Movie #9 of The Disney Discussion
Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Featuring Edgar Bergen and his puppets along with the voice talents of Dinah Shore, Clarence Nash, Pinto Colvig, and Walt Disney
Directed by Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, and Hamilton Luske (animated) and William Morgan (live action)
Summary (in 150 words or less):
Featuring two stories, Fun and Fancy Free first tells the tale of "Bongo," the titular bear who works as a popular act at a circus. He manages to set himself free and roams the wilderness only to discover that his domestication may have made him too different from his ursine counterparts. The second tale is the familiar "Jack and the Beanstalk" story, but injects Mickey, Donald, and Goofy into the equation sending them up the beanstalk to fight the giant.
Let the Discussion Begin...
Fun and Fancy Free is the Walt Disney Company's ninth full-length animated feature film and it was released on September 27, 1947.
Critics greeted this with a shrug, neither providing overwhelmingly positive or negative reactions, although some commented on the fact that this continued reliance on "package films" gave off an aire of "coasting" along. It was not nominated for any Academy Awards.
This was the last time Walt Disney voiced the character of Mickey Mouse and it was the final time that the original voices of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy (Walt, Clarence Nash, and Pinto Colvig, respectively) were heard together.
Mickey and the Beanstalk and Bongo were initially planned to be full-length animated films (with Bongo an obvious cousin in tone and story to the incredibly successful Dumbo), but World War II and the lack of financing and lack of animators themselves (many of whom were recruited for the war) stopped that from happening. Mickey and the Beanstalk was then thought to be partnered with another short film -- The Wind and the Willows -- but that plan was nixed. (We'll see The Wind in the Willows pop up in two weeks, though.)
The Characters
(The Best...The Worst...The Villains...)
As mentioned above in the summary, Fun and Fancy Free is divided into two segments. The first is the story of Bongo. Similar to Dumbo, the title character here doesn't talk -- in fact, no one in the thirty-plus minute short utters a word except for narrator Dinah Shore. Shore's voice is one-note and monotonous imbuing very little emotion into the proceedings which certainly doesn't help the fact that the minimal plot is stretched out to great lengths. I'm shocked that this short was initially developed as a feature because, quite honestly, this is painful to sit through for a half hour. The characters -- Bongo, his love interest Lulubelle, and his foe Lumpjaw -- aren't given much of a personality either through the story or their animation, the latter of which is surprisingly bland and unexciting.
With Mickey and the Beanstalk, we've got Walt's big three characters -- Mickey, Donald, and Goofy -- taking on roles in the familiar "Jack and the Beanstalk" tale. The appearance of these three mainstays makes this short a bit more enjoyable than Bongo, but it wouldn't take much to make that be the case considering the disappointment I encountered with the first short. There's still a blandness here mainly because we've seen this tale before and the story isn't injected with anything new except for a rather ingenious scene in which Donald goes crazy due to hunger.
Fun and Fancy Free opens with Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio singing some tune about being carefree (hence the film's title), but it doesn't amount to much of anything. Mickey and the Beanstalk is set up as being told to a girl at her birthday party. Edgar Bergen, known for his ventriloquism act in the 1940s, narrates along with two of his well known puppets. While they admittedly inject a bit of much needed humor into the story, the transition between story #1 and story #2 is lacking and there's no cohesion whatsoever between the two. Also, while I can understand a little how Bongo fits into the title, Mickey and the Beanstalk doesn't contain characters that fit into either the"fun" or "fancy free" descriptors.
I don't know what to make of the fact that the only attendees at this little girl's birthday party are an old man and two puppets...
The Music
The less said about the music, the better. There's literally a song in Bongo that tells us that bears slap each other to say they're in love...just ridiculous and, quite honestly, embarrassing. Every song goes on about two minutes too long and considering their poor quality I couldn't wait for them to end.
My Favorite Scene
Devil Duck...
This was a tough choice due to the lack of possibilities, but the aforementioned moment in which Donald goes insane due to his hunger is the only moment that made me chuckle and I found cleverly original throughout the whole piece.
Random Thoughts
- I'm nearly 100% certain I've never seen this one in its entirety before. I'd certainly seen Mickey and the Beanstalk, but I don't think I've ever seen the interstitials like the intro starring Jiminy Cricket.
- Bears say they're in love by slapping others? Domestic violence at its worst.
- For a renowned ventriloquist, Edgar Bergan's lips move an awful lot.
Final Analysis
(Does It Belong in the Revered Disney Pantheon and How Does It Stack Up to Past Films?)
Maybe I'm just getting tired of these "package films," but Fun and Fancy Free is the worst of the bunch yet. Unfortunately, neither short is successful and without the quantity of shorts like in previous films boosting the probability of a positive reaction, this one falls flat. As mentioned above, both shorts overstay their welcome and the songs in Bongo in particular are some of the worst I've ever heard in a Disney film. While it's certainly enjoyable to see Mickey and his friends in a feature film, the story they're tasked with conveying is too tired for this modern viewer. Maybe it felt fresh in 1947, but nowadays, there's no way Fun and Fancy Free belongs in the revered Disney Pantheon.
The glum faces of these three matched my visage as I watched.
Maybe I'm just getting tired of these "package films," but Fun and Fancy Free is the worst of the bunch yet. Unfortunately, neither short is successful and without the quantity of shorts like in previous films boosting the probability of a positive reaction, this one falls flat. As mentioned above, both shorts overstay their welcome and the songs in Bongo in particular are some of the worst I've ever heard in a Disney film. While it's certainly enjoyable to see Mickey and his friends in a feature film, the story they're tasked with conveying is too tired for this modern viewer. Maybe it felt fresh in 1947, but nowadays, there's no way Fun and Fancy Free belongs in the revered Disney Pantheon.
The RyMickey Rating: D
Join us next Wednesday for Melody Time, the tenth film in The Disney Discussion.
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