Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index One Froggy Evening is a 1955 six-minute color animated short film written by Michael Maltese and Directed by Chuck Jones, it was part of Warner Brothers' Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. The cartoon has no spoken dialog, relying on visuals, sound effects, and music: mostly songs from the ragtime era, including Hello Ma Baby, and one new song written for the cartoon (The Michigan Rag), in the same style. The singer was uncredited but probably baritone Bill Roberts. A worker helping demolish a building finds a frog inside a corner-stone. The frog starts singing and dancing and the man thinks he can become wealthy, but soon realizes the frog has problems singing for anyone but him. The frog had no name when the cartoon was made, but Chuck Jones later named him Michigan J. Frog after the original song. Steven Spielberg once called One Froggy Evening "the Citizen Kane of animated film" (in the PBS Chuck Jones biography Extremes & Inbetweens: A Life In Animation). The story may have been inspired by the real-life tale of Old Rip, a horned toad who survived 31 years sealed in the cornerstone of the courthouse in Eastland, Texas. In 2003 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. 'The Michigan Rag' Lyrics by Michael Maltese, music by Carl Stalling (?) Everybody do the Michigan Rag Everybody likes the Michigan Rag Every Mame and Jane and Ruth From Weehawken to Duluth Slide, ride, glide the Michigan Stomp, romp, pomp the Michigan Jump, clump, pump the Michigan Rag That lovin' rag! This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.