A flea is born!

                                              The first flea sketches by director Bibo Bergeron

"We really struggled to create a giant flea, dressed like Aristide Bruant, with the charm of Matthieu Chédid . . .  I asked several friends—illustrators, comic book artists, storyboarders—to sketch Francoeur from the description of the character I gave them. Suddenly, it dawned on me… If you look carefully, Francoeur’s face is heart-shaped. It occurred to me that this was no coincidence. It’s very symbolic that this heart-shaped face looks at us with its big bright eyes. Another graphic artist gave me the idea for the grasshopper look. And I came up with the idea of dressing him like Aristide Bruant. So, Francoeur embodies a meeting of various creative minds."

-Bibo Bergeron

Character design development by Zebe

French rocker Matthieu Chédid will be unfamiliar to those outside France but he's HUGE there.  It was quite a coup for Bibo to secure his casting along with Vanessa Paradis.  Francoeur the flea's character was based on Chédid's stage persona 'M'.

There's a brief gag in the film where Lucille, in her efforts to disguise Francoeur, has him don a wig based on 'M's bizarre stage hairstyle!

Colour key by Aurelien Predal