Once Upon A Disney #9: Fun and Fancy Free

Happy New Year Disney aficionados. I hope you had a magical, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah time (yeah, that's right, I made a Song of the South reference, and I'm not even sorry. This is 2020 Soph).  

Well, what started as a weekly challenge hasn't quite gone according to plan, but as my new year's resolution is fast becoming... better late than never! There are only 2 more weeks of weird films to go, and seeing as January is pretty much a write-off month anyway, let's get these duffers done as soon as possible. 

Seeing as I watched this film literally MONTHS ago and I'm keen to crack on, this may be a particularly short post. Let's see what I can remember of... 

Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

I'll let the cat out of the bag – this is a film of two halves. There's the cute, fairly fun and fancy-free part, involving bears, chipmunks and jolly music. And then there's the genuinely terrifying half including real-life ventriloquist dummies and a possible paedo. 

The film opens with Jiminy Cricket singing a jazzy little opening number, and even includes a cameo from Cleo the fish from Pinocchio. Could we finally be in safe hands after weeks of creepy Donald Duck and singing hats? You might think so. After Jiminy draws attention to the startingly familiar problems making headlines in the1940s (Extinction and Global Warming), he decides it's time for some escapism. 

In this frame of mind, Jiminy introduces the first story of the film – 'Bongo'. Following the escapades of a circus bear who makes a break for it to reconnect with his natural roots, the section uses story-telling techniques from a variety of previous Disney movies. 

So far, so BEARable

First, we get the pastoral 'scene-setting' akin to Bambi, with cute forest animals weathering a storm to the backdrop of crooning vocals. Secondly, we follow Bongo the bear's exploited life in the circus (Dumbo immediately springs to mind). When Bongo breaks free and falls in love with a lady bear in the forest, we start to get 'Bambi and Thumper's inappropriately sexual longing for women' vibes. This soon descends into the gratuitous violence carried forward from more recent compilation movies like Make Mine Music, when Bongo has to fight off a competitor and then the bear's mating ritual turns out to be... slapping each other?! It's all a bit of a mess, but it's nothing compared to what's to come. 

Me after watching this film

The second half of the movie takes a decidedly tone-deaf turn, via the creepiest kid's birthday party in the history of Hollywood (and that's saying something). Jiminy gets invited to a large, conspicuously parent-less house, where a little girl in inexplicably celebrating her name-day with 'ventriloquist' and 'comedian' Edgar Bergen. I use inverted commas because he is terrible at both of these skills. Poorly handled by him are Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, his terrifying puppets. The former looks exactly like the creepy dummies in Goosebumps, the latter looks as if his face has half melted off. 

I would not be able to sleep after this 'story time' 

Assuming we consider this whole set up as somehow normal, Edgar launches into telling the story of 'Mickey and the Beanstalk,' with frequent and painfully unfunny interjections from Charlie the Creep (as we will now call him) throughout. The story goes pretty much according to tradition – i.e. Mickey sows the magic beans, climbs the beanstalk, defeats the giant etc – but, like every other film he rears his quacky head in, Donald is an absolute menace. This time, rather than just being lechy, he's an axe wielding maniac. Of course, once Edgar has concluded his poorly narrated story, it's alls well that ends well, and – providing the little girl's parents come home at some point – there's no harm done. 

Mum: Delirious Donald Duck can't hurt you
Delirious Donald Duck: ... 

All in all, Fun and Fancy Free starts promisingly but will leave you stunned, a little afraid, and ultimately wishing you could get that 73 minutes of your life back. But you win some, you lose some I suppose.  

Villain Rating: 10/10 for Charlie the Creep, who is pure nightmare fuel

Best Song: "I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow" (sung by Jiminy Cricket at the beginning, when there's still hope) 

Disney Detail: From what I can remember, the chipmunks at the beginning of the 'Bongo' section seem to be an early version of the Chip N' Dale designs. Also, that whole segment calls back to the circus storyline in Dumbo. 

Why it's a Classic: The inclusion of Jiminy Cricket and Mickey Mouse don't do this film any favours, as they just remind you of better films that contained those characters (Pinocchio and Fantasia, respectively). However, the music is nice as always, and there are some cute, on-brand moments in the first half.