Fun and
Fancy Free
(1947, U.S.) color animated 73 minutes
With: Edgar Bergen (as himself), Luana Patten (as herself)
Voices: Cliff Edwards (Jiminy Cricket), Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse), Clarence Nash (Donald Duck), Pinto Colvig (Goofy), Billy Gilbert (Willie the Giant), Anita Gordon (Singing Harp), Dinah Shore
***
Beware of a self-proclaimed "masterpiece."
FUN AND FANCY FREE is a truly terrible short feature from Disney, showing the worst of the animation studio's early prejudices and excesses, some of which would become fatal in ensuing years. F&FF is apparently the remnants of two dull short features that
inevitably ran out of steam: the first is "Bongo," a dated and
overscored piece of fluff in which an exploited circus bear escapes to
nature and (guess what?) falls in yucko, syrupy love! The Disney
breeder propaganda machine is in full sappy swing with this
clunker. A hideous song called "A Bear Likes to Show it with a Slap,"
in which bears whack each other around to show affection, condones
domestic violence as being sweet and proper, and is almost too vile
for words.
The second installment, "Mickey and The Beanstalk," has all our familiar Dis-characters and some high-energy animation, but is
still very lame and unfocused somehow.
The wraparounds with Jiminy Cricket are both populist and dark, with intrusive choral singing and weird newspaper headlines like "Human Race Going Crazy."
Add to this a most odd live-action segment with puppeteer Edgar Bergen (in a stupid paper hat) and his two wooden pals Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd holding a party at which the only guest is small girl Luana Patten. Freudian overtones abound in this uncomfortable segment (at one point the three males offer the girl a cigar), yet surely "Uncle" Walt would have it no other way.
All in all a real oddball dud. The "restored version" video of this laughable misfire also includes a commercial for "Disney Interactive," a CD-Rom computer program in which your brain-damaged child can trace Mickey Mouse on the computer screen and print it out in full color on your laser printer, instead of using paper, pencil and crayon to draw the old-fashioned way! Hooray for mindless technology!
Video/DVD availability: VHS/DVD (Disney Home Video)
Walt Disney Pictures / RKO Radio Pictures
Story: Sinclair Lewis ("Bongo")
Screenplay: Homer Brightman, Eldon Dedini,
Lance Nolley, Tom Oreb, Harry Reeves, Ted Sears
Music: Eliot Daniel, George Weiss
Cinematography: Charles P. Boyle
Produced by Walt Disney
Directed by Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske (animation)
Directed by William Morgan (live-action)