Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The scene where Hoppity is electrocuted. It goes on for a whole minute, has surreal visuals, and after they laugh it off ("Hoppity, you're electrifying!"), nobody mentions it again.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: As noted above, it was a major financial failure in its home country of the United States, where it remains obscure and unpopular. In Japan, however, it's considered an animation classic- Disney's DVD release in the country was produced by none other than Studio Ghibli, with Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahataboth citing the film as a personal favorite (as have Hideaki Anno and Mamoru Hosoda), and at the 2003 Laputa Animation Festival in Tokyo, a group of 140 animators deemed it to be the 13th best animated film ever made!
Ugly Cute: The characters, arguably. As one Fleischer animator named Howard attests:
"You can draw a bug and make it cute as hell—as cute as a bug's ear, in fact, but I thought those characters designs were gruesome. Hoppity has a big, bloated head stuck on a skinny body."
Values Dissonance: One possible reason the film isn't as popular nowadays is because there are many moments that can be considered racially-insensitive today, including Swat doing a crude and stereotypical Chinese man impression while holding rice (complete with squinting eyes and gibberish), Hoppity imitating a Native American while being electrocuted (complete with Swat doing a crude war cry), and even Hoppity wearing blackface after an explosion at one point. One will even notice the blackface in Swat's design.note Though it's worth noting that his model sheet specifically says to avoid drawing him with large lips, as if to avoid this.
" is a gorgeous song.