Fröhlich, frei, Spaß dabei

The duo of Disney and RKO continue the magic onto 1947 with this flick, "Fun and Fancy Free." In it are a couple of wonderful and terrific stories: "Bongo," and "Mickey and the Beanstalk." Again, this movie has everything that you would expect in a Disney classic. Also, look out for more great Disney friends, like Jiminy Cricket!!!!!

One interesting fact: did you know that Walt Disney, the man who created Mickey, was the voice of Mickey Mouse? In "Mickey and the Beanstalk," Walt Disney himself voiced as Mickey Mouse, and that would end up being his last cartoon to do so.

So, this shows that movies like this just aren't made anymore. (sniff) But still, watch this movie with your children, enjoy it, and have a whole lot of fun with "Fun and Fancy Free!!!!!" 10 out of 10 stars.

Fun Disney picture with two stories. The first is Bongo, a cute story about a little bear falling in love and having to fight a bigger bear for his lady. Flimsy story but it moves along quickly enough. It's over a half-hour long but I didn't even really think about how long it was until after it was over so I certainly can't complain about the pacing. This story was narrated by Dinah Shore, who also sings. Lovely voice. Modern viewers, particularly those with a dark sense of humor, might see a domestic violence message in this one. Bongo was something of a 'gangsta.'

The second story is the Mickey Mouse version of Jack and the Beanstalk. I know I saw this one many times as a kid but, for the life of me, I don't remember seeing Bongo before today. So perhaps this was released on a VHS collection or something back in the day, separate from this film. This one is narrated by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, who also appears in a live action segment doing his puppet routine in what appears to be a private birthday party for a little girl who I hoped was his daughter but turns out it was Disney child star Luana Patten. A little creepy but different times.

Jiminy Cricket also appears in the beginning and in a linking segment from the first story to the second. As always with classic Disney, the animation is excellent, with beautiful drawings and rich colors. Love the music, as well. This is far from my favorite Disney movie, even limited to the compilation ones. But I do enjoy it a lot and I can't imagine most Disney fans not liking it.

Fun&Fancy Free features the combining of two mixed live action and animated tales. The story of Bongo features Dinah Shore as it tells the bear love triangle story of Bongo the circus bear who did not mix much with his fellow bears of the wild. But he hears the call of nature and there's female bear Lily and a rough tough bear named Lumpjaw who is interested too.

All I'll say is that Bongo's education has been sadly neglected. But it all works out to the songs that Dinah Shore sings to help the story along.

The second half has Edgar Bergen and his wooden friends telling Luana Patten the story of Mickey and the Beanstalk with Mickey Mouse taking over the role of Jack. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy do the beanstalk climb with the familiar encounter with the giant voiced Billy Gilbert.

Fun&Fancy Free is a charming Disney creation absolutely timeless.

"Bambi" (1942) was the last REAL animated feature the Disney studio released in the 1940s. Until 1950, there would only be shorts - which in general weren't as good either as the innovative ones made in the 1930s, or Jack Hannah's comic masterpieces of the 1950s - and compilation features: "The Reluctant Dragon" (1941), "Saludos Amigos" (1943), "The Three Caballeros" (1945), "Make Mine Music" (1946), "Fun and Fancy Free" (1947), "Melody Time" (1948), "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" (1949). You're unlikely to have seen ANY of these. All of them were stripped apart into their component pieces long ago, largely because, with the exception of "The Three Caballeros", there's no reason to keep any of them in one piece. ("Fantasia" is another exception, so much so that I've left it off the list altogether - it's a completely different kind of endeavour.)

I say this even though "The Three Caballeros" is the only one I'VE seen. I have seen most of the material that went into these movies, though, and trust me: it's uneven, and there's no coherent way of gluing most of it together. -"Fun and Fancy Free", in any event, consists of just two extended shorts: "Bongo" and "Mickey and the Beanstalk". I'm writing mainly to defend the latter. People are much too hard on it. There's a marked similarity between it and the winning short cartoon "The Brave Little Tailor" (1938), another fairytale with Disney characters taking the lead roles, and while "Beanstalk" lacks the earlier short's freshness, it has the advantage of having Donald and Goofy in it, two terribly under-rated cartoon stars who, although capable of sustaining shorts on their own, play off well against one another. (That's why it's impossible to make a Mickey/Donald/Goofy cartoon that's a TOTAL failure.) "Mickey and the Beanstalk" is one of the few post-war cartoons to recapture the spirit of Disney's depression-era stuff.

"Bongo" is of almost no interest - a vapid, directionless account of a circus bear who must adapt to life in the wild, complete with songs. People interested in the history of animation should see every Disney production they can get their eyes on; there's no other reason to see this one. The sheer POINTLESSNESS of pairing "Bongo" with "Mickey and the Beanstalk" makes this Disney's most bizarre compilation feature of the decade. -I wish I'd seen the linking segments. They can't possibly JUSTIFY the film's arbitrary nature, but it might be entertaining to see them try.

After WWII, the Walt Disney company released a couple feature films that were actually nothing more than a few long cartoons strung together to feature length. The result were movies like this one as well as "Make Mine Music" and "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" which are essentially movies that seem a bit disjoint, as the theme that links the shorts is tenuous at best. Here, "Fun and Fancy Free" is a vague term and really has nothing to do with the cartoons. In addition, the quality of the two cartoons is quite different.

The first cartoon, "Bongo", frankly is awfully lame. Despite having some nice splashy colors, the story is weak and should have supported an 8-10 minute film--not a short running over a half hour. Plus, so much of the film seemed like filler--with LOTS and LOTS of singing from Dinah Shore and others. It's the story of a miserable circus bear who longs to be free. But, when a chance opportunity occurs and he escapes, life in the wild isn't as easy as he expected. Apart from a few cute characters (including a girl bear--you can tell because she has a flower growing out of her head), there isn't much to recommend it. I assume kids of the day really were bored by the cartoon and its watchability is not great. I'd score this one a 4---mostly because the animation is pretty good.

The final cartoon is the one kids will love, as it features Mickey, Donald and Goofy. Oddly, however, unlike the first cartoon, this one features a lot of live-action--with Edgar Bergen and his puppets entertaining a cute little girl with a Disney-fied version of "Jack and the Beanstalk". In this version, the three heroes take on the mean giant--wonderfully brought to life by the voice of Billy Gilbert. While it's clearly a variation of an earlier Disney film ("The Brave Little Tailor"), it still is very watchable and cute. Not a brilliant film, nevertheless it actually makes "Fun and Fancy Free" worth seeing. Plus, fans of Edgar Bergen will enjoy seeing him and his characters. I particularly enjoyed Charlie's 'Udder failure' comment. I'd give this one an 8.

Overall, it's a highly uneven and odd hodgepodge that, frankly, is not especially great viewing. However, the accompanying documentary about this, "The Story Behind Walt Disney's Fun & Fancy Free" is a lot more interesting than the film itself--so if you get the DVD, be sure to watch this in the special features.