The Lost Original Script That Became ‘The Love Bug’ Seems To Have Finally Been Found

Pretty much every gearhead knows about Herbie the Love Bug, right? Sure we do! Still the most hardcore, unashamedly car-loving of all Disney movies, this film about a sentient 1963 Volkswagen Beetle that becomes an unlikely but wildly determined race car was incredibly important to the process of learning to love all things automotive for many people, myself included. The movie’s script was adapted from a short story by a writer named Gordon Buford, titled Car-Boy-Girl. The original story was never actually published, with Disney buying film rights to it before publication. Incredibly, the story was lost, and as far as I know, there’s no text of it surviving anywhere or even anyone still around who seems to remember any of it.

Well, until now, at least that’s what it looks like. Recently on eBay a number of items from the estate of Bill Walsh, a well-known Disney producer, were put up for sale, and one of those appears to be an original copy of Car-Boy-Girl.

Here, watch the trailer. It’s got almost no speaking, just music and cars, lots of cars, including an Apollo 3500GT (the main antagonist’s car, in yellow), lots of old Jaguars and Triumphs and Corvettes and MGs and all sorts of good stuff:

This is a big deal for Herbie fans, because while the title of the story (actually, it looks like it’s a screenplay, I had always thought it was a short story) has been known for decades, the actual content of the story and how it may be similar or different to the eventual movie – which later led to a series of movies – was not known. The eBay auction listing – which was ended by the seller, and I’m unclear if it was sold – has pictures of the first and last pages of the script, and I’m wildly curious to know more.

There’s fascinating details right from the get-go, as a sticker on the front of the binder holding the manuscript gives the title, along with a previously unknown alternate title: THAT HAVERSON FELLOW.

Haverson? The main antagonist, Peter Thorndyke, has a lackey named Havershaw, but that’s the closest name I can think of from the movie. The first page shows that the car was intended to be a VW Beetle from the very beginning, complete with footage of the car being built in the factory at Wolfsburg, but it was to be a maroon/cherry red car instead of the ivory color Herbie is known for:

The final page ends with lots of kissing in a driver-less VW that seems to be driving over fences, sending wooden planks flying:

Claud and Adonna? Those names definitely didn’t make the cut. I’m dying to read this, and I hope whomever ends up with it at least makes the text publicly available, because I’d love to know how this whole cultural icon got its start. The only other real hints at the story came from a short article Buford wrote for Volkswagen’s corporate magazine, Small World, from Spring 1970:

There’s some interesting bits in Buford’s article, though they don’t reveal too much about the original story:

“But to go from a fairly simple premise of a car that drives itself to a feature-length story is a big step and I was not without some pangs of doubt as I was writing the script. Why was this car so special? How had it achieved such an exalted existence over its millions of brothers and cousins? And why a Volkswagen out of the hundred or so cars in the world?

“The original ‘Love Bug’ story was a satire on American megalomania and worship of technology. This passion for bigness manifests itself in a broad cultural sense in the automobile. By 1959, the tail-fin craze in body style had reached its nauseating zenith. Even some European cars tried to stick a little fin here and there.

“Volkswagens up to that time were owned by a type of person that was considered eccentric at best, suspected of all kinds of dark things at worst. In the age of tail fins, the Volkswagen just couldn’t be for real. The car was the absolute pole, the very antithesis of American products and American tastes.”

Buford only wrote one other short story, about a dog who was a thief, which was also bought by Disney and became the 1969 (same year as The Love Bug) movie My Dog, The Thief.

This is a significant find for those of us interested in Herbie, and I’m sort of surprised I haven’t heard more about it.

Since we’re talking about The Love Bug already, I’m going to take a moment and remind everyone that the movie contained what may be one of the finest bear gags in all of Western Letters. Just watch:

What makes this such a stellar Bear Gag for me is how the roles get reversed between bear and hapless human. At first, the bear is the terrifying one, but once he causes Thorndyke, driving, to faint, then the bear begins to get scared in the out of control car, and the way the bear attempts to shake Thorndyke awake with his big bear paw for me is the punctum of it all. So, so good.

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