Where to watch Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Fun and Fancy Free is available to stream in ES on Disney+.
A host introduces two animated stories: a circus bear escapes into the wilderness and searches for belonging, while three familiar friends enter a playful version of a classic beanstalk fairy tale. Live-action framing connects the segments, creating a colorful anthology of songs, comedy, adventure, and old-fashioned Disney charm.
Cast: Dinah Shore, Edgar Bergen, Luana Patten, Walt Disney, Anita Gordon, Cliff Edwards, Clarence Nash, Pinto Colvig, James MacDonald, Billy Gilbert, The King's Men, Jean Dinning
Stream | ES
Trivia & production notes
- Mickey and the Beanstalk and Bongo were originally planned as separate feature films before being combined into a single package film.
- When animators Bill Cottrell and T. Hee pitched their Jack and the Beanstalk concept to Walt Disney in early 1940, he initially refused it, claiming they had 'murdered' his characters, though he later changed his mind.
- Production on The Legend of Happy Valley began on May 2, 1940, but was halted on October 27, 1941, due to the Disney animators' strike and World War II cutting off the studio's foreign markets.
- The Bongo script was nearly completed on December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the U.S. military took control of Disney's studio and redirected it to war production.
- Walt Disney provided Mickey Mouse's voice for Fun and Fancy Free, marking the last time he would voice the character regularly before handing the role over to sound effects artist Jimmy MacDonald in 1948.
- Jiminy Cricket performs a song called 'I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow' that was originally written for and cut from Pinocchio before its release.
- Celebrities Edgar Bergen and Dinah Shore were brought in to introduce the film's segments in order to appeal to a mass audience.
- Critics at the time were divided on the film, with The New York Times praising it while Time magazine criticized the mixing of live-action and cartoons, and Variety called it a 'dull and tiresome film'.
- An early version of Bongo featured a female chimpanzee character named Beverly or Chimpy who was dropped during story condensation for the final film.
- Throughout the 1940s, Disney planned to pair Mickey and the Beanstalk with The Wind in the Willows in a package film called Two Fabulous Characters, but ultimately chose Bongo instead.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Fun and Fancy Free, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.
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