Forgotten Features: Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

Between 1943 and 1949, Disney produced a series of ‘package films’ comprised of various animated segments. The features which followed the ‘Good Neighbour’ films Saludos Amigos (1943) and The Three Caballeros (1945) focussed primarily on musical numbers and loosely connected short stories. The first of these was Make Mine Music (1946), a feature containing ten animated sequences inspired by various music styles and visuals. Its success led to a follow-up, 1948’s Melody Time, arguably the best of the package films. The remaining two package features, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad (1949) and Fun and Fancy Free (1947), were comprised of two films, the latter telling the story of ‘Bongo’, a bear who escapes the captivity of the circus and falls in love, and ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’, including the last speaking appearance of Walt Disney as Mickey Mouse. Sadly however, this consequently results in it being the most disjointed of the package films; the stories are not connected in any sense, and it’s a little too jarring and uneven to be considered ‘fun’.

To begin with, the film’s title has little to do with its content. While the 1949 release The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad has an awkward and frankly unmemorable title, it is nonetheless clear on what it promises to deliver – adaptations of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. Fun and Fancy Free, meanwhile, is an ill-thought through title, and one which reinforces the sprawling mess of a feature it precedes.

The two sequences are introduced and bridged by Jiminy Cricket, who inexplicably acts as the host. Firstly, he plays a record which tells the story of Bongo, an interesting if altogether rather slow cartoon. He then heads over to the house of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, who relates the story of ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’ to Luana Patten and puppets Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. The cartoon itself is fairly enjoyable in its entirety (although I personally find Mickey Mouse cartoons a little too sugary – and this is no exception), but its pacing is severely inhibited by the jarring live action intermissions and unfunny one-liners which become quite tiresome after a while.

Altogether, this film is something of an oddity. I mean, what is this, exactly? Whereas the other features of this era at least adhered to and embraced a particular theme throughout, this offering just feels bizarre, unconnected and weak. That is not to say that the sequences themselves, individually, are not enjoyable, but they do not work well together to form a feature. That, and the live action interstitials are just plain annoying and unfunny. Needless to say, by the film’s conclusion, I was left feeling rather cold and unsure of what I had just watched. It just feels like a thinly veiled bridging sequence; granted, that’s essentially what it is, but there’s little attempt to disguise it. Ultimately, it’s worth viewing at least once but in retrospect, Fun and Fancy Free proves to be anything but.