Flip the Frog – Funny Face
Directed by: Studio:Celebrity Productions
Release date:24/12/1932
Running time:8 min
Color process:B&W
Synopsis
This early Ub Iwerks cartoon strangely titled “Funny Face” features Flip the Frog and his romantic interest, a Betty Boop imitation. In an early scene, she picks a Pinocchio look-a-like over Flip, and this rejection prompts Flip towards a facial exchange surgery of preposterous extremes. Flip the Frog’s status as a minstrel is hinted at lightly several times throughout the cartoon, and after his first ‘face exchange’, he loses his face literally on a sheet of sticky paper. The series of bizarre facial transformations continues further, as Flip takes on the face of the ‘other lover’, eventually attracting the entire neighbourhood of girls. As Flip saves the day in the end and reunites with his date, breaking into his ‘true’ face of the minstrel, the lovers kiss and a metaphorical guillotine falls on the two character’s necks as the cartoon ends. Very funny, indeed.
References:
IMDb. “Funny Face”. IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022922/.