He finds that all is not as he left it, and his insect friends, who live in the "Lowlands" just outside the garden of a cute bungalow belonging to down-on-his-luck songwriter Dick Dickens and his wife Mary, are now under threat from the "human ones", who are trampling through the broken-down fence, using it as a shortcut.

With this money they can repair the fence, saving the bug community, but C. Bagley Beetle and his henchmen intercept and hide the check, and the Dickens house is foreclosed.

Meanwhile, Hoppity leads an exodus from the Lowlands to the top of the skyscraper, where he believes the Dickenses have built a new home and invited the bugs to live there.

They get to the top, which at first appears to be barren, but the young bugs discover the Dickenses have built a new penthouse with a "Garden of Paradise" just as Hoppity had described.

[5] Mr. Bug Goes to Town was beset by problems due to the rift between Max and Dave Fleischer that began during the production of Gulliver's Travels.

[9] Singer Kenny Gardner and actress Gwen Williams portrayed "The Human Ones", Songwriter Dick Dickens and his wife, Mary.

For example, in the film Honey is aware of Beetle's romantic interest, expressing dislike to him but willing to make the sacrifice if it means everyone can live safely on his property away from the broken fence.

The preview was only two days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, signaled America's entrance into World War II.

The Christmas release was later dropped, with another press screening instead occurring in New York on December 30 for “the children of movie press folks.” Paramount would finally release the film to the public in the UK on January 23, 1942, under the name Hoppity Goes to Town, in California on February 12, 1942, double billed with Sullivan's Travels, and on February 19, in New York City as a main attraction.

Animation historian Jerry Beck argued that Mr. Bug's performance at the box office was likely not hampered by the attack on Pearl Harbor, but more likely due to its limited marketing and release by Paramount.

A DVD was released in April 2010 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment in Japan, and it has been reported to be a restoration using NTA re-release elements.

[14] Recently, Mr. Bug, along with many other Fleischer-produced cartoons (including the Fleischers' previous film, Gulliver's Travels), was restored from the original three-strip negatives by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and a few art-house theaters have recently screened the restoration (which features the original titles).

In 2023, Kino Lorber announced they would release the film on Blu-ray under license from Paramount Pictures, who did a 4K restoration of the feature, which was slated for early 2024 but was delayed.

[15] However, Kino Lorber spokesperson Frank Tarzi stated, that the Blu-Ray release of Mr. Bug was cancelled due to the transfer Paramount made containing massive amounts of Digital Noise Reduction, and not meeting Kino-Lorber's standards.