The Flea Circus

This article is about the Tex Avery animated short. For flea circuses in general, see flea circus.

The Flea Circus
Directed by	Tex Avery
Produced by	Fred Quimby
Story by	Heck Allen
Starring	Shepard Menken Bill Thompson Francoise Brun-Cottan William Hanna (all uncredited)
Music by	Scott Bradley
Animation by	Grant Simmons Michael Lah Robert Bentley Walter Clinton
Color process	Technicolor
Production company	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	November 6, 1954 (1954-11-06)
Running time	7 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

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The Flea Circus is a 1954 MGM animated short created and directed by Tex Avery, about a French flea circus that breaks up when they decide to attack a dog, and the two members of the circus who inadvertently save it.

Plot

The story starts out with the performance of the flea circus. The two main protagonists of the short are a sad clown flea named Francois (voiced by Bill Thompson, who also does the voice of Droopy), whose act isn't well received by the audience, and a pretty female dancing flea named Fifi (Francoise Brun-Cottan), the star of the show. Francois is in love with Fifi and would do anything to win her heart. His attempts to show his chivalry flatter Fifi, but it is never enough to win her over completely, as she has admonished him every time he asks to marry her.

During Fifi's big dancing number (done to the tune of the Ira Gershwin and Burton Lane song, "Applause, Applause" and parodying the dancing scene in Give a Girl a Break), a dog walks past all the no dog allowed signs through the open rear stage door. When the fleas see it, the show stops entirely and they run off the stage and form the words, "WOW! A DOG!". The dog tries to get away, but the fleas latch onto it, causing it to run for the hills.

The circus owner, Pepito (Shepard Menken), tries in vain to stop them, but it's futile. Francois, the only flea to not latch onto the dog, promises Pepito he'll find a way to get the circus going again, then takes off after the dog and other fleas.

The dog runs to a park and jumps into a pond to break up the fleas. There, it is discovered that Fifi doesn't know how to swim, and once the dog goes beneath the surface, Fifi struggles and cries out for help. Francois arrives in time and runs into the water to save her, but after getting her back on dry land, he starts walking away sadly, believing from experience even that wasn't enough to win her over...but it was: Fifi actually gets on her knees and asks him to marry her, which he more than happily accepts with a happy shout of "Vive Le France".

After marrying, Fifi and Francois procreate enough baby fleas to bring back to Pepito and revive the circus, fulfilling the promise Francois made to Pepito. During one performance, Francois goes to Fifi's dressing room to check on her to find her with knitting needles at work (as shown earlier when they were expecting the first time), suggesting they were going to have even more offspring. Francois is not ready for this and pleads "no", but Fifi reminds him of his catchphrase, "Vive Le France", before going back to her knitting.

External links

• The Flea Circus on IMDb Search this movie on
• The Flea Circus at the TCM Movie Database
• The Flea Circus on Big Cartoon DataBase

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