Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

After three consecutive ‘package’ films featuring multiple shorts, Walt Disney pulls his animators together for a more concentrated production. Instead of half a dozen or more shorts, we are given just two stories. While still technically a short, each component is much longer that what the recent Disney collections offered. While this is a welcome breath of fresh air, Fun and Fancy Free is also not quite the one-two punch Disney may have been gunning for.

Fun and Fancy Free opens with a song by Jiminy Cricket, who wanders into the living room of a house. There he finds two sad looking toys and decides to cheer them up with a story. While looking for a book to read, he discovers a story on record titled ‘Bongo.’ Narrated by Dinah Shore, ‘Bongo’ is the story of a circus bear who finds himself lost in the wild. After meeting some of the local bears, Bongo falls in love with a young female, drawing the ire of one of her hopeful suitors. Both bears vie for her attention and affection.

After finishing the tale of Bongo, Jiminy heads over to a little girl’s birthday party. This segment is live-action footage, where ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummies Charlie Parker and Mortimer Snerd are the entertainment. Bergen springs into the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, only the audience is treated to the animated tale of ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk.’ Mickey, Donald and Goofy take on Willie the Giant in order to restore peace and prosperity to their valley.

As entertaining as the last few ensemble films had been for Disney, the formula was getting stale. Films like Make Mine Music and The Three Caballeros contained segments that were hit-or-miss in nature. This, in conjunction with the fact that they don’t focus on a popular story like Disney’s early works, is almost certainly why these so-called ‘package’ films aren’t remembered or loved as dearly as the full-length, one-story films.

Fun and Fancy Free takes a step in the right direction by tackling two longer short stories. This gives the audience more substance to latch onto. It’s also clear that it afforded Disney’s animators more time to focus on their work. Both ‘Bongo’ and ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’ have more detailed animation, even though it doesn’t quite compare with Disney’s early films.

‘Bongo’ isn’t a very memorable tale but it is cute and something kids will enjoy. ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’ is something of a Disney classic. It has been repackaged and the narration altered several different times. I recall watching this on a Mickey Mouse VHS collection as a child and loving it. It still has a magical charm that thrills the imagination. Seeing it with the original narration is interesting because Edgar Bergen and his dummy friends add commentary to the on-screen action that is often times amusing.

‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’ is the better of the two shorts in this film but ‘Bongo’ still gets the job done. Taken separately, the ratings would be quite differently. As a sum of its parts though, Fun and Fancy Free under-performs ever so slightly.

RATING: 3.25 out of 5