Fun and Fancy Free

Fun and Fancy Free (first released on September 27, 1947) is a feature film produced by Walt Disney Studios and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It was one of the "package films" (feature-length compilations of shorter segments) that the studio produced in the 1940s. It is the ninth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. As with the two segments in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, the featurettes were originally planned to be made as full-length features, but because of the studio's circumstances at the time, they ended up becoming a part of the package films instead.

This film features two fanciful stories:
 * "Bongo," the story of a circus bear cub, who runs away from the circus to the wild and the adventures there that follow.
 * "Mickey and the Beanstalk," a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy as peasants who discover temperamental Willie the Giant's castle in the sky through the use of some magic beans.

Jiminy Cricket first appears inside a large house, exploring it and singing "I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow", until he happens upon a record player and some records and he sets it up to play the story of "Bongo", told by Dinah Shore.

Live-action wraparounds (for "Beanstalk") feature Edgar Bergen, who, with the help of his ventriloquist's puppets Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, tells child actress Luana Patten the story of "Mickey and the Beanstalk", depicted in animation, at her birthday party.

Worldwide release dates

 * Mexico: December 16, 1948
 * Denmark: May 14, 1949
 * France: March 29, 1950
 * Sweden: May 15, 1950
 * Italy: February 22, 1952
 * Finland: December 19, 1952
 * Japan: August 9, 1954

Titles in different languages

 * Dutch:          Vrij en Vrolijk, the video of only Mickey and the beanstalk is called "Mickey en de bonenstaak"
 * Finnish:      Pennitön ja Suruton
 * French:        Coquin de Printemps
 * German:        Fröhlich, Frei, Spaß dabei
 * Italian:      Bongo e i Tre Avventurrieri
 * Portuguese: Como É Bom Se Divertir'
 * Spanish:      Las Aventuras de Bongo y Mickey y las Judías Mágicas (Spain); Diversion y Fantasia (Latin America)
 * Swedish:      Pank och fågelfri (also known as Bongo och Musse och bönstjälken)

Trivia

 * Jiminy Cricket and Willie the Giant appeared during the live-action segments; the animated characters were added into the scenes using special effects.


 * Both "Bongo" and "Mickey and the Beanstalk" were originally planned as full-length features, but plans for them were cut back during World War II.


 * Although they were not made into individual full-length features, they did air as individual episodes on the anthology TV series in the 1950s and 60s. The "Beanstalk" segment in particular aired on one 1963 episode, which had new introductory segments and narration by Ludwig Von Drake replacing those with Bergen (Von Drake also dubbed over McCarthy's sassy comments). They were also released individually on video, as well as together.


 * One song used in the film, "I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow", was originally written for Pinocchio (which also starred Jiminy Cricket), but was scrapped from that film.


 * The "Bongo" sequence features an instance of the "Goofy holler."


 * It was believed "Mickey and the Beanstalk was the last time Walt disney voiced Mickey but according to 3rd voice of Mickey Wayne Allwine, this was when Jimmy Macdonald took over.


 * Mickey and the Beanstalk was also the basis for, and title of the fifth level in the game, Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse [(for Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Sega CD and Sony PlayStation (as Mickey's Wild Adventure)].



Voice cast

 * Cliff Edwards - Jiminy Cricket
 * Edgar Bergen - Himself; Charlie McCarthy; Mortimer Snerd; Narrator ("Mickey and the Beanstalk")
 * Luana Patten - Herself
 * Jimmy MacDonald - Mickey Mouse
 * Clarence Nash - Donald Duck
 * Pinto Colvig - Goofy
 * Billy Gilbert - Willie the Giant
 * Anita Gordon - Singing Harp
 * Dinah Shore - Narrator ("Bongo")