- BACKGROUND
- STORY #1: BONGO
- STORY #2: MICKEY AND THE BEANSTALK
- PRODUCTION
- RECEPTION
- LEGACY
- FINAL THOUGHTS
- REFERENCES
BACKGROUND
Due to the difficulties the Disney Studios faced in the 1940s, with the 1941 Animator’s Strike, and the impact of World War II on both the European markets and the animation workforce, the Studios released a series of “package features”. Fun and Fancy Free was released in this era of the “package feature”, being a more cost-effective film to release because of the financial pressure the Studios was under at the time.
Unlike the three previous “package features” to have come before Fun and Fancy Free, which contained four separate segments, then seven, then ten, for Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), and Make Mine Music (1946) respectively, Fun and Fancy Free consists of only two sections that tell two different stories: “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. These two stories were combined together, both being roughly thirty minutes in length, with linking material to make Fun and Fancy Free.
Of all the Disney Wartime Era “package features”, Fun and Fancy Free is the one I dislike the most, but not for its lack of detailed plot, not for the fact it simply joins two unrelated stories together, not for Disney’s loss of vision, but for ventriloquist dummies….
For some reason, ventriloquism seemed to be a more popular form of entertainment back in the day than it seems to be now, but as I have a strange fear of dolls, ventriloquist dummies, puppets – anything with a human face, especially if they move as well – I have only watched Fun and Fancy Free once, well, twice now, because midway through the film, as the second of the two stories is being introduced, Edgar Bergen appears with his two dummies, Charlie and Mortimer, for probably ten minutes in total – and I am not here for that.
Yet if I ignore the ventriloquism, which is difficult to do as they pop up throughout the narration of “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, Fun and Fancy Free as a whole isn’t terrible; it’s just not as enjoyable for me as the other five of this era. I didn’t find the stories as interesting, probably because “Bongo” is quite a dragged-out simple story and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” is just another retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. The music wasn’t very catchy either. But like I said, it’s not awful, just not the best.
STORY #1: BONGO
The movie begins with the typical, for this time, Opening Credits and the title song “Fun and Fancy Free”. It’s quite a jazzy, Big Band-type number, like it belongs in the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals. It reminds me specifically of Top Hat (1935) and Fred’s song “No Strings (I’m Fancy Free)”. But that could just be because both songs use the phrase “Fancy Free”. Regardless, as I like musicals, I was not surprised at how much I enjoyed the song. This song was written by Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss, who worked together frequently, including on the title song for Disney’s Melody Time (1948), however, for me, I have heard of songs written by both of them but with different collaborators. Benjamin, for example, wrote the song “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”, with Sol Marcus, for Nina Simone, and Weiss co-wrote “What a Wonderful World”, which was first recorded by Louis Armstrong, and “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, recorded by Elvis Presley.
Straight from this opening number, we then see Jiminy Cricket, who appears to be paddling on a stream, only to find he is actually paddling through some sort of indoor planter! He makes his way out of the planter and into a house, where he tells us “I’m a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow” in song. This song melds well with the title song, and again, I quite like it. It was written by Ned Washington and Eliot Daniel. Eliot Daniel went on to co-write “Blue Shadows on the Trail” for Melody Time (1948), as well as write the song “Lavender Blue” for So Dear to My Hear (1948), which was Oscar-nominated, and then compose the theme from I Love Lucy (1951-1957). Ned Washington wrote the lyrics for some of the music from Dumbo (1941), including “Baby Mine”, nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song, and “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio (1940), which did win the Oscar for Best Original Song. “I’m a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow” was originally written for Pinocchio but for some reason, it was not used[1]. Cliff Edwards, original voice and singing voice of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio (1940), reprises his character again for Fun and Fancy Free.
After his song, Jiminy tells the viewers that everyone worries too much; we read too many serious things in books and newspapers, and we should all relax more. He then finds himself in a bedroom, with a sad-looking doll and teddy bear, and says he’ll put some music on to cheer them up. He finds a record called “Bongo”, a musical story by Dinah Shore. She sang “Two Silhouttes” for Disney’s Make Mine Music (1946), and was one of the most popular female vocalists of the 1940s, having 80 charted records by 1957. Shore later hosted talk shows in the 1970s[2].
Then we move into the animated world of “Bongo”. It begins by saying this is a story of three bears, but not the three bears story we know that involves Goldilocks; this is a love story instead. Bongo is a big circus star, being able to juggle, lift weights, and walk tightropes amongst many things, however, outside of his onstage performances, he is treated badly by the circus owners and moved constantly from place to place, never getting to experience the outside world. One day, Bongo breaks free from his train carriage and cycles away on his unicycle into the woods. Once he gets there, he realises that he doesn’t know how to be a real bear, as he can’t climb trees, hunt food, or even growl correctly. Some of the forest creatures make fun of him, including two chipmunks who appear to be Chip ‘n’ Dale, but Bongo doesn’t care: it’s a bright, sunny day, and he’s free, to just relax in the countryside and experience all of nature for the first time.
That night, though, as he settles down to sleep, everything seems so loud to him, like insects, bats, thunder, lightning and rain. He stumbles around the woods, trying to find somewhere calmer, eventually falling asleep. Bongo wakes up by a cliff, and is cranky and hungry. He tries to catch a fish but falls through a waterfall, where he sees a girl bear. Bongo thinks he’s dreaming, but she’s right there. Bongo follows the bear into the woods and it’s love at first sight for both of them. All the others bears in the woods surround them and stare at them, as Bongo and the girl, Lulubelle, stare into each other’s eyes – creepy. But they scatter, as a big bear comes stomping into the woods. It’s Lumpjaw, a huge bully of a bear, who likes Lulubelle, and doesn’t want Bongo anywhere near her. He picks Bongo up and throws him around a bit, before Lulubelle tells Lumpjaw to stop. She then proceeds to slap Bongo around the face, not once, but twice! Bongo is heartbroken, not understanding why the girl he loves would be slapping him. Lulubelle goes to slap him one last time, but Bongo ducks so Lulubelle ends up slapping Lumpjaw, who instantly claims her as his girl. It turns out bears slap each other when they like each other – who knew?
Bongo leaves the others bears and goes back to the cliff he woke up on. He watches as the others bear randomly square dance and sing about the strange custom of how their love is shown with a slap. Bongo finally twigs that Lulubelle was slapping him because she likes him. Of course! Because that’s what a normal person would think! Bongo tries to get close to Lulubelle, who is clearly unhappy with Lumpjaw, so he can slap her, and show he likes her too, but Lumpjaw isn’t about to give her up so easily. He tries to beat up Bongo, but Bongo, with his circus skills and unicycle, manages to avoid and outsmart him every time. But then, they both fall into the fast-flowing river, balancing on a log initially, but the log goes over a waterfall and takes them both with it, with the current being too quick to swim out of. It seems that both Lumpjaw and Bongo have been lost forever – except Bongo’s circus hat has saved him from falling over the waterfall, as it became caught on a branch. Bongo goes back to the other bears to win his girl with – you guessed it – a slap round the face! They then live happily ever after up a tree, as wild bears do.
Aside from Dinah Shore’s narration, both singing and spoken, and Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket, there is no other real dialogue, mostly just sound effects. There are three other songs in this half of Fun and Fancy Free though, all performed primarily by Dinah Shore. Written by Bobby Worth, who also contributed the songs “Blue Bayou” in Make Mine Music (1946) and “Once Upon a Wintertime” in Melody Time (1948), the song “Lazy Countryside” is performed as Bongo enjoys being in nature for the first time. It’s a calm, relaxing song, if not particularly memorable. The next song is the love ballad “Too Good to Be True” as Bongo and Lulubelle dance in pink candy floss clouds and fall in love. Again, this song is nice enough to listen to, but I didn’t find myself remembering it afterwards. It was written by Eliot Daniel, who co-wrote the title number, and Buddy Kaye. Buddy Kaye wrote numerous songs throughout his career, which were recorded by singers such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Barry Manilow, and Cliff Richard. Daniel and Kaye also wrote the remaining number, “Say It with a Slap”. This is a strange song, not only for its lyrics, but also for its country feel, as it is performed when the bears start to square dance. But because of this, it was catchier than the other songs in this section of Fun and Fancy Free! This song, and “Too Good to Be True”, are reprised together at the very end of the segment, rounding it off nicely.
STORY #2: MICKEY AND THE BEANSTALK
And then, we are back in the room as the record ends with Jiminy Cricket, the doll and the teddy bear, who are both now smiling. Jiminy Cricket sees an invite for a birthday party on a table. It is addressed to Miss Luana Patten, a child actress for the Disney Studios at the time, who starred in Song of the South (1946) with Bobby Driscoll, the voice and model of Peter Pan, in the year before Fun and Fancy Free, and then reappeared alongside Driscoll again in both the “Pecos Bill” segment of Melody Time (1948), and in So Dear to My Heart (1948). The invite says the party is at “the house across the way”, so even though Jiminy is not invited to it, thanks to a reprise of the song “Fun and Fancy Free” titled “The House Across the Way”, he is motivated to break into the house across the street and see what’s going on at this party!
The word “party” is a bit of an over-exaggeration, it’s more of a “get-together”, because there are only Luana Patten, Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd over at this house, but who are these other three “people”? Well, this is the part I don’t like. Though ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, father of actress Candice Bergen, himself is not scary to look at, though he is doing some weird talking act with his hand at first, it’s his two friends Charlie and Mortimer who are the ventriloquist dummies who haunt my soul… I actually think the two of them are quite funny if I don’t look at them, because some of the things, particularly Charlie, come out with are amusing during this section of Fun and Fancy Free. Alas, even though I don’t like them, these are Bergen’s two most famous characters, with the trio being particularly famous on radio at the time. They would also appear on Walt Disney’s first television production, a Christmas Day special, in 1950, titled One Hour in Wonderland.
Anyway, back to this “party”. Edgar offers to tell them all a story, with Jiminy Cricket settling down on a plate to listen to it. After some delay where Edgar tries to get Mortimer to imagine the land of Happy Valley, only to find he can’t do it and asking Luana to imagine it instead, we find ourselves in a prosperous land, where everyone and everything is happy. In a castle on top of a hill at the top of the lush valley, the singing Golden Harp resides, whose singing and general presence seems to boost the area and all who live there. One day, a shadow comes over Happy Valley and the Harp is stolen. Now the valley is miserable and desolate. Many residents have left the area, but three poor farmers remain. Those farmers are Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. They have no money, very little food, and just an old cow who no longer produces milk. Donald is fed up with this way of life and goes a bit crazy, threatening to kill the cow just so they can finally eat. Mickey and Goofy manage to restrain him. We then end up back at the party, where Edgar has used Charlie to re-enact this scene. Charlie and Luana debate over whether eating the cow would make sense – which it would, but this film is meant for children, so naturally, Luana says it should survive.
Back in the story, Mickey goes to sell the cow, giving Donald and Goofy hope that they will be able to eat well again, picturing all the foods they’ll be able to eat now. Except Mickey comes back, and the cow has gone, but he sold it for magic beans to plant in the light of a full moon. Donald and Goofy believe he’s been scammed, with Donald throwing them into a hole on the floor and they think no more of it. Overnight, a beanstalk grows all through their house, taking them up and out of their beds as they sleep, high into the sky. They wake up to see a giant castle straight ahead of them and decide to investigate. They walk through a huge garden, row over an enormous moat, and eventually make their way into the castle, after scaling the large steps. They knock on the door, but there is no answer, so they crawl under the door to get inside. They’ve clearly taken some advice from Jiminy Cricket on how to break in to other people’s homes when you haven’t been invited to go inside!
On a table above them, they see a huge feast laid out. Once they’ve climbed up onto the table, they have at it, eating whatever they can, as fast as they can. But then, they hear a voice, which leads them to a locked box, also on the table. Inside is the lost Golden Harp of Happy Valley! She tells the three that she was kidnapped by a giant and that he keeps her locked up in this box most of the time. We then go back to the live-action party, where Edgar shows the others what the Giant looks like by making a shadow puppet with his hands. Back into the animation, we meet Willie the Giant, as he makes his way down the hall and to his table. It turns out Willie the Giant has magic, and can even shapeshift into different things. The three hide as the Giant sits down to dinner, but Mickey chooses to hide in the Giant’s sandwich – that seems like the last place he should be hiding, shouldn’t it? The Giant goes to eat the sandwich, but Mickey sneezes from the pepper and gives himself away. Mickey then reads the Giant’s palms, to gain his trust, which seems to work as the Giant offers to show off his powers. Seeing a fly swatter nearby, Mickey asks the Giant to turn himself into a fly. The Giant would rather become a Giant pink rabbit instead, and as he does so, he spots Mickey, Donald, and Goofy grabbing at the fly swatter. He catches all three of them and locks them in the box with the Harp.
Unbeknownst to Willie, Mickey is actually free, and as the Harp is taken out of the box to sing the Giant to sleep, Mickey uses a length of thread to abseil down to the Giant and get the key that unlocks the box. In the Giant’s pocket, along with the key, is his snuff box, which Mickey disturbs, sending up a plume of dust, which makes Mickey and the Giant sneeze. But Mickey gets the key, and frees Donald and Goofy. They make a break for it with the Harp, but the Giant wakes up and starts to chase them. Mickey stalls the Giant so that Donald and Goofy can get to the bottom of the beanstalk and cut it down. Mickey gets down just in time. TIMBER! The beanstalk falls with the Giant still on it. Presumably, the fall has killed him. But the Golden Harp has returned to the valley so everything is great again.
Back at the party, as the story has now finished, Edgar consoles a crying Mortimer, who is upset that the Giant is dead. This scene is seen briefly in Disney’s Enchanted (2007), when Prince Edward is flipping through the channels on the TV in his dingy hotel room. Edgar tells him that the Giant wasn’t real anyway, but then, in a shock twist, Willie the Giant rips off the roof of Edgar’s house and asks them where Mickey Mouse might be, quite politely, I might add. Edgar is so shocked by this turn of events that he faints on the spot. Mortimer bids Willie goodnight and tells him to quietly put the roof back on so as not to wake Mr. Bergen. Willie then walks over to Hollywood, lifting up random buildings to find Mickey, even picking up the Brown Derby Restaurant hat sign to take with him, as Jiminy watches him go.
Voice actor Billy Gilbert supplies the voice of Willie the Giant. Gilbert was known for his comedic sneezing routines, so when Walt Disney first saw this routine, he cast Gilbert in the role of Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Naturally, since Gilbert is so good at sneezing, Willie the Giant had to have a big sneeze in “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, so one was given to him; when Mickey spills the Giant’s snuff box.
Speaking of Mickey, Walt Disney actually provided some of Mickey’s lines for this segment around 1940 or 1941, but he was too busy to do any further recording when production resumed after World War II, so Jimmy MacDonald, the original head of the Disney sound effects department, was asked to finish recording the lines. This was MacDonald’s first voice appearance as Mickey, but he would continue to voice the character from that point until 1977[3].
Clarence Nash and Pinto Colvig return to voice Donald Duck and Goofy in “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. This segment of Fun and Fancy Free was the first time that Donald, Goofy, and Mickey had appeared together in a feature-length animated film. They had appeared together as a trio prior to this, but only in short cartoons. The debut of the three characters as a trio came in 1935 with Mickey and the Service Station[4]. For Mickey Mouse, Fun and Fancy Free was his second feature film appearance, with his first being Fantasia (1940), in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” section of the film[5].
In March 1953, a short cartoon titled The Simple Things was released, which featured Mickey Mouse and Pluto. This was then the final theatrical appearance of Mickey until Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1983. Mickey’s Christmas Carol also saw Donald and Goofy in a return to the screen, with Willie the Giant even reappearing, this time as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Mickey played a version of Bob Cratchit; Donald, a version of Scrooge’s nephew; and Goofy, a version of Jacob Marley’s ghost.
Anita Gordon, singer who performed for radio, television and film productions, including dubbing the singing part of Margy in the film remake of State Fair (1962), provides the voice, singing and spoken, for the Golden Harp. She sings two songs in “Mickey and the Beanstalk”: “My, What a Happy Day” and “My Favorite Dream”, both written by Bill Walsh and Ray Noble. Bill Walsh had worked on various Disney television productions, including Davy Crockett (1954-55) and The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59), and wrote movies for the Studios, such as Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968) and, most famously, Mary Poppins (1964), alongside Don DaGradi. Ray Noble was a bandleader and composer, who worked with Edgar Bergen during his career, and appeared in the 1937 Fred Astaire film A Damsel in Distress. Of the two songs, I like the upbeat, opening tune of “My, What a Happy Day”, whereas “My Favorite Dream” is a lullaby for the Giant and isn’t as fun as the first song.
Willie the Giant also gets a song here, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum”, where he talks about his magical powers. It’s good for showing us what the Giant can do, but it’s not the best song here; it’s also less than a minute long so isn’t much of a song! It was written by Paul Smith, who worked on numerous Disney movie scores from the 1930s to the 1960s, including Cinderella (1950) with Oliver Wallace, and Pinocchio (1940), alongside Ned Washington and Leigh Harline, which won Best Original Score at the Academy Awards in 1941.
Apart from a brief reprise of “Fun and Fancy Free” at the very end of the film, the only other song in Fun and Fancy Free to mention is “Eat Until I Die”, which is performed by Donald and Goofy as they dream about what food they’ll be able to eat when Mickey comes back from selling their cow. This song uses the same tune, but different lyrics, as the Neapolitan song “Funiculì, Funiculà”, composed in 1880 by Luigi Denza and Peppino Turco. It has been performed by many artists including Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli.
The film score for Fun and Fancy Free was primarily composed by Oliver Wallace and Paul Smith, with Charles Wolcott as the General Musical Director. Wolcott had this role from 1944 at the Disney Studios, working on many of the Disney “package features” during this era, before transferring to MGM Studios in 1950. Wallace and Smith animated many of Disney’s cartoon short and film scores from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Jiminy Cricket is the only character to appear all through Fun and Fancy Free. This was his first appearance since Pinocchio (1940), but he would later be used to narrate educational shorts for children, many of which first aired on The Mickey Mouse Club television series in the 1950s. Jiminy even narrated the “Bongo” story, instead of Dinah Shore, for an episode of Disneyland in 1955. He also hosted five of the Disney Sing-Along Songs videos in the 1980s and 1990s[6].
PRODUCTION
Fun and Fancy Free combined two separate stories and packaged them into a full-length feature film. This was not the intention from the start as both “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” were meant to be full-length feature films, released on their own. The Disney Studios wanted to make a full-length adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk, the English fairy tale popularised in 1890 by Joseph Jacobs, since Disney had already used this story as a basis in 1922 for a Laugh-O-Gram short, then the Giantland short in 1933 with Mickey, and once again with Mickey in Brave Little Tailor (1938), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
In the initial planning, it was decided that this Jack and the Beanstalk story should involve Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy, who were well-known as a comedic trio in short cartoons, but needed an opportunity to carry their own feature-length film. Development properly began on this story in 1940, with many ideas such as how the beanstalk would grow, the Giant’s dinner table, and the Golden Harp all being decided at this time. There was also a plan for Gideon and Honest John from Pinocchio (1940) to be the ones to trade Mickey the cow for the “magic beans”. But instead, it was decided that Minnie Mouse, as Queen Minnie, would be the one to do this trade, with her saying that she couldn’t just take his cow for nothing, so would give Mickey her family heirloom of a box of magic beans, which held a legend of fame and fortune should they be planted. This scene was storyboarded and voice tracked, but was not animated, and ultimately not used.
“Bongo” was based on a children’s story written by Sinclair Lewis for Cosmopolitan magazine in 1930 under the name “Little Bear Bongo”. There are a few differences between Disney’s version of the story and the original. One of these is that Bongo does not purposefully escape the circus train in the original story, but there is an accident on the train which throws Bongo out of his cage and into the woods. Another is that Lulubelle’s character does not exist in the original story. Instead, a female bear called Silver Ear catches Bongo’s eye, however, she does not return his affections, choosing to be with the violent bear Lump Jaw. The bears don’t like Bongo in the original story and Silver Ear and the others drive him away, as they do not like how “un-bearlike” he is. Lewis’ story then has Bongo leave the woods and find a new circus to join, where the Ringmaster sees how well-trained he is and takes him in, so that he can live in his accustomed environment again, this time with the circus’ other trained bear – a female – for company. Walt Disney acquired the story rights to “Little Bear Bongo” in 1941. Bongo later became a headliner for Disney comic books and was the title character in one of the very first Disney Little Golden Books in 1948.
For Disney’s “Bongo”, early story notes suggested that this would be a follow up to the story of Dumbo (1941) and would have used the same circus and some of the elephants. The early designs of Bongo and Lulubelle, whose original name was Suzie, were very different, and Lumpjaw was designed wearing street clothes. Some additional characters who did not make it into the segment included a chimpanzee valet for Bongo. A rough script for the movie was agreed in 1941, around the same time as the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7th December 1941. This set off a series of events, like the United States formally entered World War II, Disney artists being drafted into the military, and the Disney Studios being used to make military and propaganda films for the war effort. Because of this, the two planned films were paused.
Once the war was over, it was difficult for the Disney Studios to build themselves back up financially, and this took a number of years, with the “package features” of the 1940s being some help with this. This is because they were cheaper and quicker to make. The Disney Studios also looked at making live-action movies with some animated sequences mixed in, like Song of the South (1946), because live-action filming is cheaper than animation. They could not solely release live-action movies because of their contract with RKO, which stipulated that they could only distribute films from Disney that featured animation. In 1946, Make Mine Music became the first Disney animated movie to be released after World War II, and was similar in concept to Fantasia (1940), using short segments of animation set to music. Because of this new format, the ideas of “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” were revived and paired together, with both of the original story concepts being trimmed and live-action sequences being filmed to cut costs[7]. Many of Walt’s animators worked on these two stories, such as Ward Kimball, Fred Moore and Les Clark on “Bongo”, and Woolie Reitherman and John Lounsbery on “Mickey and the Beanstalk”.
RECEPTION
Fun and Fancy Free was theatrically released on 27th September 1947, one week before a new Mickey Mouse short, Mickey’s Delayed Date, was released on 3rd October 1947[8]. The movie received mixed reviews from critics, with some saying, though it was uninspiring and not on par with Disney Animation’s best work, it was a happy film that was cheerful enough to keep most viewers entertained; whilst others said it was mediocre and couldn’t be saved even with the names they had in the cast, like Edgar Bergen.
Financially, Fun and Fancy Free had modest success at the box-office, gaining around $3 million, which was fine for this format of movie. Unfortunately, unlike some of the previous “package features”, there were not even successes from the movie’s songs. Even The Three Caballeros (1944) and Saludos Amigos (1942) had managed to popularise songs such as “You Belong to My Heart” and “Aquarela do Brasil”, but nothing from Fun and Fancy Free really stuck in the minds of audiences, though the title song was covered by some artists, such as The Dinning Sisters[9].
“Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” were later released separately. Aside from one episode of the Disneyland television series in 1955 where Jiminy Cricket narrated “Bongo”; “Bongo” was released as a standalone featurette in January 1971. The arguably more favoured section of Fun and Fancy Free, “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, has been aired on television in different edits. For example, in 1955, it was edited and narrated by Sterling Holloway, original voice of Winnie the Pooh; this version was re-aired in 1980. Another edit first appeared in 1963 with Ludwig von Drake narrating the story, and this version has been used for most home video releases of the story.
Following on from the release of Fun and Fancy Free, a similar format of two animated stories being “packaged” together would be released in 1949 under the name The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which adapted the tales of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. It was originally planned for Jiminy Cricket to introduce the two stories, as he did in Fun and Fancy Free, but this never happened. Instead, Basil Rathbone narrates the first story, and Bing Crosby the second. This film was also originally developed under the name Two Fabulous Characters, but this was obviously later changed[10].
LEGACY
An animated feature-length film was in development at the Disney Studios in the 2010s; it was going to be titled Gigantic. This movie would have adapted the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale, and set it in Spain. It was meant to include songs by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, now known for their songs from Frozen (2013) and its sequel, and be directed by Nathan Greno, who directed Tangled (2010), and Meg LeFauve, who wrote the screenplay for Pixar’s Inside Out (2015), amongst others. Its original release date was November 2016, but this date continued to be pushed further and further out, even as far as November 2020. In October 2017, it was announced that Gigantic had been shelved and that Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) would be released in this 2020 slot instead. The mystery of why this film never came to be remains unknown.
Another random addition to the “legacy” of Fun and Fancy Free is that in July 2021, Funko Games released a board game inspired by “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. The aim is to collect food from the Giant’s table and rescue the Golden Harp, and then get back to Happy Valley without getting caught by the Giant. It’s for ages four and up, so is likely a simple enough game to play, but how strange that this was made 74 years after the film came out!
At the Disney theme parks, obviously you can meet Donald Duck, Goofy, and Mickey Mouse at all of them, though they will not be attired in their “Mickey and the Beanstalk” outfits. You will also likely be able to find Jiminy Cricket at most of the parks, if not all. For a time, Bongo and Lulubelle were even walkaround characters, at least at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, until sometime in the 1990s. They are both visible briefly during The Muppets at Walt Disney World 1990 TV special, in a segment in Frontierland with Fozzie Bear, though they both looked quite different to how they appear in “Bongo”!
There is also a shop in Fantasyland at both Magic Kingdom and Disneyland Paris, which features a beanstalk. Disneyland Paris’ Sir Mickey’s Boutique does seem to feature the costumed Mickey as seen during “Mickey and the Beanstalk” balancing on the beanstalk as it grows through the shop, though you will also see Knight Goofy jousting at another end of the shop, which is not relevant to “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. Magic Kingdom’s Sir Mickey’s is actually meant to be based on Brave Little Tailor (1938) and not “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, which is why the Mickey statue seen here is not wearing his costume from “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. But if you look towards the ceiling in the shop, you should be able to see Willie the Giant starting to open up the roof of the shop, as he does in the final part of Fun and Fancy Free.
During the Wonderful World of Animation nighttime show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort, in the central screen, almost at the very end of the show, within the compilation of scenes from various movies that follows the Encanto scene, you should be able to see a brief clip from Fun and Fancy Free. It shows Mickey trying to steal the key from Willie the Giant in “Mickey and the Beanstalk”.
Finally, since 2022 saw Fun and Fancy Free have its 75th anniversary, though this was overshadowed by the much bigger celebrations of Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary and Disney100, a couple of pieces of merchandise were released to celebrate it. There were two pins released to the general public; one featuring Bongo, with Lulubelle hidden behind a moving piece on the pin, and a second of the Golden Harp, with Mickey and Donald beside her once this moving piece is moved. There was also a pin of Mickey, Donald and Goofy standing on the beanstalk, made to a limited edition of 1,000 and was exclusively released to D23 Gold Members for purchase.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Fun and Fancy Free was the fourth of the “package features” to be released during Disney’s Wartime Era, and, though I prefer the more musical ones which have lots of short sections instead of two longer stories, actually, Fun and Fancy Free isn’t that bad – even with my fear of ventriloquist dummies!
This movie may not be Disney Animation at its best, but it is no different to the other “package features” that the Disney Studios released during the 1940s, which were something cheap and quick to make that would be just enough for audiences who were still recovering from the horrors and hardships of war. They served a purpose, and allowed the Disney Studios to recover financially before making great hits like Cinderella (1950) in the years that followed.
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Fun and Fancy Free (1947), pp. 25-27.
[2] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? 10 Fascinating Facts about Fun and Fancy Free’, D23.com, 27th September 2017.
[3] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? 10 Fascinating Facts about Fun and Fancy Free’, D23.com, 27th September 2017.
[4] Credit: Stacia Martin, ‘Goofy: 9 Decades of Showing Us ‘How’ It’s Done!’, Disney Parks Blog, 26th September 2022.
[5] Credit: Jim Fanning, The Disney Book: A Celebration of the World of Disney (2016), ‘The Mouse who Started it all’, pp. 24-25.
[6] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? 10 Fascinating Facts about Fun and Fancy Free’, D23.com, 27th September 2017.
[7] Credit: Disney, “The Story Behind Fun and Fancy Free (1997)”, from Fun and Fancy Free (1947) DVD (2002).
[8] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? 10 Fascinating Facts about Fun and Fancy Free’, D23.com, 27th September 2017.
[9] Credit: James Parten, ‘Covering “Fun And Fancy Free”, CartoonResearch.com, 5th August 2018.
[10] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 5 (2016), ‘The Disney Package Features’, pp. 65-73.
The Disney Purist 