Director: Chuck Jones (as Charles M. Jones)
Writer: Michael Maltese (story)
Star: William Roberts
A man futilely struggles to make his fortune with a frog that sings and dances, but only when it is alone with the owner.
Trivia
"Come Back To Erin", the sentimental tune song by the frog about a lover longing for his Colleen, who is far away in England), was written by "Claribel", the pseudonym of Charlotte Alington Barnard. She was a prolific and successful English poet and composer of ballads and hymns during the 19th century. In 1868, she had two popular hits: "I Cannot Sing The Old Songs" and "Come Back To Erin" ("Erin" is a traditional name for Ireland). "Erin" was her most popular song. Over time, it became thought of as an Irish folk song, and a generation later, it become popular on the American vaudeville stage where such Irish songs were common.
Due to the cartoon, "Dancing Frog" is now computer terminology for a computer problem that will not appear when anyone else is watching.
The song "Michigan Rag" was invented solely for this short.
When the frog is released from the cornerstone, he starts singing ragtime tunes such as "Hello Ma Baby", leading some observers to speculate that he is singing tunes he remembers from before the time he was placed in the cornerstone. In the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection", the various commentaries and special features make this point. However, not all the songs are from before the time he was imprisoned, which according to the cornerstone and the documents placed within, was April 16, 1892. (Since "The Michigan Rag" was written for the cartoon, it can be credited as being older than 1892.) "Largo al factotum", "Come Back to Erin," and "Throw Him Down, McCloskey" were written before the frog's supposed entombment (in 1816, 1866, and 1890, respectively), while "Hello, Ma Baby", "Won't You Come Over to My House," "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" were written afterward (in 1899, 1906, 1921, and 1930, respectively).
Steven Spielberg once described this as "the most perfect cartoon ever made," as well as "the Citizen Kane (1941) of the animated short."
The retrospectively-given name of Michigan J. Frog is derived from the one song he sings in this cartoon that Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese wrote especially for him, "The Michigan Rag". Jones came up with the middle initial after being interviewed by a writer named Jay Cox.
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