Not having flipped the pages of the book, I can’t say whether the short is a faithful representation of it, though the designs and artwork certainly look as if they pay tribute to the original illustrations. The music is as infectious as any in the McCartney canon, and guaranteed you’ll be humming the Tropic Island Hum by the end of the end credits!įinally, Tuesday (2000) features more frogs and returns to another literary source, this time an American book, by David Wiesner. Tropic Island Hum is a little rougher around the edges than Rupert, despite being made years later, but matches the two other films on the disc in technical ability, and there are nice nods to other animal movies, most notably one of McCartney’s own favorites, Bambi, as well as The Lion King and The AristoCats. Now that they’ve escaped the trials of man, these guys actually have it pretty easy: Will and Frogo are welcomed with a huge celebrational song and dance that rivals the I Wanna Be Like You number from The Jungle Book. The title island reminded me of Naboomboo, from Bedknobs And Broomsticks, being entirely inhabited by animals, in this case “a sanctuary for those who have been cruelly treated”. Though the short Tuesday is dedicated to the memory of Paul’s late wife Linda, it’s Tropic Island Hum that really manages to push its animal welfare cause forward, but in a soft way that never seems too forced. It almost plays as a “semi-sequel” to Rupert, since the film does feature another frog, as well as repeating a core musical motif from the earlier film (both feature scores by Paul’s long-time collaborator George Martin). We’ll have to wait and see if that pans out (McCartney also of course said the same thing about the Rupert film 20 years ago), but in the meantime this stands on its own as a delightfully fun little story.
#Rupert and the frogs full
This particular featurette seems to get the big push in this DVD package, probably due to the fact that McCartney hopes to develop the characters into a full feature formatted story. Tropic Island Hum (1997) tells the tale of William The Squirrel, who escapes being hunted in the forest to fly away with Frogo in a wondrous balloon that takes them to an island that cares for endangered animals. Though that would never happen, the adventurous bear had in fact garnered success previous to this film with the hit song Rupert The Bear and did go on to a (non-associated) Nelvana animated series. True, the story is basically written around the main theme song, the owl never really builds up to being a serious villain and Rupert’s role is minimal at best, but one must remember that this was conceived as a test film by McCartney, who wanted to launch a full-length Rupert feature. Rupert And The Frog Song is a great little short, and has been one of my favorites since I first caught it theatrically with the Broad Street feature, and its lost nothing of the charm and technical ability it has even after this 20 year gap. Luckily, Rupert is able to warn the frogs before things get too critical, and all ends well. The frogs launch into the main theme, We All Stand Together, a wonderful piece of animation worthy of Disney, before the owl makes his move. Also tracking the frogs is an evil owl and his two sneaky cats, out to ruin the celebrations. When he finds they have to baby-sit Bill’s little brother, Rupert heads off to the trees on his own, finding adventure himself when he follows some frogs into a forbidden cave, where their special ceremony crowning the new king and queen is about to take place. The film opens with young Rupert eager to go play with his friends, Bill Badger and Edward (an elephant, naturally). The story goes that one of these books featured Rupert hidden amongst a group of frogs performing their own concert, and McCartney’s musical inspiration began to whirr.
The short features the star of London’s Daily Express newspaper comic strip Rupert The Bear, whose stories were compiled each year and issued as an “annual” – a hardcover bound book. Rupert And The Frog Song (1984) was created for a music video project to accompany McCartney’s Christmas 1983 hit single We All Stand Together and flourished into this full-length featurette, released later in 1984 with his musical feature drama, Give My Regards To Broad Street.
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