Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Family	Featurette-Behind The Scenes-The Story Behind Fun And Fancy Free (14:57)
Rating
Year Of Production	1947
Running Time	70:16
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Jack Kinney Hamilton Luske Bill Roberts
Studio Distributor	Disney Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Homer Brightman Eldon Dedini Sinclair Lewis Lance Nolley Tom Oreb Harry Reeves Ted Sears Edgar Bergen Walt Disney Cliff Edwards Billy Gilbert Anita Gordon Clarence Nash
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Eliot Daniel Paul Smith Oliver Wallace

    If you look at the history of Disney's animated feature films over the years, you can readily see a pattern indicative of maximising the value of that vault of work in the marketplace. This is obvious in two ways: firstly the periodic theatrical re-release of the films to bring them to a new generation of children, and secondly the limited release to home video before being placed on moratorium for up to a decade. I never fail to emphasise the dollar grabbing activities of Disney, but you can hardly blame them for doing what they do. After all, it is incumbent upon all businesses to garner a client base and service that client base. Most companies are not quite so blatant about it as Disney, but the end result is the same: we keep on forking out our dollars to buy the new version, be it video, DVD or car. Now where the blatant nature of this corporate philosophy falls down of course is with respect of the anthology films that Disney made during the 1940's. Made as cheaply as possible in order to make as much money as possible to partly compensate for the lack of overall profit from the first five animated features, you would have been hard-pressed to ever see these on the big screen after their initial release and almost as unlikely to have seen them on home video.

    The unkind would suggest that this was due to the fact that they were so bad that you would not want to see them anyway. Whilst there is actually a grain of truth in that regarding some of the anthology films (Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros notably), the fact is that there is one that is well worth seeing. That is of course the subject of the current review: Fun And Fancy Free. Of all the anthology releases, this is the one that you are most likely to have seen, at least in part. That is because the second short in the anthology is rather well known - featuring as it does the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk and starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Jiminy Cricket. It is the only animated short to feature these four characters together, and I have certainly seen it many times before. This I cannot say for any other of the shorts making up the four anthology films thus far reviewed.

    The two animated shorts making up this film, which is hosted by Jiminy Cricket, are:

• Bongo - the rather cute little tale of a circus bear who yearns for the call of the wild, done in partial song style by Dinah Shore. Very much an adjunct to Dumbo (to which it was initially intended to be even more closely aligned) the eponymous bear has desires to escape the circus and one day the call gets too great - and the train he does escape. Obviously not skilled in the natural talents of bears, his initial euphoria is soon diminished by the reality of life in the wild outdoors. However, the arrival of female bear Lulubelle certainly changes things enormously - or least it would if he knew how bears are supposed to act and could handle big butch bear Lumpjaw. Entertaining, endearing and featuring lots of cute animals - in other words, quintessential Disney.
• Mickey And The Beanstalk - obviously a take on the Jack And The Beanstalk story, this is a live action/animation mix hosted by Edgar Bergen (famous in his day as a ventriloquist but now better known for being Candice Bergen's dad). Mickey, Donald and Goofy are farmers in Happy Valley, a wondrous and prosperous place where everything is pleasant - thanks to the singing golden harp. However, when a mysterious shadow makes off with the harp, the valley is plunged into despair and our three farmers are close to destitution. The only thing they have left is their faithful cow, which Mickey eventually swaps for some magic beans. Cue the rest of the well known story, done in Disney fashion. This perhaps loses a bit as the story is well known but the setting is good if you can endure some rather banal humour from Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy - the dummies of Edgar Bergen - as the story is told to Luana Patten.

    Fun And Fancy Free probably scores more in the enjoyment stakes because it is far less disjointed than the other anthology films as a result of having two fairly lengthy shorts that on their own stand up well as stories. Being a little bit younger than Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros also means that the Disney company had developed a better style when approaching the anthology film concept. Overall, if you need to check out just one of these features, then this is probably the one to go for.

Video

    The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format and it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer features very decent sharpness, with the live action action stuff very much better than that - which I did find a little surprising. Definition is very good overall, and much better than anticipated. The transfer is relatively free of grain, which certainly aids the overall clarity of the transfer. Shadow detail in the live action stuff is surprisingly good too.

    The colours come up very well here, with the live action material being very well saturated with deep rich tones to the fore. The live action material is quite vibrant too, although this is not really carried over to the animation which is just a little on the flat side at times. Thankfully, there are no oversaturation problems in the transfer and colour bleed is noticeably absent. There is a very good consistency to the colour, too.

    There are no MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There are no obvious film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. This time, the film artefacts are very much reduced and this is by far and away the best looking of the four anthology films seen so far. Indeed, apart from the odd speck here and there, this is a relatively clean transfer in most respects.

    This is a single sided, single layered DVD so there is no layer change to contend with.

    There are seven subtitle options on the DVD, although my sampling was restricted to the English and English For The Hearing Impaired efforts. There did not seem to be anything awry with them.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two soundtracks on the DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and a German Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Cue the obligatory rant about a six channel soundtrack in place the original mono soundtrack. In this instance, there is a load of space available on the disc for at least one simple little mono soundtrack.

    Mind you the six channel soundtrack is not exactly a great example of the art of six channel mastering.

    The dialogue comes up well in the transfer and it was very easy to understand. There is of course the usual animation sync issues, but there is no problem with the audio sync in the live action sequences.

    The original music score was contributed by Paul Smith, Oliver Wallace and Eliot Daniel. Nothing overly memorable in any way, but at least the shorts are well served by the contributions made by the score.

    Whilst this features a bit more body to the sound, the soundtrack still does not exactly bring to mind great moments in the art of six channel recording and mastering. There remains no obvious contribution from the rear channels in the soundtrack, and very little if any contribution from the front surround channels. Whilst this is definitely not a mono sounding effort, it also is not to be confused with something with genuine surround encoding. There is nothing in the way of blemishes in the soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

   The extras package is not exactly bursting with a ton of stuff, interesting or otherwise.

Menu

   Another bright and colourful effort that is again perversely in widescreen and 16x9 enhanced to boot.

Featurette - The Story Behind Fun And Fancy Free (14:57)

   Aside from the fact that it is way too short, this is a reasonably interesting effort that takes a brief look at the gestation of the two concepts that wound up as the two shorts in the film. Interesting as it includes contributions from Walt Kimball and Joe Grant, contributors to many Disney animated features. There is some interesting stuff included here, notably the test recordings for Willie The Giant, and some genuine nuggets of information. To give some indication of the gestation of the stories, the story for Bongo was actually finished the day after Pearl Harbor yet had to wait several more years before being turned into a film. The presentation is Full Frame format, it is not 16x9 enhanced and features good Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Unfortunately, there are some film artefacts to be found here (an understatement) whilst a touch of aliasing is also to be found.

    It would appear that the Region 1 release features the following additional material:

• Read Along storybook
• Trivia Game
• Three advertisements, err trailers.
• Music Video - Disney Mambo #5

    In addition it does feature the original mono soundtrack. Whilst none of the additional extras sounds especially wonderful, their presence along with the original mono soundtrack ensures that Region 1 is the way to go.

    The general quality of the anthology features is not that great in the overall animated feature canon of Disney, but Fun And Fancy Free is certainly the exception to the rule. Aside from a much better technical quality, the ninth animated feature has two genuinely entertaining stories. Of all the anthology films reviewed thus far, this is the one to get.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall