Studio: Fleischer Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Produced by: Max Fleischer
Short Synopsis
An ant colony lives in fear of its oldest enemy, the anteater. The queen ant warns her subjects in song: "He's a menace, he's a brute, he will scoop you with his snoot." The colony prepares for war. The ants build fortifications, stockpile munitions in their fortress, drill in formation and rally around the motto "Make him yell uncle". When the anteater finally attacks, the queen leads her troops into battle riding a snail. Their modern defences fail: the anteater's long tongue sweeps up ant after ant, and the colony takes heavy casualties. The ants rethink their strategy, abandon their military tactics and call on the Sewer Side Squad. Then the whole colony swarms over the anteater at once, biting and stinging, until he yells "Uncle!" and is driven off.
Why It Matters
- The battle scenes, with columns of tiny soldiers, artillery and fortifications in the grass, are the film's showpiece; one contemporary reviewer called them great battle scenes. The cartoon's insect army anticipates the Fleischers' feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941).
- It was released during the "Phoney War", the quiet months between the start of the Second World War and the invasion of France. Its focus on fortifications that fail has led some to read it as a comment on France's Maginot Line, and it is the only Fleischer Color Classic of 1940 regarded as a war allegory.
Notes and Trivia
- The animation historian Charles Solomon found it "painfully unfunny", a minority view.
- It was released in cinemas with the feature Women Without Names.
- All 36 Color Classics, including this one, were collected on the 2003 DVD Somewhere in Dreamland: The Max Fleischer Color Classics.
- See also: Somewhere in Dreamland (1936), Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941).