Fun and Fancy Free / YMMV

Adaptation Displacement: Bongo is already obscure by Disney standards, but pretty much no one knows about the original short story penned by Sinclair Lewis.
- This and The Muppet Movie/Show are the only way most modern audiences know about Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd.
- Related, but "Mickey and the Beanstalk" was often aired separately on television and even released separately on home video - removed from its original context and with a different dub, causing some people to be unaware that it was actually a part of a larger package film.
Alternative Character Interpretation: There's a lot of back and forth on whether or not Willie the Giant is just a ditzy oaf or a cunning and malicious tyrant.
- Was Willie aware that stealing the Harp would bring famine to Happy Valley? Would he had changed his mind if he did?
- Was Willie being gullible in accepting Mickey's offer to transform into a fly or was he just playing along to find out Mickey's true intentions?
Fridge Brilliance: Why do Goofy's pants keep falling down? He's been losing weight from starvation, so of course they wouldn't fit as well as they used to.
Fridge Logic: Why was Willie looking for Mickey? He does ask if anyone's seen a teensie-weensie mouse, indicating he may have wanted revenge but his look and tone didn't really indicate that.
He Really Can Act: Donald Duck's hunger induced Sanity Slippage resulting in him trying to kill the cow shows that Clarence Nash could really make him sound frightening when the situation called for it.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Okay, picture this: Bongo, a bear who escaped from the circus to live free in the wild. Fast-foward many years later...
- Two talking puppets and a human watching and commenting on a movie.
- "Who could have made such footprints?" "Well, it wasn't Cinderella!" Cinderella wouldn't be released until three years later, although it was in production at the time.
- This wouldn't be the last time Mickey has a key that's as big as him.
- Record players actually did make a resurgence in The New '10s.
Iron Woobie: Subverted in "Mickey and the Beanstalk", where Edgar Bergen builds Donald up to be this, only for the latter to snap at him and undergo a nervous breakdown.
Edgar Bergen: Just look at that miserable creature. Doggedly struggling to maintain life. A gaunt, lean bag of bones and feathers. Truly a picture of despair. But Donald doesn't whimper. Donald doesn't give up...
Donald Duck: SHUT UP! I CAN'T STAND IT!
Just Here for Godzilla: Dinah Shore fans might want to check out Bongo solely to hear her voice.
Memetic Mutation: The scene where Mickey cuts the bread into super-thin transparent slices has become a popular meme GIF.
Older Than They Think:
- This isn't Mickey Mouse's first time starring in a Jack and the Beanstalk parody. The first was the 1933 cartoon Giantland, which also included such details as Mickey trying to hide among the food on the giant's table, the giant unwittingly putting him in a sandwich, and Mickey sending a cloud of powder into the giant's face (in Giantland it's pepper, while here it's snuff), causing him to sneeze and buying Mickey time to escape.
- Nor is Mickey and the Beanstalk the first cartoon version of Jack and the Beanstalk where the beanstalk grows from under the house and lifts the sleeping Jack character(s) into the air in his/their bed(s). This also happens in the 1939 Walter Lantz cartoon The Magic Beans. As it happens, that cartoon's Jack character, Beanie, is also an anthropomorphic mouse.
- This also isn't the first time Charlie McCarthy has appeared in a Disney production, as he made an animated cameo in the 1938 Silly Symphonies short Mother Goose Goes Hollywood.
Signature Scene: Donald's breakdown from Mickey and the Beanstalk is the most talked about scene from this movie, and is arguably one of the most infamous sequences in the entire Disney Animated Canon.
So Okay, It's Average: Varying views:
- To some, aside from Mickey and the Beanstalk, none of the cartoons or scenes stand out too much.
- Others instead find Mickey and the Beanstalk to be too slow for its own good and say it is this trope, while instead praising Bongo.
Special Effects Failure: Let's just say that Edgar Bergen's ventriloquist talents aren't particularly convincing to most modern viewers. Even at the time he was well aware that his lips visibly moved and made up for it with his witty writing for his puppets, including having Charlie point this out. Just notice how his biggest success was on the radio.
Tear Jerker:
- Willie the Giant's apparent death, or at least for the soft-hearted dummy Mortimer Snerd.
- The circumstances that led to Donald's breakdown; being reduced to having paper thin slices of bread with a single sliced bean, it's understandable why he just snapped.
  Donald: I just gotta eat! I'm so hungry!
Unintentional Period Piece: Animated segments aside, this movie is clearly a period piece for The '40s. Notable in the use of the Hollywood lights, 78 RPM record players, the presence of the Brown Derby restaurant in the end (closed in 1980), the line "All the world is gay!", and stars who were relevant over radio and in The '40s.
Values Dissonance:
- In Bongo, bears show affection for each other via Domestic Abuse. There's even a musical number about it ("(Bears Like to) Say it With a Slap"). That would not go over the same way today.
- The golden harp sings "All the world is gay!" which many a YouTube comment and modern viewers snickered at.
- Some might interpret the idea of Bergen having a small and private birthday party for Luanna Patten as a little strange - but intergenerational friendships were of a different nature around the time the film was produced.
Values Resonance: That said, it's easy to interpret Luanna Patten's parents as being out for the night for whatever reason, so they asked their family friend Edgar Bergen to watch her for the evening - and their relationship is proven to be very wholesome. Especially since Charlie McCarthy is supposed to be a child too, so the party can be seen as a play date between them with Bergen as a kindly, parental supervisor. The idea of male caretakers is more accepted in the twenty-first century.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The animated Jiminy Cricket drinking a very real cocktail glass through a straw. And this was decades before Who Framed Roger Rabbit, too!

YMMV / Fun and Fancy Free

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