The Bugs are a group of characters featured in the 1937 Silly Symphony short Woodland Café. They are a group of anthropomorphic invertebrates that serve as patrons, dancers, staff members, and musicians respectively within the Café.
Background[]
Several of the bugs consist of various types of anthropomorphic invertebrates - arthropods, gastropods, or annelids with humanoid characteristics. The ones serving as patrons are shown to have fun enjoying the music and dance they find within the nightclub - particularly serving as the audience. The bugs visiting the Woodland Café itself not only consist of patrons but also consist of those who work as staff members within the nightclub such as attendants, musicians, dancers, or waiters.
Appearances[]
Woodland Café[]
A group of fireflies is seen outside the Café forming the shape of the letters seen on a neon sign while several types of bugs enter the Café. As they enter, two bugs approach a pair of flies giving them their top hats at the check room just before a centipede approaches the same fly, as he offers her to hang his hat and gloves, followed by a grumpy bee and a red ant entering with a centipede waiter directing them to their table. As they are seated, the waiter turns on a firefly to provide some light to the couple's table, just before the waiter plans to take their order. Elsewhere, a band of grasshoppers perform in front of the crowd of patrons. The band sequence consists of an instrumental battle between a tuba player and a trumpeter, a bassist trying to shoo some ants chewing on his cello, a trombonist having an itchy backside, or a drummer playing his complete set, although they continue playing regularly while the bug couples continue dancing inside the club.
Meanwhile, the waiter serves the grumpy bee and red ant a cherry, which he opens it then pours cherry juice on the chalice, followed by another grasshopper presenting a performance between a joyful fly and a pragmatic spider in an Apache Dance. Throughout the sequence, the fly attempts to resist the spider's advances through pantomime communications. During the performance, the spider ends up getting tangled up in his own web, just before the fly takes over the spider's role at the end of the performance, followed by the patrons applauding altogether.
Finally, everyone begins dancing to the music across the Café, spiders, fireflies, caterpillars, beetles, crickets, ladybugs, and centipedes dancing along with each other. The red ant sitting with the grumpy bee encourages him to dance to which he attempts to dance just before he and the ant both dance together with the grasshoppers performing together, followed by snails, worms, beetles, and other sorts of bugs dancing altogether, just before the short ends.
Trivia[]
- One of the tiny bugs eating the bassist's cello wears a pair of red pants with yellow buttons resembling that of Mickey Mouse.
- Edited versions of Woodland Café omit part of the "Apache Dance" sequence featuring the fly and the spider, due to some scenes of smoking present in certain instances. Additionally, parts of the "Everybody's Truckin'" sequence was cut in edited versions of the short as well, due to the latter containing outdated cultural depictions in it.
- Towards the end of the short, one of the patrons dancing within the bar has a striking resemblance to Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio, which would later come out three years after the short was released.
- Clips of the bugs dancing from Woodland Café were later used in the "Ugly Bug Ball" segment of the Disney's Sing-Along Songs volume of The Bare Necessities, which showcases not only clips from Summer Magic but also from cartoons featuring invertebrates to match the song's theme with Woodland Café being one of them.
Gallery[]
