Flippin’ Out
More On with the Show Week festivities! Today we revisit 1930, and screen the very first Flip the Frog cartoon, “Fiddlesticks.” Momentous, landmark-type film. Director-producer Ub Iwerks had just left Disney and this, his maiden effort, was all cutting edge stuff — it’s even produced in early Technicolor, decked out in all the shades of the rainbow (providing your rainbow consists exclusively of pea green and washed out orange.)
Anyway, it’s a great showcase for state-of-the-art animation, 1930 style. Flip, who looks a lot froggier than we expect, dances all over the place, plays one of those great rubber cartoon pianos (he doesn’t just play the piano — he, ummm, gets REALLY personal with the thing!) and performs a wonderful duet with a violinist who looks something like Mickey Mouse after a very bad weekend. Okay, not much in the character development department, but charming as all get out. And, yeah, we have Carl Stalling doing the honors on the dandy music track!
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