Fleas in cartoons 1948

Thanks to an anonymous contributor at Wikipedia

"Another vintage Warner Bros. cartoon, 'Curtain Razor,' has Porky Pig as a theatrical agent auditioning acts, including a shaggy dog, who turns out to be the transport of a flea circus, which proceeds to set itself up, perform, and return to the dog, on command."

The Looney Toons film is from 1949 and the dog shuffles into the office and blows a whistle to command the fleas. The act does look to be more of a funfair than a circus but they do have a big top which presumably contains all of the acts. Apparently the film was retitled for TV changing from "Curtain Razor" (a reference to the Razorback pig) to "Show Stopper" and was remade with Daffy for "Show Biz Bugs" in 1957

The BFI have some good information about this film in their film at TV Database.

BFI film and TV entry for Curtain Razor

According to Scanton & Wilkes Barre the film preceded many of the Warner Bros. films released theatrically in 1949 and was incorporated into the 1983 feature film Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island.

You can also watch this on youtube (at the time of writing)

The Rattling Bog

Whilst searching for articles on fleas, I came across this old Scottish song, The Rattling Bog.

Things start getting interesting around verse 9

Now on this feather there was a flea.
A rare flea. A rattling flea.
Flea on a feather.
Feather on a bird.
Bird on an egg.
Egg in a nest.
Nest on a twig.
Twig on a branch.
Branch on a limb.
Limb on a tree.
Tree in the bog
And the bog down in the valley-o.

Interactive Fleas

I can't believe I've not spotted this one before.



Dan Hero has created an amusing range of animations, sketches and an impressive interactive flea circus complete with magnifier.

BBC Flea

Mark Easton, the BBC home editor has been admiring Bob George's Flea Atlas and comments on the distribution of fleas in his map of the week.

Chasing Mr Kitchingman's Educated Fleas

I couple of years back I discovered an article about Mr Kitchingman and his flea circuses from an Andy Clarke of The Foxearth and District Local History Society

A followup of this led to:

• The World of Wonders, A Record of Things Wonderful in Nature, Science and Art Published 1868


• En cherchant la petite bête By Albert Fournier


• The Curious World of Frank Buckland

The World of Wonders appears to have a fabulous article with pictures on page 37 about Professor Kitchingman and states "Professor Kitchingman, an enterprising entomologist recident near Brussels" and reference to what appears to be a tightrope act. The British Library has a copy of this so hopefully it's not one of those items that they are moving to Boston Spa.

Albert Fournier's book also provides an interesting lead in the form of an new function in the google books search, the subject search. For example I could search for subject:"Fleas in literature".

Looking up "Frank Buckland", I discovered that he had written a series of books called "Curiosities of Natural History" which seems like a good lead too

Flea Circus Research Library Wordles

Microcosmos: Flea Circus

Leah Palmer Preiss, a freelance illustrator & calligrapher has designed this fabulous flea circus painting in acrylics.

She was inspired by the proverb

Big fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
And so ad infinitum.