Fun & Fancy Free is kind of an under represented Disney Classic, understandably so, but it had a few interesting dubbing differences to point out.
The Portuguese title is “How Good It Is To Have Fun.”
Jiminy sings about being a “very lucky man” instead of a “happy-go-lucky fellow.” It’s made me consider the connection between luck and happiness linguistically.
Two minutes in and already visual metaphors and stuff are being diluted down into their literal forms: “Don’t cross the bridge or peek ’round the corner” is just “Don’t worry about the future,” and “Trouble’s a bubble of air” is “Problems will go away.”
Strangely, Jiminy Cricket’s name is no longer “Talking Cricket” like it was in Pinocchio—it’s just Jiminy Cricket in Portuguese.
When Jiminy tells the doll and bear to be “full of fun and fancy free,” he says “full of joy and carefreeness.”
Understandably, Jiminy leaves out the part of the Bongo record’s title about it being narrated by Dinah Shore. He just says it’s a “musical story.”
- Instead of saying “A ringer!” when he gets the record onto the spindle of the record player, Jiminy just says “Look at that!”
Bongo
The entire story of Bongo doesn’t rhyme in Portuguese like it does in English.
“Gotta get away!” is changed to “Free yourself!”
A line is added when Bongo trips over a tree root. The Narrator playfully says “Poor Bongo!” In English, nothing is spoken.
After Bongo’s rough night in the woods, when he sneezes and almost falls off a cliff, a little kid’s voice is dubbed over his saying, “Achoo! Aa! Aa! Aa!” It’s really annoying and out of place, and it never shows up again.
“It is too good to be true” in the song is replaced with “I found my great love.”
This isn’t concerning the Portuguese dub, but hearing it made me realize after all this time that Lulubelle says “Just a moment! This is my affair.” I always thought she said “This is my bear.”
The faint reprise of “It was too good to be true” when Bongo leaves Lulubelle is taken out in the Portuguese version. I’m guessing because that wasn’t the chorus in the Portuguese song.
The song “Say It With a Slap” is handled very oddly. The first half is clumsily sung through in Portuguese only rhyming about half the time (Portuguese has so many syllables that a square dance-style song like that was not fun to listen to). The square dance caller calls in Portuguese, then for some reason, the reprise of the song plays entirely in English! It’s like halfway through they gave up trying to make it sound good and just changed it to the original.
Edgar Bergen and Mickey & The Beanstalk
This is a travesty—the Brazilians done went and dubbed Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist characters with different voices! What the heck! It’s so weird to hear an actual woman’s voice speaking for his little hand puppet and the dummies with clearly different male voice actors. Not only does this destroy the whole point of ventriloquism, but wouldn’t it have been easier to just find one voice actor to do all the voices?
Instead of saying “Ooh, help help help!” Ophelia the hand puppet says “Ooh, I want it I want it I want it!”
Edgar Bergen: “That’s not what I said” instead of “I don’t mean that.”
Charlie’s name is Carlito, which is the Spanish form of “Little Charles” or “Charlie.”
The bull doesn’t change his moo into the “My” of “My, what a happy day.” Instead, he just says “Mmmmm! What a happy day!”
The Golden Harp’s scream of fear when she’s kidnapped is taken out. I hate when they do that instead of just leaving in the English version.”
When the corn turns to dust, Charlie says “What a little shame” instead of “Kerplop.”
I can’t tell what Carlitos says instead of “Gruesome Gulch.”
Edgar Bergen says “One grain” instead of “one bean.” I’m guessing that because the Portuguese word for beans, feijão, is a count noun, they say “grains of bean” instead of “beans.” Just like in English we do with “grains of rice.”
Instead of saying “He says he’s alright, but I wonder,” Edgar Bergen says “He says he’s alright, but I doubt it.”
Donald doesn’t say “Bossy” when talking to the cow. He just says “Here, cowsy wowsy” several times.
I love idiom changes. Instead of saying “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” Carlitos says “Friends are friends, cows aside.” This is a variation on a Portuguese saying “Friends are friends, deals aside,” which means to keep relationships out of professional matters. I’d say it’s a solid replacement for the English saying and makes about as much sense.
Carlitos: “We’ll push her into an abyss!” instead of “push her off a cliff!”
Since the rhyming needed to fit, the food song is worth translating:
English: “Turkey, lobster, sweet potato pie! Pancakes piled up till they reach the sky! Lots of starches, lots of greens… Fancy chocolate covered…” “Beans!”
Portuguese: “Chicken, beef steak, lime pie! A thousand sausages, lots of pasta! There’s papaya compote… There’s candy made from…” “Beans!”
Edgar Bergen narrates the castle as being “High above the earth” instead of “Miles above” it.
In English Willie says “I smell…” and Charlie says “You’re telling us!” In Portuguese, it’s basically the same exchange, but the transitive verb “to smell [something]” in Portuguese is “I sense the smell of…” So the joke of him smelling bad is lost and Carlitos’s joke doesn’t make sense.
Willie: “I can transform myself into the most terrible things!” It’s an odd translation since he seems almost embarrassed about it.
Sometimes Willie says “He hi ho hum” instead of “Fe fi fo fum.”
The Golden Harp sings about her “ideal dream” instead of her “favorite dream.”
Mickey’s pepper sneeze when he’s in the sandwich is undubbed, but his snuff sneeze in Willie’s pocket is not.
Willi’s classic sneeze is dubbed, which is a shame. Usually they keep those hilarious wordless exchanges in the better English version.
Both Edgar Bergen and Mortimer say “Fixation of your imagination,” so it rhymes both times.
- Willie: “Hey, has anyone seen anything that looks like a little mouse like this? Teeny tiny?”
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love feedback and suggestions. Please comment with your thoughts!