Disney Animated Features
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Release Date: 27 September 1947
After three films in a row (Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, and Make Mine Music) that were merely collections of several animated shorts, Disney made this film, which comprised two featurettes. While still not a full-fledged animated film like Dumbo or Bambi, the longer-length segments allowed for more plot and character development.
The two segments of this film:
"
Mickey and the
Beanstalk" is, of course, a re-telling of the famous
fairy tale "
Jack and the Beanstalk." In it, pals
Mickey Mouse,
Donald Duck, and
Goofy are residents in a parched, destitute land, made infertile and unhappy by the kidnapping of a lovely singing
harp. Mickey sells the cow one day, and comes back with "magic" beans. Donald, of course, is furious, and tosses them away. You know the rest: a beanstalk,
Willie the Giant, and
happily ever after.
"Bongo" is considerably less memorable, a story narrated by Dinah Shore about a circus bear who wants to live in the wild.
Both segments have music. "Bongo" is introduced by Jiminy Cricket, and "Mickey and the Beanstalk" is introduced by, believe it or not, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. The film earned no Academy Award nominations, but it proved that Disney could still make longer animations, not just the shorts they'd been turning out since World War II began.
Information for the Disney Animated Features series of nodes comes from the IMDb (www.imdb.com), Frank's Disney Page (http://www.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/~fp/Disney/), and the dark recesses of my own memory.