Posting some old fan art for today

This fan art I made was to mark the 70 anniversary of Fleischer Studios second and final film, Mr. Bug goes to town. I decided to give the image the traditional look instead of the one I made years ago [link] I also decided to remove Beetle, Smack & Swat for reasons of space, but I'll do them later.

The film like it's predecessor, Gulliver's Travels(1939) fell victim to WWII. In G.T. was the German attack on Poland in September 1rst 1939, Mr. Bug was around the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and public attention turn from theaters to radio, to see whether there would be a U.S. entry in to the conflict. Also, the film confronted the popularity of Disney's Dumbo which debuted in theaters on October 23 1941. The failure of the film, the studios huge debt, the difference between Max and Dave Fleischer & Paramount their removal of the board of directors, lead to the studio's downfall in 1942 and the studio was renamed Famous and remain so till 1967. The movie has since been jumping from owner to owner since the 70's with inferior image quality. Currently the rights of distribution are under Legend Films under the name Bugville. The film has develop a Cult Following with a new Generation of Animation fans.

In Japan, the movie was released on December 19, 2009 as part of Studio Ghibli's Ghibli Museum Library. A DVD was released on April 2010 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment in Japan, and it has been reported to be a restoration of an NTA re-release print. An ironic twist, considering Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor & Dumbo's success were responsible for the film demise 70 years ago.

Recently, Mr. Bug, along with many other Fleischer-produced cartoons, was restored from the original three-strip negatives by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, though a few art-house theaters have recently screened the restoration, there are currently no plans to release it on DVD or Blu-Ray.