Trivia / Fun and Fancy Free

• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • Dinah Shore was one of the most successful American recording artists at the time of production, and she narrated (and sang) in Bongo.
  • In the 1981 Japanese TV dub for TBS, Shore's voice (both singing and narration) was dubbed by Peggy Hayama, one of Japan's best-known jazz/pop vocalists. Hayama also provided the singing voice of the Harp in "Mickey and the Beanstalk" (though the Harp's speaking voice was dubbed by Keiko Yokozawa).
• Completely Different Title:
  • "Coquin de Printemps" (That Cheeky Spring) in France.
  • "Bongo e i tre avventurieri" (Bongo and the three adventurers) in Italian.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Mickey in "Mickey and the Beanstalk" was dubbed by Yoshiko Ohta (of Himitsu no Akko-chan fame) in the 1981 Japanese TV dub.
• Dueling Dubs: The film was dubbed into Japanese four times. The first premiered as part of Tokyo Broadcasting System's "Disney Special" block in 1981. Towards the end of the '80s, another dub was produced for Bandai's VHS release. Buena Vista Home Entertainment's 1990 VHS release contained yet another dub. By 1995, a fourth dub premiered on WOWOW; this version was eventually carried over to the Disney+ release.
• Edited for Syndication: When "Mickey and the Beanstalk" was shown on Disney's Wonderful World of Color, the dragonfly battle and the antics of Goofy and the gelatin were shortened.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: During the Bongo segment, when the circus train starts, it's the exact same one as Casey, Jr.'s starting sounds with his circus train from Dumbo (which, funny enough, was meant to be a tie-in piece).
• The Other Darrin:
  • Jimmy MacDonald takes over the role of Mickey here after Walt Disney stepped down from the role due to a combination of his smoking habit making his voice too hoarse to maintain Mickey's falsetto and getting too busy running the company.
  • Four dubs of the film exist in Japan (two for television, two for home video), each featuring a different stable of voice actors.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • Mickey and the Beanstalk was going to be part of a proposed package feature that would have featured either The Gremlins or The Wind in the Willows. The former would not be made, while the latter ended up being part of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
  • Jiminy Cricket's song in this film, "I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow", was originally created for Pinocchio, but was ultimately not used in that film.
• Two Voices, One Character: While Walt Disney provided most of Mickey's dialogue for Mickey and the Beanstalk, some of his additional dialogue was done by Jimmy MacDonald.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Earlier versions of the Beanstalk segment had two versions of where Mickey got the beans. One version has Honest John and Gideon being the tricksters who sell Mickey the beans, while another has Mickey meeting the queen of Happy Valley: Minnie, who gives him the beans as thanks after mistaking his cow for a gift.
  • According to the featurette included on the DVD and on the 1997 VHS and laserdisc, both were originally going to be made into full-length films, with Bongo being a companion piece to Dumbo, to the point where the Elephant Matriarch, Catty, Prissy, and Giddy were to make an appearance. However, when the US entered World War II, the idea was shelved.
    • "Mickey and the Beanstalk" (albeit the Sterling Holloway-narrated version) did air as a "warm-up" short when Dumbo was broadcast on NBC in 1985, as did Lambert the Sheepish Lion.
  • When Bongo was still being developed as a full-length feature, several new characters were added. These included Chimpy, a monkey sidekick for Bongo; a pair of mischievous bear cubs; and Stinky, a manifestation of Bongo's animal instincts. There was even an appearance by Mother Nature, depicted as a flighty business woman. Eventually, the cast was pared down to the original three characters from the Sinclair story.
  • Bongo's love interest was named "Susie" and then "Silveryear" before the animators settled on "Lulubelle."
  • Dinah Shore would have appeared in live-action framing sequences, narrating the story of Bongo to a troop of girl scouts.
  • Originally, Mickey, Donald and Goofy would have had separate adventures before entering the giant's castle, a format borrowed from the shorts starring the three of them together. Mickey would have tried to ride a grasshopper like a horse, Donald would have fallen into a bird's nest and been mistaken for one of the hatchlings, and Goofy would have eaten berries that made him invisible. (The latter two ideas were later worked into two Donald Duck cartoons, "The Contrary Condor" and "The Vanishing Private".) Pluto was also considered as a member of the party, and Clara Cluck would have been the hen that laid golden eggs.
  • Walt briefly considered having a framing story in which Mickey and friends threatened to go on strike if they didn't get a feature film. Ironic, considering the studio would go through a bitter strike not long afterwards.
  • Early designs for Bongo and Lulubelle appear older and less anthropomorphic.
  • As revealed in some concept art, Donald was originally going to have a run-in with Willie's cat, played by a giant version of Figaro, who was gaining in popularity in the shorts.

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