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Too much of everything

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This "Fun and Fancy Free" DVD (cheerfully brought to you by Disney Studios) contains two, enjoyable, 35-minute animated films from 1947.Hosted by everyone's favourite insect - Jiminy Cricket - These 2 tales of fun-fun-fun and fancy-free adventure also feature several musical numbers as an added bonus.Story #1 is all about Bongo, the circus bear, who desperately wants to get himself back to the forest, like, pronto.Story #2 has Mickey Mouse (taking the place of Jack), along with Donald Duck and Goofy, climbing the beanstalk all the way up to the nasty giant's fantastic castle in the sky - "Fee-Fye-Foe-Fum!" *Note* - Mickey Mouse was voiced by Walt Disney, himself.

Yet another Disney film that tried to hold them aloft after the war years. A short film collection, like all the rest, though this time we only get a two segments and a framing story featuring Jiminy Cricket.Of these two segment, Bongo, the first one, is pure boredom. It's nothing but this circus bear escaping his confinement and gallivanting around in the forest. And you already know how it goes. At first he's thrilled, then the actual, you know, nature rears its ugly head, he meets other animals, gets into trouble, rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Granted, the animation is pretty good, some of physical stunts are pretty humorous and the music could be worse, but it's simply so uninteresting. Nothing of value happens, the main character barely has a personality and... boring! Mickey and the Beanstalk, on the other hand, is a born classic. This is an incredible segment, featuring Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck as medieval farmers living in an enchanted valley, ruled by a magic harp (it's not as weird as you think), who unfortunately has now gone missing and thus everyone hungers. And you know the story. Mickey goes to sell their cow, buys some "magic" beans, and the rest is story telling history. It's action-packed, the three make for a hilarious comedic trio, the animation is impressive, the story thrilling and it's just a great deal of fun.I also have to mention that the framing story is beyond creepy, especially the ending. Jiminy Cricket is fine, he's one of Disney's finest as always, but they decided to hire a famous ventriloquist Edgar Bergen to play himself in the framing story, and his puppets are simply put pure horror. Who decided this was appropriate for little kids? So yeah, Mickey and the Beanstalk is a really good segment, but it has since been re-released on its own so many times that there's really no reason to see its actual origins film. Watch this if you want to say you've seen them all.

This is yet another short story combination from Walt Disney which is pretty much a commonplace with the likes of "Saludos Amigos" and "The Three Caballeros" but it is still good fun and will take you to see a different twist to your fairy tale you grew up with. Here, Pinocchio's Jiminy Cricket takes centre stage as he hops though a bunch of records and comes across "Bongo", a story about a little bear who runs away from the circus and finds the girls of his dreams then bounces over to a nearby house to see real life people (Walt Disney was into having real life scenes at this stage of the Disney era) telling the story of "Mickey and the Beanstalk" where (you guess it) Mickey, Donald and Goofy climb up the beanstalk that tells the classic fairy tale the Disney way. I find this inferior to "Make Mine Music" which came out before it but this is a great way to past 70 minutes and if there's nothing on T.V then this will be a good alternative.7/10

This is a good combination of two animated stories/shorts: Bongo and Micky and the Beanstalk. while watching a mixture of stories and a mixture of animation and live action was a little awkward, Jiminy Cricket held it together. This film's latest release on video gives everyone the opportunity to see this tiny treasure for the first time. While, it doesn't rank up with the Best of Disney's animation, it is still worth seeing, if nothing else for Walt Disney's last film as the voice of Mickey.