Flip the Frog

Damn!

Flip the Frog is a classic Ub Iwerks cartoon from The Golden Age of Animation, 38 shorts originally produced 1930-1933 for MGM. Though no new material was produced later on, the series received heavy TV play in the 1950s-1970s; today, modern DVD editions seem to have brought the series back to knowledge, if just for classic animation buffs.

Iwerks, departing from Disney to launch his own studio, created an almost anti-Disney series in these tales of a down-and-out Funny Animal. Flip is typically seen either opening a new business or trying to find work, but ends up in trouble due either to interference from Depression-era threats or from his own clumsy nature. He constantly has problems with his Speech-Impaired Animal sidekick, Orace the mule; he is ridden by his boss, a stern but man-hungry spinster. Flip's own attempts to become lucky in love occasionally bear fruit in old-time melodrama style, but just as often a girl will end up dumping him, or even beating up Flip and his friends ("The Soup Song", "Room Runners"). And there is a lot of piano playing too.

Flip the Frog cartoons are almost the defining example of animation from the pre-censorship era. An angry Flip often reacts to trouble with a shout of "Damn!" Nude or scantily-clad women often appear, usually to place Flip in compromising positions. Innuendo is everywhere; in "The Office Boy," a sexy office clerk unwittingly walks around with a "private" sign hanging from her backside. Finally, typical cartoon violence has consequences: in "Puddle Pranks," a character is eaten by a monstrous bird and appears to die permanently (being chewed up and swallowed).

Flip the Frog shorts featured many tropes that may or may not have originated with Flip, but that generally were first seen in cartoons of about this period (and thus are Older Than Television). Many are Discredited Tropes or Forgotten Tropes. On a side note, Flip's first cartoon, "Fiddlesticks", was the first sound cartoon in color, predating even Disney's Silly Symphonies short "Flowers and Trees."

Despite this, the series was a failure, unable to compete with Mickey Mouse or even Bosko the Talk Ink Kid in terms of popularity, prompting Iwerks to abandon the character and begin work on the ill-fated Willie Whopper and ComiColor Cartoons series.

Not to be confused with Flip the Bird.

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1930

• Fiddlesticks (Aug 16): The original pilot, produced in two strip color. The short is very similar to Iwerks' work on Disney's Silly Symphonies shorts.
• Flying Fists (Sept 6): Last Flip short to be produced in color.
• The Village Barber (Sept 27)
• Little Orphan Willie (Oct 18)
• The Cuckoo Murder Case (Oct 18)
• Puddle Pranks (Dec. ?)

1931

• The Village Smitty (Jan 31)
• The Soup Song (Jan 31)
• Laughing Gas (March 14)
• Ragtime Romeo (May 2)
• The New Car (July 25)
• Movie Mad (Aug 29)
• The Village Specialist (Sept 12)
• Jail Birds (September 26)
• Africa Squeaks (October 17)
• Spooks (Dec 21)

1932

• The Milkman (Feb 20)
• Fire! Fire! (March 5)
• What a Life! (March 26)
• Puppy Love (April 30)
• School Days (May 14)
• The Bully (June 18)
• The Office Boy (July 16)
• Room Runners (Aug 13)
• Stormy Seas (Aug 22)
• Circus (August 27)
• The Goal Rush (Oct 3)
• The Pony Express (Oct 27)
• The Music Lesson (Oct 29)
• Nurse Maid (Nov 26)
• Funny Face (Dec 24)

1933

• Coo Coo the Magician (Jan 21)
• Flip's Lunch Room (April 3)
• Techno-Cracked (May 8)
• Bulloney (May 30)
• A Chinaman's Chance (June 24)
• Pale-Face (Aug 12)
• Soda Squirt (Oct 12)

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This series contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Fifi proves she can handle herself when resisting and trying to fend off her abductors.
• Affectionate Parody: "The Phoney Express" is a parody of various Western pictures.
  • So is "Pale Face".
• Animate Inanimate Object: Lots of them. Some of them just come to live. Some of them move to music.
• Anthropomorphic Shift: Flip looked less and less like a frog as the series went on.
• Between My Legs: A cat runs between those of the secretary from "The Office Boy" while pursuing a mouse.
• Blackface-Style Caricacture: One of the girls who follows Flip due to being attracted to his new, human face in "Funny Face".
  • The sultan's guards from "Coo Coo the Magician", who have that apish look to them.
• Cardboard Prison: In "Jail Bird"
• Cardiovascular Love: Hearts appear near Fifi near the end of "Funny Face" after she became impressed with Flip for saving her from and defeating the bully.
• Catch Phrase: "Damn!"
• Color Failure: One of the sultan's guards from "Coo Coo the Magician" turns completely white for a moment when the sultan's hurricane-force sneeze blows away the guard, causing him to slide backwards into a wall.
• Colorization: Although most of the series was produced in black-and-white, there are a few exceptions, particularly the earliest shorts, including "Fiddlesticks", which were produced in Harriscolor.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: In "Phoney Express", some bears are left in their long Johns after Flip and the spinster rough up the ursines in a cave, the latter two wearing their fur as coats.
  • The secretary from "The Office Boy" after an electric fan blows off her skirt.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Most of this series is in black-and-white, but a few, especially the earliest ones, including "Fiddlesticks", were originally produced in Harriscolor before MGM chose to produce the shorts in grayscale.
• Depraved Dentist: Sort of in "Laughing Gas". If drilling right into throat and doing other things with other in a music beat counts as that.
• Disguised in Drag: Flip in "Coo Coo the Magician" dresses as a belly dancer to trick the sultan in order to save Fifi.
• Distressed Damsel: May be Chained to a Railway now and then. The damsel, or a male victim of Flip's spinster boss, may also face Death by Sex (i. e. in "Paleface" or "Funny Face"), sometimes played for laughs.
• Eek! A Mouse!: In "The Office Boy", a mouse runs up on the secretary's leg, under her skirt, and escapes by running down her other leg, and she's freaked out by this.
• Faint in Shock: The Secretary from "The Office Boy" after having run-ins with a mouse and cat.
• Gecko Ending: In some of the episodes.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: In "School Days", when Flip sneaks into class by crawling under a few classmates' chairs before reaching his empty seat, causing the classmates to jump in the air briefly, he accidentally causes a girl's short bloomers to slide off from under her skirt and onto his head. Flip, unaware of how the underwear got on his head, opens the back flap of it, which is positioned on his face, and announces his presence to the teacher. The girl looks down and notices she's wearing nothing underneath in shock, and promptly retrieves her underwear from him, giving Flip a stern look.
• Going Commando: Implied with a girl student in "School Days", after Flip inadvertently causes her short bloomers to slide off from under her skirt after he crawls under her chair while sneaking into class.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Flip wears shorts, a bow tie, gloves and shoes, but no shirt.
• Haunted House: In "Spooks."
• Help, I'm Stuck!: In " The Phoney Express", Fifi gets her head caught in the window of a stage coach's door when the donkey pulling the stagecoach comes to a halt and her head goes through the window before the door swings open.
• Improvised Clothes: The secretary from "The Office Boy" hides being in her underwear with a graph chart briefly. But it rolls up and she jumps into a drawer.
• Intellectual Animal: Pretty much any animal that's not a Funny Animal.
• Interspecies Romance: Flip, a frog and Fifi, a human girl.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: Sometimes happens. In "Soup Song" , even self-asskicking can be seen.
• Luminescent Blush: In "School Days", Flip's face changes color with embarrassment for a moment when he accidentally ends up wearing a female student's short bloomers on his head and he opens the rear flap, which is on his face.
  • An ostrich in "Circus" after losing his feathers and he reacts by burying his head in the sand in shame.
• Magic Carpet: Flip and Fifi ride one as they escape towards the end of "Coo Coo the Magician".
• Marilyn Maneuver: The secretary from "The Office Boy" after a cat runs between her legs while chasing a mouse. Also, caused by an electric fan.
• Mickey Mousing, in moments when everything isn't in fully sync with music.
• Mime-and-Music-Only Cartoon
• Modesty Towel: In "Room Runners", Flip and a cop each look through the peephole of a doorknob and ogle at a raven-haired, naked woman sliding a towel from side-to-side on her butt after she's finished showering. When she turns to notice the cop spying on her, she wraps the towel around her body before she grabs a large nail, approaches the peephole, and pokes the cop in the eye through it in response.
  • The secretary from "The Office Boy" wears one around her waist as a replacement skirt.
• Ms. Fanservice: Fifi.
  • The secretary.
• Negative Continuity
• Oh Crap: The end of "The Music Lesson", when Flip is cornered in the swimming hole by the policeman and the spinster lady.
• Opposing Sports Team: In "The Goal Rush".
• Panty Shot: Fifi has a few of these of lace-trimmed, short bloomers shots, such as her underwear being exposed from behind when she gets caught in a stagecoach door's window in "The Phony Express". She wears long bloomers in "Pale Face".
  • The secretary from "The Office Boy" has several of short bloomers shots.
  • The spinster often has these, but long bloomers or ruffled pantalets shots. In "Circus", she slips out of her pantalets and is revealed to wear shorter underwear within those while doing a trapeze act.
• Rule of Three
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: Sometimes appear during chase scenes.
• Self-Offense: Flip accidently knocks out his trainer while practicing for a prize fight.
• She's Got Legs: The secretary from "The Office Boy".
• Smelly Skunk: In "Laughing Gas".
• Standard Snippet: Used a lot.
• The Gay Nineties: Some shorts would be set during this or in a rural area in which Nineties norms still prevailed (i.e. "The Village Smitty").
• The Twelve Principles of Animation: Chuck Jones remarked once that the animation of Flip playing the piano was one of the earliest examples of non-flat, spherical Solid Drawing, a testament to Iwerks' draftsmanship skills.
• Toon Physics: Pretty much every object can become flexible to add to the Rule of Funny. Especially if it happens to be a piano.
• Universal Adaptor Cast
• Vague Age: Allows Flip to be a schoolboy in one episode to a car driving adult in another.
• When It Rains, It Pours
• White Gloves: Every character except some of the Animate Objects.
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?
• Working on the Chain Gang: In "Jail Birds"
• Wraparound Background: Sometimes used in the shorts.
• Yellow Peril: "Chinaman's Chance."