Today is the 17th Disney movie that I have reviewed and uploaded, and because of the fact that it is a year to the day that I began this mission, I thought that I should take it back to the beginning of Disney's library, with a film starring four of their most famous characters, including Disney's iconic hero, Mickey Mouse.
Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Disney Animated Classic Number 9
Starring: Cliff Edwards, Dinah Shore, Edgar Bergen, Luana Patten & Walt Disney
Directed by: Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Hamilton Luske & William Morgan
Rating: ★
Fun and Fancy Free is a Disney animated ‘classic’ that I had never even heard of and knew absolutely nothing about: and for good reason. It may be the last time Walt Disney voiced Mickey Mouse (in his movies), and it is apparently the only film that has Mickey, Donald Duck, Goofy and Jiminy Cricket in together, but other than that, the only good thing to come from this banal film is that it inspired elements of the computer game Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse that my older sister used to play on her Sega Master System. And that was a good game. Fun and Fancy Free however, is not a good movie.
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| Mickey Mouse saves the day... or does he? In one of the film's many problems, we never actually find out... |
During the 1940s, due to America’s involvement in World War II, and Disney’s animator’s strike, Disney had to put a lot of his film production on hold, and both during and after the war, Disney decided to stop making single focus feature films such as Dumbo to keep costs down and instead make ‘package’ films: movies containing shorter stories put together as an anthology. There were six of these made during the 1940s, and the profits of these movies contributed towards Cinderella. Fun and Fancy Free was the fourth Disney ‘package’ film, as it contains two shorter movies that were both originally planned to be feature films in their own right: Bongo, a prequel to Dumbo and Mickey and the Beanstalk (or Happy Valley), made to promote Mickey Mouse and increase his popularity, which, at the time, was flailing.
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| Mickey meeting Willie the Giant. At the time, he needed all the friends he could get... |
So instead of getting two well-conceived feature films, we get one poorly executed animated anthology, containing two strange stories that don’t sit well together at all because they weren’t meant to: they were actually made as two separate short films and were then crammed awkwardly back to back as one. Jiminy Cricket (Edwards) is the ‘link’ between them both, as he introduces them to us after singing songs, including one cut from Pinocchio and the title song, which is, of course, about being fun and fancy free. Celebrities of the time Dinah Shore (a famous singer) and Edgar Bergen (a radio presenter/ventriloquist) narrate each tale and their success at this varies greatly.
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| Bongo certainly loves his unicycle... |
The first story, Bongo, begins after Jiminy Cricket puts on a Dinah Shore record, and she tells us the tale of Bongo, a brown bear who is a famous circus performer. He is tired of his restricted life and so manages to escape the shackles of animal slavery and rushes off into a nearby forest. At first he struggles with his new surroundings, but he quickly falls in love with another bear, and has to fight off another called Lumpjaw to secure a relationship with her. Dinah Shore sings some tunes, most of them corny love songs, and overall she is a good narrator and a nice singer, but the actual story itself is bland and dull. It has some very quirky moments, and if it were to be digitally restored, I’m sure the animation would be fantastic, but overall, it isn’t a very interesting premise at all. Perhaps it’s a good thing that it was made shorter, because an hour and a half of this would only be good for putting most of the audience to sleep. The female bear is creepily sexualised, and there is a rather horrific song about domestic violence because, as we are told, bears say they love one another with a slap. I doubt the validity of this accusation, but even if it is true, seeing bears slapping one another across the face because they are in love is uncomfortable viewing. Predictably, in the end, Lumpjaw and Bongo have a fight over the female bear and ultimately, true love prevails.
Jiminy Cricket then rushes over to the house across the street where a small child (Patten) is having a birthday party that consists of herself, a creepy old man (Bergen) and two nightmarish ventriloquist dummies. If you thought that the sequence from Dead Of Night was bad, then brace yourself for this terrifying ordeal.
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| I wouldn't let the ventriloquist dummy named Charlie into my house... |
The creepy ventriloquist whose lips move and who wears a tea cosy on his head was apparently very famous at the time, mainly for his radio work. This makes sense, because over radio you wouldn’t see his lips moving, and you might believe that the other ‘voices’ he presents may not be his own. Regardless of this, for her birthday, the little girl is told a story by the old man, who encourages one of the terrifying dummies to ejaculate the cartoon straight out of his head (I’m not joking). And then begins one of the greatest failures in Disney animated canon: as a great idea is so poorly done it is completely ruined. Mickey and the Beanstalk could have been an excellent standalone feature film, but with time constraints and ventriloquist dummies who continuously hack the animation to pieces with their terrible voice over work, we are instead treated to something very odd indeed.
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| They really are starving... |
Happy Valley is a beautiful, wonderful place, and in this joyful bliss lives a golden singing harp who brings happiness to all. But she is stolen by a horrific shadowy hand that reaches out of the sky and snatches her through a window, and because she disappears, the entire Valley, and everything within it, dies, except for three farmers: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. And they are starving. Donald is so famished that he eats china plates and then tries to butcher a cow with an axe. But the only thing getting butchered here is the story as the ventriloquist dummies tell stupid jokes over the top and so completely interrupt the flow of the animation: most notably when one of the dummies is forced onto a table and screams while the old man shoves his hand up his backside. So if you think that a puppet being anally raped is entertainment, then you might just enjoy this part of the film (and if you think I’m making this up, then go ahead and watch it for yourself).
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| Goofy enjoying some giant peas is probably one of the best bits of the second segment... |
Anyway, Mickey somehow gets some magic beans and a beanstalk grows from them. This is probably the best part of the entire film, as it looks amazing and is quite interesting to see the trio as the beanstalk grows around them, sending them high into the atmosphere. They then discover a giant’s castle, jump on jelly, find the harp, have some slapstick between them, and then Mickey saves the day by fooling the giant and the three steal the harp and…
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| I'd be more scared of the ventriloquist dummy than of Willie the Giant ripping my roof off... |
Oh wait, the story doesn’t have a conclusion. It just abruptly ends, because instead of seeing Mickey, Donald and Goofy have a happy ending and resurrect Happy Valley, we see one of the ventriloquist dummies crying about Willie the Giant falling to his death. The old man reassures him that it was all just a story, and the giant couldn’t have died because he never existed to begin with. Willie the Giant then rips the roof of the house off, causing the old man to faint, and then goes on a rampage through Hollywood looking for Mickey and the harp. The end.
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| I know exactly how you feel Donald... |
Never heard of Fun and Fancy Free? There’s a reason why. It’s an incredibly weak entry in the Disney animated canon as the first half is boring, and the second half is destroyed by sassy marionettes, who ensure we don’t get a happy ending. Mickey deserves better than this, so hopefully one day he will have a stand-alone movie that is deserving of his legacy.
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| Oh Mickey.... there's nothing in there that will save you from this atrocity... |
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