"You know, you worry too much. In fact, everybody worries too much."

Film: "Fun and Fancy Free"

Release Date: 27 September 1947

Director: Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Hamilton Luske, William Morgan (live action)

History: Mickey Mouse is arguably the most famous and successful Hollywood star, real or fictional, to even grace the silver screen. Walt Disney, in part as a result of the reality, and in part becuase of the fact that Mickey was where his company started, and becuase mickey was his alter-ego, wanted nothing more then to make sure Mickey's star would shine as long as it could and as bright as it could. To that end, Walt was interested as he was making full length featured animated films, to start his beloved character as much as he could. Mickey stared in the very popular segment in "Fantasia," The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and Walt was really keen on putting Mickey in more films. Walt was interested in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, and especially after Mickey's 1933 short, Giantland, felt that placing his beloved mouse in the staring role of that film would be a wonderful choice. Interested in making it a full length film, Walt once again faced the same issues faced that lead him to make the last three "package films," a lack of funds thanks mostly to World War II, so the project was dropped for a time.

Then a few years latter, needing a new film to be made, Disney picked the project back up and made the decision (based purely on cost) to pair it with another story that had be considered for a full length film, Bongo. Disney paired Mickey with long time pals Goofy and Donald Duck for the Jack half of the film, but needed some star power he felt for the Bongo part of it. So he brought in what at the time was possibly his fourth biggest and most popular character to act as a guide for the whole film and something of a partial narrator for Bongo, Jiminy Cricket. The famous cricket had not been seen since his debut in "Pinocchio," and Walt was ready to bring him back. The move would make it so that Mickey, Goofy, Donald and Jiminy Cricket would be the only four characters to appear in more then one of the Disney "Cannon" Animated Films under Walt Disney (after Walt died, the heroes of "The Rescuers" would go on to be the only other characters with that distinction). Jiminy Cricket would later been seen on tv in a number of various programs, most notably his "I'm No Fool" series, and then reunite on the silver screen with Mickey, Donald and Goofy in "Mickey's Christmas Carrol." This film would also be notable for being Walt's last performance theatrically as Mickey Mouse, and one of his last period.

Walt then decided to give the film more bang for the film goers buck, to add some live action segments featuring popular ventriloquist (and father of "Murphy Brown's Candice Bergen) Edger Bergen, with his puppets (and alter-egos) Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, along with child actress Luana Patten, to tell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, while Dinah Shore, who as just in the last Disney animated film, would narrate "Bongo," as well as sing a number of songs. Doing well enough at the box office, both halves of this film would be show on tv separately many time through the years, especially Mickey and the Beanstalk, which would be re-narrated by both cartoon character Ludvig Von Drake and long time Disney voice veteran, the guy originally meant to narrate the story, Sterling Holloway.

My Reaction: My feeling for "Fun and Fancy Free" are mixed. I think it is really sad that both stories were not allowed to be the full films they were meant to be, and think in the long run that may have hurt them, most notably Bongo. Bongo was originally going to be a sort of/ kind of sequel to "Dumbo," but was heavily scaled down to fit into this film as half of it. It was a good story, and I think if given the time to explore the main characters and add more depth to them, could have been really special. But instead it felt like just what it was, a filler to a Mickey Mouse film. Maybe part of it was just that, that as the film goes on, you feel like you can't wait to see Mickey, maybe part of it is that the film speeds up parts and stret ches out parts, and on both sides does it to the wrong parts? But all in all, I enjoy watching Bongo the circus bear more then the previous films made by Disney since "Bambi." "Fun and Fancy Free" is the closet film since "Bambi" to get back to that original "feel" of Disney Animated Films.

The second half of the film is without much doubt the best part of it. But, that said, it is still really sad that Mickey and the Beanstalk never got to be it's own film. Unused animation and story ideas, including Mickey selling the cow to the Queen of Happy Valley (Minnie Mouse) and then having "Pinocchio" foe, Honest John be the one to sell Mickey the "magic beans" could have been awesome. Like Bongo, it felt rushed and drug out at the wrong moments, just not to the extent of Bongo. But, that said, it is really easy to see why of the two parts, it has been shown and released on home entertainment formats the most. As for the live action bits, while a fan of Edger Bergen, I was sad that Walt felt the need to add any live action to any of his "fully" animated films, and was happy when he stopped by the 1950's.

My Wife's Reaction: She enjoyed it, but had never seen the original version of Mickey and the Beanstalk. Being as she grew up only ever seeing the re-released version with Ludvig von Drake narrating it, she had a hard time watching the original version as she prefers the later version.

My Final Grade: (B-) Great film as the "package films" go, with Bongo being the weaker portion and Mickey and the Beanstalk being the better half and best reason to watch it.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

"Congratulations to you, Mickey!"

Film: "Fantasia"

Release Date: 13 November 1940

Director: James Alger, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe, Norman Ferguson, Jim Handey, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen

History: It's no secret that both Walt Disney and his wife, Lillian, were big fans of classic music and the arts. Anyone who has ever lived in LA the last few years can tell you about the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where the LA Philharmonic play. The Disney Consert Hall gets it's name from the original contribution Lillian Disney made as a gift to the arts and Los Angeles, two things both of the Disney held fondly in their hearts. It comes as no surprise then at first glance that Walt would make a film like "Fantasia." But, upon review of the history of the film, one would discover that it was not love of classical music that originally was the genesis behind "Fantasia," but rather another one of Walt's great loves: Mickey Mouse.

Get into the late 1930's, the Mickey Mouse shorts were loosing popularity and it seemed more of Walt's audience wanted Donald Duck shorts instead. But Walt didn't want to give up on his most famous character and devised an idea for what was to be Mickey's big come back. Walt started work on a short for Mickey based on the 1797 poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, better known in English as The Sorcerer's Apprentice, with the music based on the L'apprenti sorcier, which was scored by Paul Dukas and based also on the original poem by Goethe. The animators really got into it and even had a little bit of fun at the bosses expense, naming the sorcerer Yen Sid (Disney spelled backwards). But after the extra long, nine minute short was made for the extremely large amount of $125,000, a very expense price tag for a short at the time, Disney was worried about actually releasing it by itself. It was a suggestion by conductor for the short Leopold Stokowski (who Disney had met early in 1938 while the short was being made, and graciously accepted the job of conducting, and doing it for free no less) to instead of releasing as a single short, add other segments and turn it into a full blown film. As a result, a new kind of animated film was formed, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice was joined by Fugue in D Minor, The Nutcracker Suite, The Rite of Spring, The Pastoral Symphony, Dance of the Hours, and last but not least, Night on Bald Mountain/ Ava Maria.

As production of The Sorcere's Aprentas turned into "Fantasia," Walt's vision for the project started to change. This was not meant to be a simple animated film like "Snow White" or the at that time in production "Pinocchio" was, but a place where animation, classic music, and pure art met to create what Walt called "The Concert Feature." As a result, he treated it like a fancy concert, complete with reserved seating in the theaters in the theaters that showed it, as well as expectations of fancy dress to those who attended, a program featuring production pictures, credits and synopsis for each segment and dedications by both Stokowski and Disney, an intermission and live action host (Deems Taylor) who would come out and provide introduction before each piece. Taylor's segments would also be the first time (of many) that live action would be used in one of the Disney Animated Masterpieces. Walt also commissioned the creation of a new, multi-channel sound system known as "Fantasound" in every theater playing "Fantasia." "Fantasound" would turn out to be a form of stereophonic sound, making "Fantasia" the first commercial film to use such technology.

Despite the hard work and innovative approaches, upon it's original release, "Fantasia" would be a box office bomb, partly as was the case with "Pinocchio" because of the loss of the European and Asian markets due to World war II, and part because audiences in the US and other markets that did see a release just couldn't get into a "Concert Feature" at that time. This, as well as the box office failure of "Pinocchio," left Disney in a lurch and made sure that Disney's original idea for the film, of being re-released each year with a mix of old and new segments, just like a classic music concert, would not happen. Ultimately, while not the original idea totally, it would spawn a squeal in "Fantasia 2000" some 60 years after it's original release. Despite the original set backs, and a few harsh criticisms over the years, most critics would go on to praise "Fantasia" and it was able to make the original money lost and some through it's various re-releases in theaters over the years and finally home video and DVD.

My Reaction: Blame it on my ADHD if you wish, or just say that I'm just not "cultured enough" to appreciate it, but I just don't get into "Fantasia" that much. That is not to say that I don't find myself enjoying classical music at all, as in fact as I've grown older I find that from time to time it is very soothing to my soul. But, I have to be in the right mood to enjoy it, other wise it's wasted on me. The same goes for "Fantasia." Upon watching the film again, I discovered this is still the case.

But that said, I find I can easily watch by itself The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Night on Bald Mountain segments just about anytime. This may be in part due to the fact that both segments are easily the most accessible and well made shorts in the film and have had many Disney Channel showing over the years. The historical significance is never lost on me, as is the case for what the film did to the animation medium period. As a die hard fan of animation, that is never lost on me. Upon watching this film again, I discovered that when in the right mood of course, "Fantasia" can be a very satisfying film. But if watched when not in the right mood, it will bore you to death like no other!

My Wife's Reaction: She got board at times it seemed, but over all seemed to enjoy it.

My Final Grade: (B-) I have to be honest, while I enjoy one or two of the segments, this is not one of my favorite Disney animated films. It's also however not my least favorite either. While I enjoyed the format update found in "Fantasia 2000" a lot more, I can still appreciate the leaps and bounds of what Walt was doing to the animation format with this film. He may have originally meant to save Mickey's career, but what he ended up doing was showing that animation didn't have to always be gags and funny stories, that sometimes it could truly be an establish, respected art form in the style of classical music and paintings.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.