As reported here and elsewhere, the WB Network is dumping Michigan J. Frog as its mascot. Mr. Frog may have had the most stupendous career of anyone who only appeared in just a couple of cartoons, only one of which anyone saw — the original, 1955 One Froggy Evening. Years later, after his stardom was firmly established, came its barely-released 1998 sequel, Another Froggy Evening. and a few cameos on Tiny Toon Adventures and other WB venues.
I never quite understood why he was dancing about in WB promos, or even why the network for a time had the receptionist at its offices greet each caller with, "The dub-dub-dubya-yew duba-yew-bee!" They had a frog doing their commercials and Porky Pig answering their phones.
I recall attending a big "kick-off" party for the WB. They had a guy (or maybe it was a gal) in a big Michigan J. Frog suit, dancing about. I thought it would have been much hipper to have the person in the costume dance only when one person was looking.
Here are some fun facts about Michigan J. Frog, who wasn't even called that when the original cartoon was made by director Chuck Jones, writer Michael Maltese and some fine animators. It was many years later, when WB wished to see merchandise of said frog that they decided he had to have more of a name than "that singing frog in the cartoon about the guy who finds a singing frog in a building's time capsule." Mr. Jones came up with the name, spinning off one of the tunes warbled in the cartoon by the awesome amphibian — "The Michigan Rag," which sounds like an old standard but was actually written for the film by Jones, Maltese and music guy Milt Franklyn.
For years, animation historians thought the frog's voice was provided by opera star Terence Monck. This assumption sprang from the fact that Mr. Monck did provide a not-altogether-dissimilar voice in two cartoons Jones and Maltese did for MGM — The Cat Above and the Mouse Below, and Cat and Dupli-Cat. (Monck is also wrongly credited with the voice of the opera singer in the Jones/Maltese WB cartoon, Long-Haired Hare. That was Nicolai Shutorov.)
The frog's voice was apparently done by a gent named Bill Roberts, about whom little is known other than that he was a nightclub performer in Los Angeles for years and worked on a lot of non-animation films and records as a back-up singer. Someone sent me the above photo which they swear is the man, himself. Perhaps so.
One thing I didn't know until fairly recently is that the storyline of One Froggy Evening may have been inspired by an actual event, sort of, but not really. In 1897, a horned lizard named "Ol' Rip" (as in, "Rip Van Winkle," I guess) was sealed into the cornerstone of a building in Eastland County, Texas. Allegedly, in 1928, the cornerstone was opened and the lizard was found alive within. Do we believe this story? No, of course we don't believe this story. But it made the press, and what was passed off as Ol' Rip went on tour and was even photographed with Calvin Coolidge, which may have been the high point of his administration.
One Froggy Evening debuted in theaters on December 31, 1955. I don't think it's the absolute best cartoon ever made but if you do, I certainly won't waste time arguing.