Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

Today, we continue our journey through the lesser known Disney “package films.” Our current feature is Fun and Fancy Free. Fun and Fancy Free is a bit more cohesive than the last couple of films we’ve seen, but it is still a collection of shorts. In this case, however, it is just the two shorts, “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk.”

  

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: Like I said, there’s two shorts, “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk.” These are tied together with a frame story of Jiminy Cricket wandering around a suburban household and singing about how laid back he is. He finds some sad dolls and tries to cheer them up, which leads to him playing a record. The record is a musical story, which turns out to be “Bongo.” After “Bongo” finishes, Jiminy notices a flier for a girls birthday party next door and goes to join it. At the birthday party, there’s a ventriloquist with two dummies entertaining a little girl for her birthday. The ventriloquist then tells a story, which turns out to be “Mickey and the Beanstalk.”

Again, as this is an anthology film, I’ll review each short individually.

Bongo: “Bongo” is the story of a bear, Bongo, who escapes into the wild and has to grow up. This animation for this looks is somewhere between a normal short and Bambi. The character designs are a little simple, in a normal “cartoon” style, but the backgrounds are relatively detailed. As mentioned previously, this is considered a “musical story,” but there isn’t really any musical numbers or anything like that. Just background music, at least as far as I remember. It is, however, narrated by Dinah Shore, who also sang for the “Two Silhouettes” short. Thematically, the story in “Bongo” is very similar to Bambi. Bongo, a famous circus bear, gets tired of the comfort and limiting nature of his circus life and escapes from his circus train into the wild. While everything is fine at first, he gets scared and discontented when life in the wild proves hard. He then finds a girl to love that makes the hardship worthwhile. After a misunderstanding, he must then fight for his girl to prove his worth and love for her. Like I said, this mirrors the thematic elements and the journey through life that is metaphorically shown in the story of Bambi. All in all, it’s a pretty good short. My only concern is that it seems to go on for a bit.

Mickey and the Beanstalk: This is just a classic. Most people have seen this short, separate from the context of the rest of this movie. If you haven’t for some reason, you should. This is basically a Disney retelling of the classic “Jack and the Beanstalk” story. The story, of course, follows the classic fairy tell, except for two factors. The first is that the golden harp is a magic golden harp-woman that sings a magical song that makes the land happy. The story starts off with the giant stealing it from the kingdom, which causes the famine that makes our farmers, Goofy, Mickey and Donald, sell their cow. The second change is that the giant is a magical, shapeshifting giant. This is basically just to set up some gags later on, but it does also explain how the giant steals the harp with nobody noticing. The animation for this short is really good. It feels similar to the animation for Alice in Wonderland coming up. All in all, this is a fantastic short. If you haven’t seen it, I believe it is on Netflix, so check it out.

Besides the two shorts, the frame story with Jiminy Cricket is pretty alright. The animation for him is a little better than Pinocchio, I think, but there’s nothing to write home about. When he goes to the birthday party, it becomes this mixed “live-action/animated” sort of thing. As mentioned before, at the party is a ventriloquist and two dummies. This is Edgar Bergen and his two characters, Charlie and Mortimer. They wee a lot more popular in their time, but it’s just weird. It’d be like, if a Disney movie were made in the modern day and part of it where narrated by Jeff Dunham, Walter and Peanut.

All in all, this movie was pretty good. It includes one of the best shorts that Disney has ever made. And everything surrounding it, while not as good, are definitely worthwhile. It seems that things are turning around from the depths that were the wartime Disney films. Next week, we’ve got Melody Time.

-CJ

This week we took a look into Fun and Fancy Free, the 9^th animated film from Disney Studios. Fun and Fancy Free was produced while the war was still going, but ended up hitting the big screen in 1947, about two years after the end of World War II. Despite being made during the war time, this film stands out over the others that we’ve watched over the last few weeks. The art and animation seem leagues ahead of what the last few movies, and while there is some live action here, it’s nowhere near as bad as Saludos Amigos, or The Three Caballeros.

Animation wise, Fun and Fancy Free is pretty reminiscent of Dumbo, with slightly better back ground art. Style wise it’s nothing out of the ordinary from what we’ve seen. The characters are more detailed, they still move very fluidly. The one thing that does irk me about this, is how flat the characters feel. When comparing this to Snow White or Pinocchio, there were subtle bits of shading in cheeks, and on clothes. Here everything just feels very one note. The backgrounds have improved from the last few films, and they feel like some weird cross between a Disney short and a pre-war film. I’m really happy that the backgrounds have improved this round, I’m hoping that it’s something that sticks when going into Melody Time.

As far as the story, Fun and Fancy Free is pretty basic. The first short “Bongo the Bear,” feels like the tail end of Bambi. Bongo the circus bear, longs to be a real bear and escapes into the woods. He doesn’t know how to be a bear though, and has a tough time in the forest. The story focuses around Bongo meeting a female bear named Lulubelle, and how they fall in love. Their courtship is broken up by another rival bear, and Bongo has to outwit his rival to fix things. While I think this is an alright story, I wish Disney had done something different. This plot has been used in almost every Disney film to date, and it would be refreshing if we had something original.

"Mickey and the Beanstalk" is the second part of this film and stars Micky, Goofy, and Donald. I really love this short, it’s classic in every way, shape and form. The only complaint I have about it is the real life breakaways that we get. It’s jarring to be watching the animation, then come face to face with two dummies, and an old man in a living room. While watching this, we brought up the fact that it would be like watching one of Disney's old movies, where Jeff Dunham just shows up at random intervals and starts in on a comedy routine. I really wish that Disney would’ve left the live action out of these movies, it looks bad, and it hasn’t aged well at all.

Musically, Fun and Fancy Free holds up. However, there’s nothing super catchy about any of the songs. Even after just watching it, then sitting down to write, I don’t remember any of the music from any of the shorts. That being said, I think that’s a running issue for Disney in this era. I can remember music from Disney's “Sleepy Hollow”, and Cinderella, but no matter what happens I can’t seem to keep a single tune with me through this mess.

Overall, this movie does stand above the other packaged films that Disney was working on at the time. The quality has taken a turn for the better, and other than the few complaints I have regarding the animation, and the strange live action cuts, I found myself liking this movie a lot. I’d say this either ties, or is just under Dumbo for me. I’m really hoping that the quality we saw here will continue on with Melody Time.

-AJ