was sealed seems to predate some 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 short-cut can be observed in the final scene, in which the futuristic demolition worker finds the frog in the box. The wide shot shows a smooth, concrete background, while the close-up shot is identical to the first scene in the cartoon, with the rubble of bricks seen in the background.

[edit] Inspirations

The story may have been inspired by the real-life tale of Ol' Rip, a horned toad who was claimed to have survived 31 years sealed in the cornerstone of the courthouse in Eastland, Texas. The cornerstones in both cases had been laid in the 1890s.

The performing style of the frog is at least in part a tribute to 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 dance steps demonstrated by the frog in Hello! Ma Baby.

Chuck Jones would later reprise Michigan J. Frog in a new cartoon entitled Another Froggy Evening (1995), with Jeff McCarthy providing the frog's voice. The cartoon also had a sequel of sorts in an episode of Warner Brother's series Tiny Toons with the frog falling into Hamton J. Pig's possession. Another cameo of Michigan J. Frog was on 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.

[edit] Censorship

• Airings of this cartoon on ABC and the WB cut the part where the man creates a "Free Beer" sign to rope in audience members into seeing the singing frog. The humor of that piece showed a bunch of drunks bullcharging into the theatre. The way it is cut on both channels makes it seem that the audience came in because of the "Free Admission" sign the man creates before the "Free Beer" sign. The uncut scene where the man first shows "Admission: $2", then "Free Admission", then "Free Beer" is shown on the Merrie Melodies compilation video.

• When the short was featured on the compilation movie Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales, the ending where the demolition worker from 2056 finds the singing frog and makes off with it, in the hopes of exploiting it the same way the man from 1955 tried, was cut, making it seem as if the cartoon ended with the construction worker from 1955 getting rid of the frog and running off.

[edit] Songs featured

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

• "Hello! Ma Baby"

Words and Music by Ida Emerson and Joseph E. Howard (1899)

• "The Michigan Rag"

Words and Music by Milt Franklyn, Michael Maltese and Chuck Jones; written for the cartoon, but similar to George Olsen's hit song "Varsity Drag" from the musical Good News (1927)

• "Come Back to Erin"

Words and Music by Claribel (pseudonym of Charlotte Alington Barnard) (1866)

• "I'm Just Wild About Harry"

Words and Music by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, written for the musical Shuffle Along (1921)

• "Throw Him Down, McCloskey"

Words and Music by John W. Kelly (1890)

• "The Michigan Rag" reprise
• "Won't You Come Over To My House"

Words by Harry Williams

Music by Egbert Van Alstyne (1906)

• "Largo al factotum"

Composed by Gioachino Rossini for the opera The Barber of Seville (1816)

• "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone"

Words and Music by Sidney Clare, Sam H. Stept and Bee Palmer (1930)

• "Hello! Ma Baby" reprise

The two men who find the frog (a century apart) are the only persons who hear and see the frog singing at the same time. In the theater scene, it appears that the theater's audience can hear him; in the public park scene, a policeman definitely overhears the frog, who is singing "Largo al factotum". In both of those cases, the frog stops singing by the time anyone else can see him.

[edit] Other media

• One Froggy Evening was referenced in Mel Brooks' 1987 film SpaceBalls, in a scene where John Hurt plays a man who collapses as a small alien bursts from his stomach, recreating a similar scene Hurt performed in the movie Alien. Hurt says "Not again!" before dying and the alien sings "Hello Ma Baby" as it dances across a counter and out the window.
• Michigan J. Frog would be later reincarnated as the mascot of The WB Television Network from its' outset in 1994 until the merger with UPN to become The CW in 2006. The last image seen on the WB was a profile of Michigan J. Frog when the network signed off.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• One Froggy Evening at the Internet Movie Database
• Details and credits for One Froggy Evening
• The Songs of One Froggy Evening