What's going on guys? I'm Tyler and in continuing my series of Disney movie reviews,I'm here to let you know that "Fun and Fancy Free"
is NoPerfectMovie! "Fun and Fancy Free" is a compilation of two animated shorts-
each with their own narrator and the thing that combines them together is
the movie's host Jiminy Cricket, who kind of weaves the two of them together through
different circumstances. The first short "Bongo" is narrated by Dinah Shore and it
follows an abused circus bear who escapes to the wild where he falls in love with a mate and must fend off a romantic rival...
Yeah, it's that kind of story but it's it's not as bad as it sounds. The second
and the most popular one of the two, "Mickey and the Beanstalk" narrated by
Edgar Bergen is basically a Mickey, Donald and Goofy version of...
"Rumpelstiltskin"... seriously what do you think it's about?! Now you might be
wondering what those two shorts really have in common with each other because
Iwas wondering that myself before I even started the movie, and based on what they
emphasize early on at the beginning is that, this is a movie about two sets of
characters who each have really difficult lives who do realize upon themselves:
as opposed to just lying around letting life treat you poorly,
that you should improve your life yourself by taking every great opportunity that you
can and don't waste a single moment of it and as a result Bongo and
Mickey & friends do, and they come across villains who don't take opportunities, they just
take from other people, and it's that struggle that makes it easy to identify
with these characters and to root for them, even when the stories are... as it's
made clear before, outdated because "Bongo" is a pretty plain romance story of that
time period where of course the woman can't fend for herself which is weird
because they make her a lot stronger emotionally and physically compared to Bongo!
Which reminds me: the way that bears say I love you to each other-
there's a whole song about this, is by slapping each other in the face...
Do I even have to point out what's wrong with that?! I mean the only thing that makes it
a little less awkward when you really think about it is the song that's there
to remind you "This is a cartoon, you should not take this
seriously, even kids aren't gonna agree with this" and no shit-kids aren't gonna
agree with this, even when I was five I'm just like "This is NOT how this works 'cause
I know what hitting people on the face means"! So I don't think this is
gonna teach kids the wrong message but it is an awkward thing to adjust to and
you know it's not gonna be the only awkward thing to adjust to in this movie!
But as is, "Bongo" is a cute short to watch; it has some beautiful shots of nature &
the first half of the short has this "Bambi"-like feature where it's just Bongo
living his life and adapting, it goes on for a little too long and I felt like
they could have just gotten to the central conflict a lot sooner, but Bongo
himself is a likeable character to watch, he's just a simple-minded character who
wants to find a life of his own where he can make his own choices because in the circus-
despite being the star of the show-despite having all these awesome skills...
they take him for granted at best and when he meets this female bear he
feels reinvigorated by someone who just like likes him for who he is!
So all those things by themselves and the funny slapstick in the end fight where he has
to fight this battle with a bear named Lumpjaw it uh, it didn't go the exact
same way that I thought it was going to because when they build him up is having
all these skills-he can juggle all these things-he can apparently box against
strongmen and I'm like "Okay, so how are you gonna struggle against Lumpjaw
and it turns out he doesn't and I'm like "Okay good, we got that out of the way".
And Dinah Shore does have a nice voice when she's singing and narrating, I just
wished that (kind of like "Melody Time") it didn't rely so much on rhyming because
there really is no purpose to it-you could have just told it straight through,
because she's the one who speaks for all the characters and you know I have no
problem with that-it's almost a "Thomas the Tank Engine" thing where she speaks
up for the other characters in her own silly voices and that part is effective.
I know it affected me as a kid but seriously it's Disney, it's not Dr. Seuss!
You don't need to take yourself that seriously! I know it's easy
but it's one of the reasons it doesn't always work. But "Mickey and the Beanstalk"
is the biggest highlight of the movie for sure and I should get this out of
the way: how the narration comes about because it just sounds so stupid on paper:
the frame story revolves around a child actress's birthday party where
it's just her, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his two dummies and Jiminy Cricket-
who sneaks in uninvited and doesn't even talk to them the whole time, but yeah...
A sweet, innocent nine-year-old girl with two puppets and some guy... no parents around even though it's her house and...
once you're done comparing that to how it would go nowadays, which really
doesn't take too long to sum up, and if you just focus on the fact that Bergen
is the one telling the story of "Mickey and the Beanstalk", he actually does kind of
enhance the short because he has a nice way of describing things in vivid detail. As a ventriloquist, he obviously is gonna have really good interactions
with his two puppets and his interactions were funny but it also made
me wonder if Jeff Dunham ripped this guy off because he has two specific puppets;
one has this Walter-ish personality where he's constantly interrupting and
has a surprisingly dark sense of humor for a Disney movie that I really
appreciated because it's "Jack and the Beanstalk" when they come to the selling
a cow for the beans, he's just like "Why just take the cow, they've got the beef".
And yet and he tries to explain this to a nine-year-old girl on why that might
be a more effective way and because it's a ventriloquist it's played up for laughs
and it was really effective. But yeah, he reminded me a lot of Walter and
this one other puppet that's there just look at it: does it look like Bubba J to you?
Because it looks like Bubba J to me. But aside from that, Bergen is very
charismatic when he's not in an awkward situation like this and he really sells
the storytelling techniques and "Mickey and the Beanstalk" on its own even
without it, would have still been pretty good because it gives us exactly what
you would expect from Mickey Donald and Goofy being together.
They have some funny moments: Goofy has one of my favourite moments of his where he's
trying to walk on a giant piece of Jell-O, Mickey has this super suspenseful
moment where he has to take something out of the giant's pocket and he has to
use all these objects and sneak in very quietly-kind of like Robin Hood when he
breaks into Prince John's castle that was another really good moment...
And we also get quite possibly Donald Duck at his most batshit insane! I will not spoil
what it is but needless to say, it did not disappoint! And Willie the Giant was
also likable and funny just for how dim-witted and childish he is and a lot
of that comes from the way he's designed to how Billy Gilbert did a really good
voiceover job. And speaking of voiceovers this is actually the last time Walt Disney
ever played Mickey Mouse, not 'cause he died but because he was too busy to
do other stuff so that was when he started passing the mantle off to other actors. Minor little factoids but you kind of forget that Walt Disney was
the original Mickey! There's only two real problems with "Mickey and the Beanstalk":
Other than the awkward setup of a child along with a stranger, but there's a plot device
where the Giant can transform himself into anything-it has all these
magical powers and why does he have all those powers? Because he really doesn't
do anything with them. When it comes down to him chasing the others down
the Beanstalk, he doesn't really do anything with the powers-he doesn't change into an animal
so he can attack or eat them, he just chases them around with a club.
I get that Willy's an idiot and everything but it just felt like an excuse as
opposed to anything else, and the other problem and this is really a problem
with the movie itself; once the movie ends... it just ends-it feels really abrupt.
And it tries to weave the two stories together for some finality and get some
live-action and animation crossovers and they look decent-they're not Disney's
best crossovers when it comes to combining the two, but it raises a lot of...
not a lot, but a couple unanswered questions about how these shorts really
ended, without spoiling anything, there are
characters who come back and shouldn't. So whether or not you're gonna like
"Fun and Fancy Free" it really comes down to whether you can watch something older
and outdated and whether you can watch something where one short is
better than the other, and in my case I can, watching these older storytelling techniques
in Disney movies like this is actually kind of a breath of fresh air
the more I keep doing this, and it makes me appreciate the movies for the craft
and the amount of work that put into it, it makes me forgive and understand the...
more outdated techniques. It's your typical Disney faire: it has really good animation,
some likeable characters-if you like Mickey, Donald and Goofy
I'd watch this movie just for that because-look at the posters for all of them
it's nothing but the three of them even though they're only one short.
So rambling aside, I had a good time with "Fun and Fancy Free" and I'm gonna give it a 3.5/5
Guys, thanks as always for watching!
If you've seen "Fun and Fancy Free", let me know in the comments below what you thought of it.
Be sure to stay tuned for more Disney reviews and be sure to like and subscribe! Take care!