Singing Caterpillar/Butterfly Woman

The singing caterpillar/butterfly woman is a character that only appears once in the Pluto short Springtime for Pluto. In the short, he starts out as a deep-voiced singing caterpillar who almost gets eaten by a quail that later climbs onto Pluto's tail, spins a cocoon, and transforms into a beautiful humanoid butterfly woman who dances to entertain Pluto.
==Background==
===Development===
Since the short came out in 1944, during World War II, the look and design of the butterfly woman may have been inspired by pin-up girls and, in particular, USO entertainers. The 'strafing runs' and 'bomber planes' alluded to in the 'attacking bees' segment of the same short would certainly suggest a wartime influence. Her Hispanic appearance and the South American music that plays when she is dancing may be part of the "Good Neighbor Policy" that the Disney Studio was involved in, other examples of which include The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos.
===Personality===
As a caterpillar, he is revitalized by the coming of spring and sings at every opportunity. He is energetic and bouncy, cheerful and smiling almost all the time, except when startled by the quail, and even showing a slight vengeful streak when he kicks the quail out of his burrow.
As a butterfly, she is coquettish but initially feigns coyness and pretends to be shy or embarrassed when she catches Pluto checking her out, probably in order to make herself seem more alluring to entice him. Even though Pluto is partly responsible for her getting painfully stretched and almost getting caught and eaten by the quail when she was the caterpillar, she is probably unaware of this fact as she seems to act out of gratitude to Pluto for letting her use his tail to transform, as she entertains him with a rather risque dance routine. She is almost always smiling and is very sexy and confident.
===Physical appearance===
As a caterpillar, he is covered in messy green fuzz and has a yellow segmented underbelly. He wears white gloves and shoes and has a typical dog-like face with a black olive-shaped nose, big wide eyes, and a wide grin. Two short antennae come off the top of his head. He normally has four short noodly arms and four legs, but in the segment where he is kicking the quail, the animators drew in quite a few extra legs in order to accentuate the power of the repeated kicking.
The cocoon the caterpillar was inside during the transformation is spun from his secreted silk and is light gray in color and spindle-shaped with a spiraling, twisting pattern.
As a butterfly, she resembles a beautiful shapely Hispanic human woman with lightly tanned skin and long bouncy raven-black hair. She has big hazel brown eyes with purple eye shadow, a cute, somewhat flat and broad nose that is accentuated by her full, bright red lips. As a body part analogous to when she was a caterpillar, she still has red antenna though they are much longer and more slender and end in white bulbs. She wears a magenta dress like a strapless nighty or a slip that has black fur lining the upper and lower hem. Her dress is V-backed to bare her shoulders allowing freedom for her wings. She also wears a pair of magenta open-toed open-ankled strap highheels. She has enormous lilac-colored wings, each with a single purple eyespot in the middle. The eyespot is usually rimmed with a thin red circle, but slight variations and inconsistencies can be seen from frame to frame.
==Role in the short==
As Pluto goes around enjoying the start of spring, he disturbs a family of quails and ends up following one of the babies, imitating its manner of walking until they both stop to listen to a deep, loud, booming voice echoing underground from a small burrow. The caterpillar pops out of it singing in a high falsetto, momentarily unaware that the quail chick wants to eat him. When the caterpillar realizes, he double-takes, and dives back into his burrow. The quail sticks its head in the burrow and starts to slowly pull the caterpillar out with its beak. Pluto, still in the mood to imitate, uses his teeth to grab the quail's tail feathers, adding to the bizarre food-chain tug-of-war. Eventually, the tail feathers rip, causing the caterpillar snap forward like a rubber band, pulling the quail partway into the burrow with him. The caterpillar, now angry at the quail, kicks the quail's half-buried bottom repeatedly until the quail launches out of the burrow like a champagne cork.
With the danger posed by the quail out of the way, the caterpillar goes deeper in his burrow and pops out directly behind Pluto. When he sees Pluto's tail, he is suddenly compelled to climb it. Though Pluto is startled, he is curious enough to let the caterpillar continue. The caterpillar sings a song about his inevitable metamorphosis as he makes it to the tip of Pluto's upraised tail. There he spins a silk lasso which he wraps around the tip of the tail, ties it to the end of his own tail, and leaps off, dangling upside-down and bouncing a bit, like a bungee jumper. As he continues to sing, he spins and gyrates his tail creating a cocoon that slowly travels towards his head until he is completely wrapped up inside it. Completely bewildered, Pluto stares at the cocoon and shakes it vigorously, listening to its contents rattle like a maraca as he tries to ascertain what is happening.
His curiosity is soon rewarded as the cocoon starts to writhe until the creature inside pops its head out of the top of the cocoon, revealing herself as the, now transformed, beautiful butterfly woman. She smiles coyly at Pluto, causing him to blush, and then elegantly peels herself out of the cocoon while dancing. As if out of gratitude to Pluto for lending his tail for her metamorphosis, she decides to dance for him as she flies from the cocoon and flutters around his face, though her movements are bewildering and mesmerizing to the poor confused dog. She lands on his nose and struts closer towards his eyes. In a playful mood, she covers his eyes with her wings, then 'winks' at him using her 'eye-spots' before flying from his face to land on a sunflower to continue her dance. She picks up a dewdrop and uses it as a ball in her dance. When she finishes with an incredible high-speed ballerina spin, Pluto, who was so engrossed by her dancing, tries to imitate her, so he spins off and finds a beehive to use as his ball.
==Trivia==
*The Caterpillar is one of a few Disney characters that is known to change gender. As a caterpillar, he is male, whereas after his transformation, he becomes female when she becomes a butterfly.
*The caterpillar's mouth doesn't move when he is singing his transformation song, hinting that he probably sings in his brain.
*Even though caterpillars are capable of producing silk and use it in their metamorphoses, butterfly caterpillars do not use the silk to make a cocoon, moth caterpillars do that. Instead, butterfly caterpillars shed their skin and become chrysalises.
*Even though the caterpillar spins his cocoon while he is hanging upside-down, the butterfly comes out of the cocoon rightside-up.
*The butterfly's wing pattern shows slight inconsistencies with respect to the red ring around the eyspot from frame to frame.
*By the time the butterfly has finished her dance, when next we see Pluto's tail, the caterpillar's cocoon is gone.
*Inside the caterpillar's burrow there is actually a framed picture of what looks like a female caterpillar (as implied by redder lips and a fancy headpiece), quite possibly the singing caterpillar's mother. Of course, as a caterpillar, his parents should be butterflies, though the animators were probably mixing different types of bugs since caterpillars typically don't burrow underground but worms do. They were probably playing a gag off the "early bird gets the worm" aphorism, but having a caterpillar transform into a butterfly is one of the most magical and striking changes that can be used to symbolize the regeneration of spring.
==Gallery==
Springtime for Pluto 1249937396 4 1944.jpg|The caterpillar celebrates spring by singing his heart out in falsetto
38408.jpg|The caterpillar, staring bug-eyed into the jaws of death
Tumblr m2lunjSi0y1r3jmn6o1 1280.png|The caterpillar daintily closes the quail's mouth to prevent getting eaten
Capture -7.png|The caterpillar is stretched to almost breaking point as the sound of a rubber band about to give can be heard
Springtime for Pluto 1249937489 2 1944.jpg|A shot of the caterpillar's home as he kicks out an unwanted guest
Tve19565-19440623-2280.jpg|The caterpillar, climbing on Pluto's tail, clapping his hands and singing about his eventual metamorphosis
Singing Caterpillar.png|The caterpillar prepares his lasso of silk
Springtime for Pluto 1249937531 1 1944.jpg|Slinging his silk lasso on the end of Pluto's tail, the caterpillar eagerly anticipates his transformation
springtime-for-pluto-949726l.jpg|Freely dangling upside-down by the end of his tail, the caterpillar prepares himself for a dramatic metamorphosis
Springtime for Pluto 1249937531 3 1944.jpg|The caterpillar spins frantically as he covers himself in a silken cocoon
Tumblr m2luruA8Jh1r3jmn6o1 1280.png|The caterpillar continues to sing as he transforms inside his cocoon, even though his body should be liquefying by now
38409.jpg|Pluto stares curiously at the cocoon since he doesn't understand entomology
Springtime for Pluto 1249937545 0 1944.jpg|Now transformed, the butterfly twists and writhes in order to escape the constricting confines of her cocoon
First smile.png|Upon emerging, the butterfly gives Pluto an enchanting smile while still snugly trapped in her tight cocoon
Tumblr m2lv02XTLO1r3jmn6o1 1280.png|After freeing her arms and revealing her wings, the butterfly woman stretches provocatively
Freedom.png|The butterfly woman peels the confining cocoon off her body in a sexy manner
Springtime for Pluto 1249937545 4 1944.jpg|Having landed on the tip of Pluto's muzzle, the butterfly daintily tiptoes closer to his eyes
Springtime for Pluto 1249937560 0 1944.jpg|Thrusting her hips, the butterfly smiles at all the attention the beauty of her figure elicits from Pluto
Tumblr m2lv5imeut1r3jmn6o1 1280.png|The butterfly woman struts her stuff and gets up close and personal
38410.jpg|The butterfly woman standing close to Pluto's face and covering his eye with her wings
Springtime for Pluto 1249937565 2 1944.jpg|The butterfly strikes a pose before continuing her dance on the face of the sunflower
Category:Characters
Category:Characters who fly
Category:Silent characters
Category:Females
Category:Caterpillars
Category:Butterflies
Category:Anthropomorphic characters
Category:Hybrids
Category:Disney characters
Category:Adults
Category:Animated characters
Category:Males
Category:Neutral characters
Category:Dancers