Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

Since it is on the same blu-ray disc, let's also take a look today at the movie Fun and Fancy Free.

The Movie:

Fun and Fancy Free is the 9th film in the Disney Animated Canon.  It is another one of the 1940s "package" films, using narration and framing devices to combine two separate stories together, both of which had originally been planned as longer films.

The first segment of Fun and Fancy Free is the story of Bongo.  Based on a children's story by Sinclair Lewis, the title character is a circus bear who longs to live a free life in the great outdoors.  He soon discovers that this life is not everything he imagined.  The segment is introduced in an animated segment featuring Jiminy Cricket, who puts on the record of this story, narrated in speaking and singing by Dinah Shore.  There is no dialogue in this segment.

For the second segment, Jiminy Cricket enters the live-action home of Edgar Bergen, who is hosting a party with his ventriloquist dummies Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, along with child actress Luana Patten.  Bergen tells the story of Mickey and the Beanstalk, placing Mickey Mouse, Donald, and Goofy in the classic English folk tale of Jack and the Beanstalk.  Bergen narrates the story with frequent commentary by the dummies and Luana, and several times the story cuts back to the live-action scenes.  Just like in the folk story, the trio of heroes plant magic beans that grow into a giant beanstalk, which takes them to a castle in the sky with a giant who has a magic harp.

So this is a weird film.  The two animated segments are ok, though on their own Mickey and the Beanstalk in the stronger of the two.  The Bongo segment is cute and a cartoon in the classic style, but it goes a little long and draws out a very thin plot.  Mickey and the Beanstalk gets bogged down by over-narration and the constant cutbacks to live-action.  And although I know Bergen's act was really popular at the time, those scenes to me just come across as weird.  I started to feel sorry for poor Luana.

The music is fine but fairly forgettable.  The title tune, sung at the beginning is catchy enough, but not what you would call a classic.  Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket does get a song (cut from Pinocchio) in his introductory segment.  The other nice moment is Donald and Goofy's re-purposing of the tune "Funiculi, Funicula."

Both of these segments would later be released as part of other collections and even as individual shorts.  The Mickey and the Beanstalk segment would stay somewhat popular and well-known.  In these later releases, the Bergen's framing story and narration was cut.  The most common release version is introduced and narrated by Ludwig von Drake, but other releases used Sterling Holloway or Shari Lewis.

Notably this is the only movie in the Disney Canon to feature Disney's big three characters together.  It was also the last cartoon to feature Walt Disney himself as the voice of Mickey Mouse.

Presence in the Parks:

This movie doesn't have too much of a direct influence at the parks, though the characters that appear in the movie obviously pop up all over the parks.

For the unique character of Bongo, he and Lulubelle, also from that segment, would pop up from time to time up through the 1990s, but not so much anymore.

As to Mickey and the Beanstalk, the segment gets a direct reference in Fantasyland.  There is a shop called Sir Mickey's, opened in 1996, with the beanstalk "growing" around and through the building.  Inside the shop, Willie the Giant appears to be lifting the roof to peek in.  (Mickey's attire in his appearances in this shop actually reference the short The Brave Little Tailor.)

Magic Kingdom's Fantasyland, May 2015

(Sir Mickey's is between the Princess Fairytale Hall and Cinderella Castle)