[2] This was matched by Ray's own desire to make a movie that, unlike his previous films, would cater to children.

Plus, this would also give him an opportunity to lace the story with music and dancing, a point his movies' producers and distributors were always insisting upon.

[8] Phil Hall said that the film "comes as a delightful surprise – Ray, it appears, not only possessed a great sense of humor but also enjoyed a stunning talent for musical cinema".

[9] Gopinath Gyne alias Goopy is the son of a poor grocer Kanu Kyne from a village called Amloki.

In an attempt to mock him, the village elders persuade Goopy to sing for the king in the early morning hours right under His Majesty's bedroom window.

They also lose the power of their slippers when captured and hence cannot escape the jail by magic, but manage to do so by luring the famished gatekeeper with delicious foods.

Next, they wish for unlimited food and sweets, which rain from the sky on the starving soldiers who forget the battle and settle for filling their bellies.

Not only this, their singing takes off the evil effects of the potion given to the King of Halla, who drops the idea of capturing Shundi, and reunites happily with his brother.

Around 1967, Ray started toying with the idea of creating a film based on extra terrestrial creatures on Earth, and wrote a screenplay to that effect.

He intended to reach a wider audience with this film, prompted in part by the lukewarm box office performance of his previous movies Kapurush, Mahapurush and Nayak.

[4] R.D Bansal, who had produced those movies, became even less enthusiastic when he learnt of the film's estimated budget, and, as Ray told Marie Seton in December 1967, he spent the remainder of that year scouting for finance, and almost reduced to the same situation as he had been during shooting Pather Panchali.

[4] The film's pivotal sequence was a six and a half-minute dance, divided into four numbers, performed by the ghosts of the forest in front of Goopy and Bagha.

[12] He remembered a South Indian classical form he had once heard in the Delhi Film Festival, which used 12 musical instruments, of which he selected four.

The Times observed, "Ray is a true poet of the cinema, but he finds his poetry in everyday reality; in all-out fantasy, he seems somewhat prosaic".

Ray said to The Times of India about the plot of the fourth film: "Making a Goopy Bagha movie without Tapen and Rabi is unthinkable.