YMMV / Fun and Fancy Free

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• Adaptation Displacement: Bongo is already obscure by Disney standards, but pretty much no one knows about the original short story penned by Sinclair Lewis.
• 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 certainly wasn't Cinderella!" Cinderella wouldn't be released until three years later, although it was in production at the time.

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  • This wouldn't be the last time Mickey has a key that's as big as him.
• 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.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Donald Duck's hunger-induced nervous breakdown in Mickey and the Beanstalk. Surrounded by death, no possible source of food beyond the the of bread and beans being cut into its absolute thinnest to maintain resources, and absolutely no hope for the situation for the situation to get better the moment. He freaks out and tries to eat his plate and silverware. Mickey and Goofy almost have to strangle him to get him to stop. Then he sees the cow they own and goes Ax-Crazy on it in an attempt to kill it. The scariest things about these scenes weren't Donald suddenly going mad or his murderous impulses, but the realism of said portrayal. Donald's insanity is the result of desperate starvation due to an extreme famine, and it's a common fact that desperation due to near-death situations usually brings out the most violent, ugliest sides of human nature.
    • It is not helped by the fact that Donald gave two memorable terrifying faces in anticipation of using the axe to kill the cow and when he was starting to kill it. In the case of the latter scenario, Donald's irises become blood red and his sclera bright yellow as he goes into a hunger induced rage. In the case of the former, Donald gains thin, but noticeable ripple rings of alternating colors and his pupils shrinking in size to fit in the rings. This look combined with a Slasher Smile helps to create an iconic Donald Duck Sanity Slippage moment that that is Played for Drama instead of the usual comedic and over the top reaction.

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  • The sequence of Willie kidnapping the Harp is pretty unsettling to watch for very young viewers: First the giant's shadow covers the entire land then we see from behind the Harp how a pair of giant shadow hands approach the Harp as she helplessly watches in horror, the next shot the Harp is gone and her balcony is in ruins.
  • Edgar Bergan's dummies are Uncanny Valley Accidental Nightmare Fuel. Somewhat Nightmare Retardant, though, since they, especially Charlie, are Actually Pretty Funny despite their looks.
  • Even Willie himself, though largely comedic, drops his humor and cheerful attitude completely during the climax, reminding the audience that he's a giant, more than capable of grinding Mickey and his friends to dust... if he can catch them. When he wakes from his sleep to spot Mickey's group making off with the harp, Willie's eyes flash red before giving chase.

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  • When one notices the "What a happy day" song, only one cow is ever seen again... What did happen to them? Don't answer that.
• 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!
• Values Dissonance:
  • Edgar Bergen is throwing a small birthday party for a young Luana Patten. A modern viewer would probably find something quite odd about this little arrangement. May potentially be explainable by how he is a friend of her family and is watching her while her parents are out.
  • It can be kind of disturbing for modern audiences to watch the "Bears Like to Say it With a Slap" scene, as the idea of 'saying you love someone by hitting them' sounds eerily like a case of Domestic Abuse.
• Villain Has a Point: Not so much the film itself regarding Willie or Lumpjaw, but rather pointed out by the Magic Mirror in both Disney's Greatest Villains and A Disney Halloween that Willie is what sets the story in motion and not the beanstalk, arguing that the story should be called "Mickey and the Giant and the Beanstalk".

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