Disney Animation Collection 1: Mickey & Beanstalk

Movie: out of
Originally produced for the 1947 packaged feature Fun and Fancy Free, Mickey and the Beanstalk is Disney’s retelling of the classic children’s tale of a farmer selling his cow for some magic beans that lead to an adventure with a giant ogre. What is presented on this DVD release is the 1963 repurposed television version from the Wonderful World of Disney, removing Edgar Bergen’s excellent narration and interstitials (with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd) from Fun and Fancy Free and replacing with newer animation and narration by Ludwig Von Drake (voiced by Paul Frees). While the story itself is as enjoyable as it was in its original form, the replacement narration is not as clever or spontaneous, almost as if it was dumbed-down for a television audience. The interstitials with Ludwig Von Drake and Herman (a bug of some kind, resembling either an ant or cricket) feature television-style animation, and is not as fluid or detailed as the story.

Disney has also included four additional, similarly themed, Mickey Mouse shorts, all produced prior to his redesign for Fantasia:

The Brave Little Tailor, from 1938, has Mickey as the town tailor who is appointed by the king to kill the giant that is terrorizing the community. In exchange, he will be awarded the hand of the princess, played my Minnie Mouse.

In 1936’s Thru the Mirror, Mickey dreams of walking through a mirror into an alternate reality where inanimate objects come to life.

Gulliver Mickey, a black and white short from 1934, features Mickey, while babysitting his nieces and nephews, telling the story of when he was shipwrecked on an island of little people, paralleling the story of Gulliver’s Travels. Pluto puts in a brief appearance in this cartoon.

Mickey takes a train ride with Pluto from Burbank to Pomona for a vacation in Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip from 1940. The train’s conductor won’t allow Pluto to ride the train, so Mickey smuggles him on board.


Video: out of
All of the cartoons on this disc are presented in their proper aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The overall video quality ranges from barely acceptable to very good, depending on the short.

Unfortunately, Mickey and the Beanstalk falls into the barely acceptable category. Since this was repurposed in 1963 for television, a generation was lost, resulting in a loss of detail, added noise, and a darker image than what appeared on the now out of print Fun and Fancy Free DVD. I suspect this may be from the same master used for the prior laserdisc release.

Brave Little Tailor fares a bit better, with a brighter image, but is in obvious need of digital restoration. Although colors are well-saturated without bleeding, there is an excessive amount of noise and some compression artifacts. There is also, in some shots, cel dirt that resembles a swarm of white flies.

The video on Thru the Mirror is similar to Brave Little Tailor, with less noise and cel dirt, and appeared almost free of compression artifacts.

Gulliver Mickey is crisp for a black and white cartoon of its time period. Blacks are nice and inky, and whites are bright without blooming or appearing hot. This print is fairly free of dirt, with noise and compression artifacts at a minimum.

The best looking of the collection is Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip. Colors are bright and vivid, blacks are dark and inky, noise and compression artifacts are minimal, giving the video a nice film look. This is what you would normally expect on a Disney animated feature release.


Audio: out of
Mickey and the Beanstalk has been remixed in surround (encoded at 192 kbps Dolby Digital 2.0), but is still a relatively front-heavy mix, with occasional bleed of music in the surrounds. The remaining shorts are presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (also encoded at 192 kbps), and sound clean and clear, with minimal hiss and distortion.


Special Features: out of
Only a collection of Sneak Peeks have been provided on this disc. Included are trailers for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on Blu-ray, Disney/Pixar’s summer theatrical release Up, The Princess and the Frog (Disney’s return to traditional animation), Bedtime Stories, Disney Movie Rewards, Monsters Inc on Blu-ray, Tigger & Pooh and a Musical Too, The Black Cauldron: Special Edition, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Big Splash, and Disney Parks.


Overall: out of
For kids, this DVD will tide them over until Disney gets around to re-issuing Fun and Fancy Free on DVD (and hopefully Blu-ray). Adult fans of Mickey and the Beanstalk would be better off waiting for the re-issue of that classic Disney feature.