Pinocchio (1940 film)
Encyclopedia
Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 and based on the story The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Carlo Collodi
Carlo Lorenzini , better known by the pen name Carlo Collodi, was an Italian children's writer known for the world-renowned fairy tale novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio.-Biography:...

. It is the second film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, and it was made after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...

 and was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on February 7, 1940, and later re-released by Buena Vista Distribution Company.

The plot of the film involves an old wood-carver
Wood carving
Wood carving is a form of working wood by means of a cutting tool in one hand or a chisel by two hands or with one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, resulting in a wooden figure or figurine, or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object...

 named Geppetto who carves a wooden puppet named Pinocchio
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...

 (voice of Dickie Jones) being brought to life by a blue fairy (Evelyn Venable
Evelyn Venable
Evelyn Venable was an American actress. In addition to starring in several films in the 1930s and 1940s, she is notable as the voice and model for the Blue Fairy in the Walt Disney's Pinocchio....

), who tells him he can become a real boy if he proves himself "brave, truthful, and unselfish". Thus begin the puppet's adventures to become a real boy, which involve many encounters with a host of unsavory characters.

The film was adapted by Aurelius Battaglia, William Cottrell, Otto Englander, Erdman Penner, Joseph Sabo, Ted Sears
Ted Sears
Ted Sears was an American animator during The Golden Age of American animation. Sears worked for the Fleischer Studios in the late-1920s and early-1930s, and was hired away from Max Fleischer to work at the Walt Disney studio in 1931.As the first head of Disney's story department, Sears did...

, and Webb Smith from Collodi's book. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen
Ben Sharpsteen
Ben Sharpsteen was an American film director and producer for Disney. He directed 31 films between 1920 and 1980....

 and Hamilton Luske
Hamilton Luske
Hamilton Luske was an American animator and film director. He joined the Disney Studio in 1931 and he was soon trusted enough by Walt Disney to be made supervising animator of Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.He directed many Disney films and shorts from 1936 until his death in 1968...

, and the film's sequences were directed by Norman Ferguson
Norman Ferguson
William Norman "Norm" Ferguson was an animator for Walt Disney Studios and a central contributor to the studio's stylistic development in the 1930s. He is most frequently noted for his contribution to the creation of Pluto, one of the studio's best-known and most enduring characters, and is the...

, T. Hee
T. Hee
This article is about the animator. For the James Bond villain, see Tee Hee.Thornton "T." Hee, born Alex Campbell was an American animator, director, and teacher. He taught character design and caricature. He is always credited as T. Hee.Hee worked at Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1935-36 as...

, Wilfred Jackson
Wilfred Jackson
Wilfred Jackson was an American animator, arranger, composer and director best known for his work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series of cartoons and the two segments Night on Bald Mountain and Ave Maria of Fantasia from The Walt Disney Company.Wilfred Jackson was born in Chicago,...

, Jack Kinney
Jack Kinney
Jack Ryan Kinney was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts.Jack Kinney attended John Muir Junior High School in Los Angeles, California , and attended John C. Fremont High School there with Roy Williams...

, and Bill Roberts.

Pinocchio won two Academy Awards, one for Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...

 and one for Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...

 for the song "When You Wish upon a Star
When You Wish upon a Star
"When You Wish upon a Star" is a song written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Walt Disney's 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio. The original version of the song was sung by Cliff Edwards in the character of Jiminy Cricket, and is heard over the opening credits and again in the final scene of the...

".

Plot

The film is told primarily in story from the book by Jiminy Cricket to the audience.

The film begins when a small wayfarer named Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket is the Walt Disney version of "The Talking Cricket" , a fictional character created by Carlo Collodi for his children's book Pinocchio, which was adapted into an animated film by Disney in 1940...

 watches the Evening Star, gets bored, and looks for a place to rest. He notices a light in the window of Geppetto, the old wood-carver's workshop and walks in to warm himself, and sits by the warm fireplace under the hearth. Geppetto works on a wooden marionette
Marionette
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...

 boy he names Pinocchio
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...

 for his "wooden-head". Before falling asleep, Geppetto makes a wish on a falling star
Meteoroid
A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite...

 that Pinocchio could become a real boy. Long after Geppetto has fallen asleep, the Evening Star begins to glow, and comes through the window. Then, the gorgeous Blue Fairy
Blue Fairy
The Fairy With Turquoise Hair is a fictional character in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio. She repeatedly appears at critical moments in Pinocchio's wanderings to admonish the little wooden puppet to avoid bad or risky behavior...

 appears to grant Geppetto's wish and brings Pinocchio to life, though he is still a puppet. The fairy tells Pinocchio that if he wants to become a real boy of flesh and blood he must prove himself to be brave, truthful and unselfish and able to tell right from wrong by listening to his conscience
Conscience
Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...

. Pinocchio does not understand what a conscience is, and Jiminy appears to explain it to him. The Blue Fairy asks if Jiminy would serve as Pinocchio's conscience, a task he accepts.

When Geppetto is awoken by some brief ruckus, he discovers that his wish has come true and is filled with joy, and the next day he sends Pinocchio to school. However, Pinocchio is led to the conniving con artists Honest John and Gideon, who convince him to join a puppet show led by Stromboli, a bossy puppeteer
Puppeteer
A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, such as a puppet, in real time to create the illusion of life. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or...

. Pinocchio becomes Stromboli
Stromboli (Pinocchio)
Mangiafuoco is the fictional wealthy director of the Great Marionette Theatre who appears in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio . He is described as "...a large man so ugly, he evoked fear by simply being looked at...

's star attraction, but when Pinocchio offers to come back in the morning, Stromboli locks Pinocchio in a birdcage to stop him from leaving. Jiminy goes into the caravan to wish Pinocchio "good-luck", thus realizing than Pinocchio had been duped into servitude. When Jiminy is unable to break the padlock, the Blue Fairy comes to discover that Pinocchio played hooky and as Pinocchio lies, his nose grows into a tree-branch with a bird's nest. The Blue Fairy explains the consequences of lying to Pinocchio, that lies can "grow and grow, until it's as plain as the nose on his face". At the pleas of Jiminy, the Blue Fairy frees Pinocchio from the cage, but warns him that it's the last time she can help him.

During Pinocchio's escape, Honest John and Gideon meet the Coachman
The Coachman
The Coachman , also known as The Little Man , is a fictional character who appears in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio .-Role:...

 at the Red Lobster Inn to talk business. The Coachman explains that he is seeking foolish boys to dupe into going to Pleasure Island. Honest John worries that the police will intervene and the Coachman says that there's no risk, and implies that the boys do not ever come back as humans and orders Honest John and Gideon to get Pinocchio. Pinocchio is determined to behave, but on his way back to Geppetto's house, Pinocchio is once again led astray by Honest John and Gideon, who convince him to go to Pleasure Island
Pleasure Island (Pinocchio)
The Land of Toys is a fictional location in the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. In the Disney film adaptation of the novel, the land is renamed as Pleasure Island...

. On his way he befriends Lampwick, a misbehaved and destructive boy. Then Jiminy discovers Pinocchio and Lampwick playing pool and scolds him, but when Lampwick makes fun of him, Jiminy threatens to beat him up, but when Pinocchio tells Jiminy that lampwick is his "Best Friend", Jiminy becomes angry and leaves, only to discover that the island has a curse that transforms boys who "make jackasses
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...

 of themselves" into real donkeys, who are then sold to work in the salt mine
Salt mine
A salt mine is a mining operation involved in the extraction of rock salt or halite from evaporite deposits.-Occurrence:Areas known for their salt mines include Kilroot near Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland ; Khewra and Warcha in Pakistan; Tuzla in Bosnia; Wieliczka and Bochnia in Poland A salt mine...

s and circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

es as part of an evil racket run by The Coachman and his dark ape
Ape
Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...

-like henchmen. While still playing pool with each other, Lampwick is soon transformed into a donkey, and Pinocchio gains donkey ears and a tail, but is able to stop the full force of the curse by escaping from Pleasure Island with Jiminy.

Upon returning home, they find the workshop empty and soon learn from a letter by the Blue Fairy that Geppetto, while venturing out to sea to rescue Pinocchio from Pleasure Island, had been swallowed by a giant whale named Monstro. Determined to rescue his father, Pinocchio jumps into the bottom of the ocean, with Jiminy accompanying him. However, Pinocchio is soon found and eaten by Monstro, where he is reunited with Geppetto and his pets inside the whale. Pinocchio devises an escape plan by burning wood in order to make Monstro sneeze. The plan works, but the enraged whale gives chase. The chase ends when Pinocchio sacrifices his life to save his father while Monstro is killed when he crashes against a cliff. As Geppetto, Jiminy and the pets mourn Pinocchio's battered wooden-body, the Blue Fairy decides that Pinocchio has proven himself unselfish and thus fulfills her promise to turn him into a real boy, bringing him back to life, much to the joy of Geppetto and Jiminy. The film concludes with Jiminy saying a heartfelt thank you to the wishing star that is the Blue Fairy and is rewarded with a gold badge that reads "Official Conscience".

Production

In September 1937, during the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...

, animator Norman Ferguson
Norman Ferguson
William Norman "Norm" Ferguson was an animator for Walt Disney Studios and a central contributor to the studio's stylistic development in the 1930s. He is most frequently noted for his contribution to the creation of Pluto, one of the studio's best-known and most enduring characters, and is the...

 brought a translated version of Carlo Collodi
Carlo Collodi
Carlo Lorenzini , better known by the pen name Carlo Collodi, was an Italian children's writer known for the world-renowned fairy tale novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio.-Biography:...

's 1883 Italian children's novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio to the attention of Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

. After reading the book "Walt was busting his guts with enthusiasum" as Ferguson said. Pinocchio was intended to be the studio's third film, after Bambi
Bambi
Bambi is a 1942 American animated film directed by David Hand , produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten...

. However, Bambi proved to be a challenging film to adapt, so Pinocchio was moved ahead in production while Bambi was put on hold.

The plan for the original film was considerably different from what was released. Numerous characters and plot points from the original novel were used in early drafts. Walt Disney was displeased with the work that was being done and called a halt to the project midway into production so that the concept could be rethought and the characters redesigned.

Originally, Pinocchio was to be depicted as a Charlie McCarthy-esque wise guy, equally as rambunctious and sarcastic as the puppet in the original novel. He looked exactly like a real wooden puppet with a long pointed nose, a peaked cap and bare wooden hands. But Walt found that no one could really sympathize with such a character and so designer and lead animator Milt Kahl
Milt Kahl
Milton Erwin Kahl was an animator for the Disney studio, and one of Disney's Nine Old Men....

 had to redesign the puppet as much as possible. Eventually, he revised the puppet to make him look more like a real boy, with a button nose, a child's Tyrolean hat
Tyrolean hat
The Tyrolean hat is a type of fedora hat named for the Tyrol in the Alps. It is essentially the shape known as the Trilby. Tyrolean hats are made of felt, traditionally having a corded hatband and a feather on the side as trim....

, and standard cartoon character 4-fingered (or 3 and a thumb) hands with Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

-type gloves on them. Milt quoted, "I don't think of him as a puppet, I think of him as a little boy". The only parts of him that still looked more or less like a puppet were his arms and legs. In this film, he is still led astray by deceiving characters, but gradually learns bit by bit and is depicted as innocent, naïve, somewhat coy and exhibits a good heart. For example when he is offered to go to Pleasure Island he inquires he needs to go home several times, before Honest John and Gideon pick him up themselves and carry him away.

Additionally, it was at this stage that the character of the cricket was expanded and Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket is the Walt Disney version of "The Talking Cricket" , a fictional character created by Carlo Collodi for his children's book Pinocchio, which was adapted into an animated film by Disney in 1940...

 became central to the story. Originally the cricket was only a minor character. Once the character was expanded, he was depicted as an actual (that is, less anthropomorphized) cricket with toothed legs and waving antennae. But again Walt wanted something more likable.
Ward Kimball
Ward Kimball
Ward Walrath Kimball was an animator for the Walt Disney Studios. He was one of Walt Disney's team of animators known as Disney's Nine Old Men.-Career:...

 had spent several months animating a "Soup Eating Sequence" in Snow White which was cut from the film due to pacing reasons. Ward was about to quit until Walt rewarded him for his work by promoting him to the "supervising animator" of Jiminy Cricket. Ward conjured up the design for Jiminy Cricket as "a little man with an egg head and no ears. And the only thing that makes him a cricket is because we call him one."

Due to the huge success of Snow White, Walt Disney wanted more famous voices for Pinocchio, which marked the first time an animated film had used celebrities as voice actors. Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket is the Walt Disney version of "The Talking Cricket" , a fictional character created by Carlo Collodi for his children's book Pinocchio, which was adapted into an animated film by Disney in 1940...

 was played by Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards , also known as "Ukelele Ike", was an American singer and voice actor who enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop standards and novelty tunes. He had a number-one hit with "Singin' in the Rain" in 1929...

, who at the time, was a popular singer who introduced the song Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain (song)
"Singin' In the Rain" is a song with lyrics by Arthur Freed and music by Nacio Herb Brown, published in 1929. However, it is unclear exactly when the song was written with some claiming that the song was written and performed as early as 1927. The song was listed as Number 3 on AFI's 100 Years.....

. He was also an actor on Broadway and in films such as The Hollywood Revue of 1929
The Hollywood Revue of 1929
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 is a 1929 part Technicolor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer American musical-comedy film. It was the studio's second feature-length musical, and one of the earliest ventures into the talkie format. Produced by Harry Rapf and directed by Chuck Riesner, the film brought together some...

, Those Three French Girls
Those Three French Girls
Those Three French Girls is a 1930 American comedy film directed by Harry Beaumont and starring Fifi D'Orsay, Reginald Denny and Cliff Edwards. While on holiday in a small French town, an Englishman encounters three French girls and two American men. The dialogue was written by P.G....

, and he had a small part in Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...

. The character of Pinocchio was voiced by child actor Dickie Jones who had recently been in Mr Smith Goes to Washington. Musical theatre actor Walter Catlett
Walter Catlett
Walter Catlett was an American actor. As a San Francisco citizen, he started out in vaudeville with a detour for a while in opera before breaking into films.-Early career:...

, who had appeared in classics such as Bringing Up Baby
Bringing up Baby
Bringing Up Baby is an American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, and released by RKO Radio Pictures....

 and Mr Deeds Goes to Town, played Foulfellow the Fox. Christian Rub
Christian Rub
Christian Rub was known as a character actor from the late 1910s to the early 1950s, and was featured in more than 100 movies, often uncredited. He was born in Passau, Bavaria, Germany. His first appearance was in the movie The Belle of New York...

 played Geppetto and the design of the character was even a caricature of Rub. Young Frankie Darro
Frankie Darro
Frankie Darro was an American actor and later in his career a stuntman. He began his career as a child actor in silent films, progressed to lead roles and co-starring roles in adventure, western, dramatic, and comedy films, and later became a character actor and voice-over artist.-Early life:Darro...

 who had starred in Wild Boys of the Road and had supporting roles in The Phantom Empire
The Phantom Empire
The Phantom Empire, starring Gene Autry the Singing Cowboy, was a 12-chapter 1935 Mascot serial that combined the western, musical, and science fiction genres. The first episode is 30 mins, the rest about 20 minutes...

 and A Day at the Races
A Day at the Races (film)
Further reading* Elisabeth Buxbaum: Veronika, der Lenz ist da. Walter Jurmann – Ein Musiker zwischen den Welten und Zeiten. Mit einem Werkverzeichnis von Alexander Sieghardt. Edition Steinbauer, Wien 2006, ISBN 3-902494-18-2-External links:*...

, played Lampwick. Evelyn Venable
Evelyn Venable
Evelyn Venable was an American actress. In addition to starring in several films in the 1930s and 1940s, she is notable as the voice and model for the Blue Fairy in the Walt Disney's Pinocchio....

, who is said to be the inspiration for the Columbia Lady
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

, played The Blue Fairy while Charles Judels
Charles Judels
Charles Judels was a Dutch-born American film actor. He appeared in 137 films between 1915 and 1949. He also did extensive work as a voice-over actor in animated films, notably as the voice of Stromboli in Walt Disney's Pinocchio, and in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes short Porky's Garden.He was...

 played both the villainous Stromboli and The Coachman.

Another voice actor was Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...

 most famous for voicing many of the characters in the Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

 and Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...

 cartoons from Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

. He was hired to perform the voice of Gideon the Cat. However, it was eventually decided for Gideon to be mute just like Dopey, whose whimsical, Harpo Marx
Harpo Marx
Adolph "Harpo" Marx was an American comedian and film star. He was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish wig, and never spoke during performances...

-style persona made him one of Snow Whites most comic and popular characters. All of Blanc's recorded dialogue in this film was subsequently deleted except for a solitary hiccup, which was heard three times in the film.

During the production of the film the character model department was set-up headed by Joe Grant
Joe Grant
Joe Grant was a Disney artist and writer.Born in New York City, New York, he worked for The Walt Disney Company as a character designer and story artist beginning in 1933 on the Mickey Mouse short, "Mickey's Gala Premiere". He was a Disney legend. He created the Queen in Snow White and the Seven...

. The character model department was reasonable for the building of three-dimensional clay models of the characters in the film, known as maquettes. These were then given to the staff to observe how a character should be drawn from any given angle desired by the artists. The model makers also built working models of Geppetto's cuckoo clocks, as well as Stromboli's gypsy wagon and The Coachman's carriage. However since it is difficult to animate a realistic moving vehicle, Disney resorted to a "rotoscoping" animation technique invented by the Fleischer Brothers, Disney's chief competitor at the time. "Rotoscoping" involved filming a live-action "gypsy" wagon maquette on a miniature set using stop motion animation. Then each frame of the animation was enlarged onto sheets of paper as a pattern these are called "Photo-stats". Animators then placed a sheet of animation paper over these "Photo-Stats" and traced the wagon, and then repeated this for each new frame of film in order to capture the exact movement of Stromboli's wagon. These drawings were then "inked and painted" onto animation cels
Cel
A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid was used during the first half of the 20th century, but since it was flammable and dimensionally unstable it was largely replaced by cellulose acetate...

. The cels were then overlayed on top of background images with the cels of the characters to create the completed shot on the rostrum camera
Rostrum camera
A rostrum camera is a specially designed camera used in television production and filmmaking to animate a still picture or object. It consists of a moving lower platform on which the article to be filmed is placed, while the camera is placed above on a column. Many visual effects can be created...

.

Despite Disney's initial resistance to "rotoscoping" (he reluctantly agreed to allow it in Snow White, three years before) he embraced the animation technology to be used in certain ways.. Live Action footage for Pinocchio was shot with the actors acting out the scenes. However unlike Snow White the live action images were not merely traced, as this would result in stiff, unnatural movement. Instead the animators used them as a guide for animating and studied how human beings move and incorporate those poses into the animation, but exaggerated them slightly. The animators referred to this as Live Action Reference rather than rotoscoping. However some rotoscoping was used in the animation of the Blue Fairy.

Pinocchio was a ground breaking achievement in effects animation. In contrast to character animators who concentrate on the acting of the characters, Effects animators create anything else that moves that is not the character. This includes vehicles, machinery and natural effects such as rain, lightning, snow, smoke, shadows and water as well as the fantasy or science-fiction type effects like Fairy Dust. The influential abstract animator Oskar Fischinger
Oskar Fischinger
Oskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter. He made over 50 short animated films, and painted c. 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1 , which is now listed on the...

 who mainly worked on Fantasia contributed to the effects animation of the Blue Fairy's wand. Effects animator, Sandy Strother kept a diary about his year-long animation of the water effects in Pinocchio which included splashes, ripples, bubbles, waves and the illusion of being underwater. To help give depth to the ocean the animators put more detail on the waves on the water surface in the foreground and put less detail in as the surface moved further back. After the animation was traced onto cels, they would trace it once more with blue and black scripto pencil leads to give the waves a sculptured look. To save time and money the splashes were kept impressionistic. Pinocchio was one of the first animated films to have highly realistic effects and is often highly regarded by Effects animators as having some of the best Effects animation the studio ever did.

Cast of characters

  • Pinocchio
    Pinocchio
    The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...

     (Dickie Jones), a happy wooden puppet
    Puppet
    A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....

     made by Geppetto and turned into a living puppet by the Blue Fairy.
  • Jiminy Cricket
    Jiminy Cricket
    Jiminy Cricket is the Walt Disney version of "The Talking Cricket" , a fictional character created by Carlo Collodi for his children's book Pinocchio, which was adapted into an animated film by Disney in 1940...

     (Cliff Edwards
    Cliff Edwards
    Cliff Edwards , also known as "Ukelele Ike", was an American singer and voice actor who enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop standards and novelty tunes. He had a number-one hit with "Singin' in the Rain" in 1929...

    ), a cheerful cricket
    Cricket (insect)
    Crickets, family Gryllidae , are insects somewhat related to grasshoppers, and more closely related to katydids or bush crickets . They have somewhat flattened bodies and long antennae. There are about 900 species of crickets...

     who acts as Pinocchio's "conscience" and the partial narrator of the story.
  • Mister Geppetto
    Mister Geppetto
    Mister Geppetto is a fictional character in the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. Geppetto is an elderly, impoverished woodcarver and the creator of Pinocchio...

     (Christian Rub
    Christian Rub
    Christian Rub was known as a character actor from the late 1910s to the early 1950s, and was featured in more than 100 movies, often uncredited. He was born in Passau, Bavaria, Germany. His first appearance was in the movie The Belle of New York...

    ), a woodcarver who creates Pinocchio and wishes for him to become a real boy.
  • Figaro
    Figaro (Disney)
    Figaro is a fictional character who first appeared in Disney's Pinocchio.-History:He is probably best known as the pet cat of Mister Geppetto and Pinocchio too. Figaro has also starred independently in a number of Disney shorts, as the pet of Minnie Mouse, which was a common theme for Disney...

     and Cleo
    Cleo
    Cleo is a given name that is short for Cleopatra or Cleophalus and an alternate spelling of Clio. It is a Greek prefix often translated to mean 'pride', 'fame' or 'glory'.Cleo may refer to:-People:...

     are Geppetto's tuxedo cat and goldfish
    Goldfish
    The goldfish is a freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae of order Cypriniformes. It was one of the earliest fish to be domesticated, and is one of the most commonly kept aquarium fish....

    , respectively, who do not like each other very much until the end of the film when Pinocchio becomes a real boy.
  • John Worthington Foulfellow (Walter Catlett
    Walter Catlett
    Walter Catlett was an American actor. As a San Francisco citizen, he started out in vaudeville with a detour for a while in opera before breaking into films.-Early career:...

     and later Don Knotts
    Don Knotts
    Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards...

    )), otherwise known as Honest John, is a sly anthropomorphic
    Anthropomorphism
    Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...

     fox
    Fox
    Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...

     and known criminal who tricks Pinocchio twice in the film.
  • Gideon is Honest John's mute and crafty anthropomorphic feline
    Cat
    The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

     accomplice
    Accomplice
    At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery...

    . His voice was originally to be supplied by Mel Blanc
    Mel Blanc
    Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...

     of Looney Tunes
    Looney Tunes
    Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

     fame, but they deleted his dialogue in favor of a mute performance (i.e. Harpo Marx
    Harpo Marx
    Adolph "Harpo" Marx was an American comedian and film star. He was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish wig, and never spoke during performances...

    ) just like Dopey of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
    Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
    Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...

    . However, Gideon's hiccups were provided by Blanc.
  • Stromboli (Charles Judels
    Charles Judels
    Charles Judels was a Dutch-born American film actor. He appeared in 137 films between 1915 and 1949. He also did extensive work as a voice-over actor in animated films, notably as the voice of Stromboli in Walt Disney's Pinocchio, and in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes short Porky's Garden.He was...

    ), a large, sinister, bearded puppet maker and the first antagonist of the film who forces Pinocchio to perform onstage in order to make money. He speaks in an Italian accent, though he is identified as being a gypsy. He is the only villain of the film to be part of the official Disney Villains line-up. He is not seen again after the scene when Pinocchio is locked up, so his defeat remains unknown. However, fans say that without Pinocchio, his next show presumably bombs.
  • The Blue Fairy (Evelyn Venable
    Evelyn Venable
    Evelyn Venable was an American actress. In addition to starring in several films in the 1930s and 1940s, she is notable as the voice and model for the Blue Fairy in the Walt Disney's Pinocchio....

    ), the beautiful fairy who brings Pinocchio to life and turns him into a real boy at the end.
  • The Coachman
    The Coachman
    The Coachman , also known as The Little Man , is a fictional character who appears in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio .-Role:...

     (Charles Judels
    Charles Judels
    Charles Judels was a Dutch-born American film actor. He appeared in 137 films between 1915 and 1949. He also did extensive work as a voice-over actor in animated films, notably as the voice of Stromboli in Walt Disney's Pinocchio, and in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes short Porky's Garden.He was...

    ), a corrupt and sadistic coachman who owns and operates Pleasure Island. As the second antagonist of the film, he enjoys turning unruly boys into donkeys. He speaks in a Cockney accent. The look of the Coachman is like Charles Laughton in Jamaica Inn by A. Hitchcock (1939).
  • Lampwick
    Candlewick (Pinocchio character)
    Candlewick is a fictional character who appears in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio .-Role:...

     (Frankie Darro
    Frankie Darro
    Frankie Darro was an American actor and later in his career a stuntman. He began his career as a child actor in silent films, progressed to lead roles and co-starring roles in adventure, western, dramatic, and comedy films, and later became a character actor and voice-over artist.-Early life:Darro...

    ), a naughty boy Pinocchio meets and befriends on his way to Pleasure Island. He turns into a donkey
    Donkey
    The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...

     while the boys are shooting pool.
  • Monstro
    The Terrible Dogfish
    The Terrible Dogfish is a fictional sea monster which appears in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio . It is described as being larger than a five story building, a kilometre long and sporting a mouth with three rows of teeth that can easily accommodate a whole train...

     is the whale
    Sperm Whale
    The sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus, is a marine mammal species, order Cetacea, a toothed whale having the largest brain of any animal. The name comes from the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in the animal's head. The sperm whale is the only living member of genus Physeter...

     that swallows Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo during their search for Pinocchio. Pinocchio is then swallowed when Monstro is eating and he and Geppetto reunite. Monstro is the third and final antagonist of the film. Monstro's whale sounds were provided by Thurl Ravenscroft
    Thurl Ravenscroft
    Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft was an American voice actor and singer best known as the deep voice behind Tony the Tiger's "They're grrreat!" in Frosted Flakes television commercials for more than five decades. Ravenscroft was also known, however uncredited, as the vocalist for the song "You're a Mean...

    .
  • Alexander, (Dickie Jones) is one of the boys who transformed into a donkey on Pleasure Island. He can still talk and is hurled into a special holding pen for suchlike donkeys.

Crew

  • Supervising Director: Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske
  • Sequence Directors: Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts
  • Animation Directors: Art Babbitt
    Art Babbitt
    Arthur Harold Babitsky , better known as Art Babbitt, was an American animator, best known for his work at The Walt Disney Company. He received over 80 awards as animation director and animator, but is most famous for creating Goofy...

    , Milt Kahl
    Milt Kahl
    Milton Erwin Kahl was an animator for the Disney studio, and one of Disney's Nine Old Men....

    , Ward Kimball
    Ward Kimball
    Ward Walrath Kimball was an animator for the Walt Disney Studios. He was one of Walt Disney's team of animators known as Disney's Nine Old Men.-Career:...

    , Eric Larson
    Eric Larson
    Eric Larson was an animator for the Walt Disney Studios starting in 1933 and was one of the "Disney's Nine Old Men."...

    , Fred Moore, Woolie Reitherman, Franklin Thomas
    Frank Thomas (animator)
    Franklin M. "Frank" Thomas was an American animator. He was one of Walt Disney's team of animators known as the Nine Old Men....

    , Vladimir Tytla
    Bill Tytla
    Vladimir Peter "Bill" Tytla was one of the original Disney animators and is considered by many to be the best character animator to work during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation...

  • Story Adaptation: Aurelius Battaglia, William Cottrell, Otto Englander, Erdman Penner, Joseph Sabo, Ted Sears
    Ted Sears
    Ted Sears was an American animator during The Golden Age of American animation. Sears worked for the Fleischer Studios in the late-1920s and early-1930s, and was hired away from Max Fleischer to work at the Walt Disney studio in 1931.As the first head of Disney's story department, Sears did...

    , Webb Smith
  • Character Designers: Albert Hurter, Joe Grant. John P. Miller, Campbell Grant, Martin Provensen, John Walbridge
  • Music: Leigh Harline
    Leigh Harline
    Leigh Adrian Harline was a film composer.-Career:Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, he worked for various radio stations before joining the Walt Disney studios in 1932 as arranger and scorer...

    , Paul Smith
    Paul Smith (composer)
    Paul J. Smith was an Academy Award-winning American music composer. He was born in Calumet, Michigan. Smith spent much of his life working at Disney as composer for many of its films' scores, animated and live-action alike, movie and television alike...

    , Ned Washington
    Ned Washington
    Ned Washington was an American lyricist.-Biography:Washington was nominated for eleven Academy Awards from 1940 to 1962...

  • Uncredited Ochrestrators: Edward J. Plumb, Frederick Stark
  • Art Directors: Kenneth Anderson, Hugh Hennesy, John Hubley
    John Hubley
    John Hubley was an American animation director, art director, producer and writer of traditional animation films known for both his formal experimentation and for his emotional realism which stemmed from his tendency to cast his own children as voice actors in his films.- Biography :Hubley was...

    , Dick Kelsey, Kendall O'Connor, Charles Philippi, Thor Putnam, Terrell Stapp, McLaren Stewart, Al Zinnen
  • Backgrounds: Claude Coats, Merle Cox, Ed Starr, Ray Huffine
  • Animators: Preston Blair
    Preston Blair
    Preston Blair was an American character animator, most noted for his work at Walt Disney Productions and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation department...

    , John Bradbury, Jack Campbell
    Jack Campbell
    Jack Campbell may refer to:* Jack Campbell , pseudonym for American science fiction author John G. Hemry* Jack M. Campbell , American politician* Jackie Campbell, Scottish footballer for Partick Thistle...

    , Les Clark
    Les Clark
    Les Clark was the first of Disney's Nine Old Men. Joining Disney in 1927, he was the only one to work on the origins of Mickey Mouse with Ub Iwerks.- The Disney Studio :...

    , John Elliotte, Hugh Fraser, Oliver M. Johnston Jr.
    Ollie Johnston
    Oliver Martin Johnston, Jr. was an American motion picture animator. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, and the last surviving at the time of his death. He was recognized by The Walt Disney Company with its Disney Legend Award in 1989...

    , Lynn Karp, John Lounsbery
    John Lounsbery
    John Lounsbery was an American animator who worked for The Walt Disney Company. He is best known as one of Disney's Nine Old Men....

    , Don Lusk, Robert Martsch, John McManus, Joshua Meador
    Joshua Meador
    Joshua Meador was an animator, special effects artist, and animation director for the Disney studio. He was a member of the team that created the special effects for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , for which the Walt Disney Studio won an Academy Award...

    , Charles A. Nichols
    Charles August Nichols
    Charles August "Nick" Nichols was an American animator and film director.-Biography:Nichols was born in Milford, Utah....

    , Art Palmer, Don Patterson
    Don Patterson (animator)
    Don Patterson was an American producer, animator, and director who worked at various studios during the golden age of animation, including Disney, MGM, and Walter Lantz. He was the older brother of animator Ray Patterson....

    , George Rowley, Norman Tate, Don Tobin, Don Towsley, Bernard Wolf, Marvin Woodward

Reception

Pinocchio was a moderate success domestically, however it had poor box office results internationally and the domestic gross alone was not enough to make back the film's revenue. This was due to the fact that the film's release in Europe and Asia was delayed because of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and its immediate aftermath, which hindered its financial success initially. Pinocchio cost twice as much as Snow White, with the films total budget of $2.289 million, but Disney recouped only $1.423 million of the film's cost in 1940. However several re-releases in the years following the war have been very successful.

The film received generally positive reviews. Archer Winsten, who had criticized Snow White, wrote: "The faults that were in Snow White no longer exist. In writing of Pinocchio, you are limited only by your own power of expressing enthusiasm." Jiminy Cricket's song, "When You Wish upon a Star
When You Wish upon a Star
"When You Wish upon a Star" is a song written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Walt Disney's 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio. The original version of the song was sung by Cliff Edwards in the character of Jiminy Cricket, and is heard over the opening credits and again in the final scene of the...

", became a major hit and is still identified with the film, and later as a fanfare
Fanfare
A Fanfare is a relatively short piece of music that is typically played by trumpets and other brass instruments often accompanied by percussion...

 for The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

 itself. Pinocchio also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...

 and Best Original Score
Academy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...

, making it the first Disney film to win not only either Oscar, but also both at the same time. This did not occur again until Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins (film)
Mary Poppins is a 1964 musical film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, produced by Walt Disney, and based on the Mary Poppins books series by P. L. Travers with illustrations by Mary Shepard. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, with songs by...

 in 1964 and The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid (1989 film)
The Little Mermaid is a 1989 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was originally released to theaters on November 14, 1989 and is the twenty-eighth film in...

 in 1989. In 1994, Pinocchio was added to the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

 as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

In 2001, Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

 selected it as one of the ten best animated films of all time and in 2005, Time.com named it one of the 100 best films of the last 80 years. Many film historians consider this to be the film that most closely approaches technical perfection of all the Disney animated features.
Subsequent re-releases would tally Pinocchios lifetime gross to $84,254,167 at the box office.

In June 2008, the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

 revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Pinocchio was acknowledged as the second best film in the animation genre, after Snow White.

In June 2011, TIME named it the best animated movie of "The 25 All-TIME Best Animated Films".

Film critic Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...

 stated that "with Pinocchio, Disney reached not only the height of his powers, but the apex of what many critics consider to be the realm of the animated cartoon."

On Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, the film has the website's highest rating of 100%, meaning every single one of the 37 reviews of the film on the site are positive. The general consensus of the film on the site is "Ambitious, adventurous, and sometimes frightening, Pinocchio represents the pinnacle of Disney's collected works- it's beautifully crafted and emotionally resonant."

Reissues

With the re-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...

 in 1944 came the tradition of re-releasing Disney films every seven to ten years. Pinocchio has been theatrically re-released in 1945, 1954, 1962, 1971, 1978, 1984, and 1992. The 1992 re-issue was digitally restored by cleaning and removing scratches from the original negatives one frame at a time, eliminating soundtrack distortions, and revitalizing the color. The film also received five video releases, three DVD releases, and one Blu-ray release, the first video release on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 and CED Videodisc was a hot-seller in 1985 (this print was re-mastered and re-issued in 1986).

A more comprehensive digital restoration that was done for the 1992 re-issue was released on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 in 1993, followed by it's 4th VHS release and first release on Disney DVD in 1999. This film did not make it into the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection
Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection
The Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection was a line of VHS videos and Laserdiscs released by Walt Disney Home Video from 1994 to 1999. The Spanish counterparts began selling in 1995. Limited issue DVDs also have the same cover art....

, although early printings of the 1999 VHS did use the Masterpiece Collection logo. The second Disney DVD release and final issue in the vhs format (the first in the Walt Disney Gold Classics Collection
Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection
The Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection was a line of videos and DVDs released by The Walt Disney Company which ran from 2000 to 2001. It was preceded by Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, which ran from 1994 to 1999. All titles were released in VHS and DVD formats, except the DVD version of Toy...

 VHS/DVD line) premiered the following year in 2000. The third DVD release and first Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...

 release (the second Blu-ray in the Walt Disney Platinum Editions
Walt Disney Platinum Editions
Walt Disney Platinum Editions are a line of 2-Disc DVD sets released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, a follow-up to the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection. The Platinum line features newly restored digital versions of 13 of the most popular and successful Disney animated features of all...

 series) were released on March 10, 2009 (March 11, 2009 in Australia). Like the 2008 Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)
Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the fairy tale "La Belle au bois dormant" by Charles Perrault...

 Blu-ray release, the Pinocchio Blu-ray package featured a new restoration by Lowry Digital in a two-disc Blu-ray set, with a bonus DVD version of the film also included. This set returned to the Disney Vault
Disney Vault
The "Disney Vault" is the term used by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment for its policy of putting home video releases of Walt Disney Animation Studios's animated features on moratorium...

 on April 30, 2011.

Home media

  • July 16, 1985 (VHS, Betamax, CED Videodisc, and Laserdisc, Classics edition)
  • October 14, 1986 (VHS and Betamax, remastered Classics edition)
  • March 26, 1993 (VHS and Laserdisc, restored Classics edition)
  • July 1993 (VHS made in Brazil - Abril Vídeo/Walt Disney Home Video)
  • April 16, 1995 (VHS made in the UK - Disney Videos, Classics edition, Spanish-dubbed Clásicos edition)
  • October 26, 1999 (60th Anniversary Edition, as well as a Limited Issue DVD)
  • March 7, 2000 (VHS and DVD, Gold Classic Edition)
  • March 10, 2009 (70th Anniversary Platinum Edition DVD and Blu-ray)

Awards and honors

American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

 recognition
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
    The first of the AFI 100 Years… series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry who chose from a list of 400 nominated movies...

     - Nominated
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
    Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills is a list of the top 100 heart-pounding movies in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 12, 2001, during a CBS special hosted by Harrison Ford....

     - Nominated
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 100 greatest screen characters chosen by American Film Institute in June 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series. The series was first presented in a CBS special hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger...

    :
    • Stromboli
      Stromboli (Pinocchio)
      Mangiafuoco is the fictional wealthy director of the Great Marionette Theatre who appears in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio . He is described as "...a large man so ugly, he evoked fear by simply being looked at...

       - Nominated Villain
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs
    Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Songs is a list of the top 100 songs in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute June 22, 2004 in a CBS special hosted by John Travolta, who appeared in two films honored by the list, Saturday Night Fever and...

    :
    • "When You Wish Upon a Star
      When You Wish upon a Star
      "When You Wish upon a Star" is a song written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Walt Disney's 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio. The original version of the song was sung by Cliff Edwards in the character of Jiminy Cricket, and is heard over the opening credits and again in the final scene of the...

      " - #7
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes
    Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes is a list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema. The American Film Institute revealed the list on June 21, 2005, in a three-hour television program on CBS...

    :
    • "A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face." - Nominated
  • AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals - Nominated
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers
    AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers
    100 Years…100 Cheers: America's Most Inspiring Movies is a list of the most inspiring films as determined by the American Film Institute. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series, which has been compiling lists of the greatest films of all time in various categories since 1998...

     - #38
  • AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated
  • AFI's 10 Top 10
    AFI's 10 Top 10
    AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....

     - #2 Animated film

Soundtrack

The songs in Pinocchio were composed by Leigh Harline
Leigh Harline
Leigh Adrian Harline was a film composer.-Career:Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, he worked for various radio stations before joining the Walt Disney studios in 1932 as arranger and scorer...

 and Lyrics by Ned Washington
Ned Washington
Ned Washington was an American lyricist.-Biography:Washington was nominated for eleven Academy Awards from 1940 to 1962...

. Leigh Harline
Leigh Harline
Leigh Adrian Harline was a film composer.-Career:Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, he worked for various radio stations before joining the Walt Disney studios in 1932 as arranger and scorer...

 and Paul J. Smith
Paul Smith (composer)
Paul J. Smith was an Academy Award-winning American music composer. He was born in Calumet, Michigan. Smith spent much of his life working at Disney as composer for many of its films' scores, animated and live-action alike, movie and television alike...

 composed the incidental music score.
  • "When You Wish upon a Star
    When You Wish upon a Star
    "When You Wish upon a Star" is a song written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Walt Disney's 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio. The original version of the song was sung by Cliff Edwards in the character of Jiminy Cricket, and is heard over the opening credits and again in the final scene of the...

    " - Jiminy Cricket, Chorus
  • "Little Wooden Head" - Geppetto
  • "Give a Little Whistle" - Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio
  • "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor's Life for Me)" - J. Worthington Foulfellow
  • "I've Got No Strings
    I've Got No Strings
    "I've Got No Strings" also known as "I Got No Strings" is a song from Walt Disney's animated film Pinocchio sung by Dickie Jones as Pinocchio. He dances with three puppets such as a Dutch puppet, a French puppet, a Russian puppet, and Cossacks...

    " - Pinocchio
  • "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor's Life for Me) (reprise)" - J. Worthington Foulfellow
  • "When You Wish upon a Star (reprise)
    When You Wish upon a Star
    "When You Wish upon a Star" is a song written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Walt Disney's 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio. The original version of the song was sung by Cliff Edwards in the character of Jiminy Cricket, and is heard over the opening credits and again in the final scene of the...

    " - Jiminy Cricket, Chorus


The music CD sets Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic
Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic
-References:*...

 and Disney's Greatest Hits
Disney's Greatest Hits
Disney's Greatest Hits is a 3-disc CD-set, released by Walt Disney Records in 2001 and 2002.- Volume 1 - Blue :# Strangers Like Me # Reflection # I Won't Say...

 include "When You Wish upon a Star", "Give a Little Whistle", and "I've Got No Strings".

Songs written for film but not used

  • "I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow" - Jiminy Cricket (this song eventually showed up in Fun and Fancy Free
    Fun and Fancy Free
    Fun and Fancy Free is a 1947 animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures on September 27, 1947. It was one of the "package films" that the studio produced in the 1940s...

    )
  • "As I Was Saying to the Duchess" - J. Worthington Foulfellow (this line is spoken briefly by Foulfellow in the film, however)
  • "Three Cheers for Anything" - Lampwick, Pinocchio, Alexander, Other Boys
  • "Monstro the Whale" - Chorus
  • "Honest John" (this song appears as a bonus feature on the 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition Blu-ray and DVD)
  • "Turn On the Old Music Box" - Jiminy Cricket

Theme parks

  • Many of the Pinocchio characters are meetable characters at Disney parks.
  • Pinocchio's Daring Journey
    Pinocchio's Daring Journey
    Pinocchio's Daring Journey is a dark ride at the Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Park theme parks. Located in Fantasyland, this ride is based on Disney's animated film version of the classic story, which was the studio's second animated feature film. Stromboli's marionette show is also...

     is a popular ride at Disneyland Park (Anaheim)
    Disneyland Park (Anaheim)
    Disneyland Park is a theme park located in Anaheim, California, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of the Walt Disney Company. Known as Disneyland when it opened on July 18, 1955, and still almost universally referred to by that name, it is the only theme park to be...

    , Tokyo Disneyland
    Tokyo Disneyland
    is a 115 acre theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, near Tokyo. Its main gate is directly adjacent to both Maihama Station and Tokyo Disneyland Station. It was the first Disney park to be built outside of the United States and opened on April 15, 1983...

    , and Disneyland Park (Paris)
    Disneyland Park (Paris)
    Disneyland Park is a theme park at Disneyland Paris, a resort complex just outside of Paris, in the new town of Marne-la-Vallée, France. The first of two parks built at the resort, it opened as Euro Disneyland on 12 April, 1992...

    .
  • Pinocchio Village Haus is a quick service restaurant at Walt Disney World that serves pizza and macaroni and cheese. There are also similar quick-service restaurants in Disneyland and Disneyland Paris
    Disneyland Park (Paris)
    Disneyland Park is a theme park at Disneyland Paris, a resort complex just outside of Paris, in the new town of Marne-la-Vallée, France. The first of two parks built at the resort, it opened as Euro Disneyland on 12 April, 1992...

    , as well, with almost identical names.
  • In It's a Small World at Hong Kong Disneyland
    Hong Kong Disneyland
    Hong Kong Disneyland is located on reclaimed land in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island. It is the first theme park located inside the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and is owned and managed by the Hong Kong International Theme Parks. The park opened to visitors on 12 September 2005...

     and Disneyland
    Disneyland Park (Anaheim)
    Disneyland Park is a theme park located in Anaheim, California, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of the Walt Disney Company. Known as Disneyland when it opened on July 18, 1955, and still almost universally referred to by that name, it is the only theme park to be...

    , Pinocchio was a prop or puppet, while Jiminy Cricket was a toy (Only at Disneyland).
  • There is a hidden Pinocchio doll in Tokyo Disneyland's It's a Small World.

Other films

  • Some of the characters (including Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket) make cameos in the 1988 film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit
    Who Framed Roger Rabbit
    Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...

    .
  • In the 1992 film, Aladdin, Genie's face (in one scene) turns into the title character from the 1940 film.
  • Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy make an appearance in the Teacher's Pet film
    Teacher's Pet (film)
    Teacher's Pet is a 2004 animated musical film based on the television series of the same name; the film ends the central storyline of the series. The film was produced by DisneyToon Studios, and released to movie theaters in the United States in 2004...

    .
  • Pinocchio has a cameo in the film Tangled.

Cruise ships

  • Pinocchio's Pizzeria is a quick service restaurant aboard both the Disney Magic
    Disney Magic
    The Disney Magic is a cruise ship operated by the Disney Cruise Line, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Its sister, the Disney Wonder, was launched in 1999....

     and the Disney Wonder
    Disney Wonder
    Disney Wonder is the second cruise ship operated by Disney Cruise Line; it was launched in 1999. It is nearly identical in construction to its sister ship, Disney Magic. Both ships have 11 public decks, can accommodate 2,400 passengers in 875 staterooms, and have a crew of approximately 950. ...

     that serves multiple types of pizzas.
  • The horn sound of the Disney Cruise Line
    Disney Cruise Line
    Disney Cruise Line is an American cruise line company owned and operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a division of The Walt Disney Company and is headquartered in Celebration, Florida. The business is run by President Karl Holz. Disney Cruise Line operates the Disney Cruise Line Terminal,...

     ships is to the tune of a song in this film, "When You Wish Upon a Star". Also another one of the Disney Dream
    Disney Dream
    Disney Dream is the third cruise ship operated by Disney Cruise Line, part of The Walt Disney Company, which entered service in 2011. The Disney Dream currently sails 3-, 4-, and 5-day itineraries to The Bahamas. The Captain of Disney Dream is Tom Forberg...

    's horns is to the tune of another song in this film, "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor's Life For Me)".

Ice show

Disney on Ice
Disney on Ice
Disney On Ice is a touring ice show produced by Feld Entertainment under agreement with The Walt Disney Company. Aimed primarily at children, the shows feature figure skaters dressed as Disney cartoon characters in performances that each derive their music and plot from elements collected from...

 starring Pinocchio, toured internationally from 1987 to 1992. A shorter version of the story is also presented in the current Disney on ice production "100 Years of Magic"

Video games

Aside from the Sega Mega Drive (Or Genesis in North America), Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...

, and Super Nintendo
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...

 games based on the animated film, Geppetto and Pinocchio also appear as characters in the game Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts
is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The first game in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is the result of a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company. The game combines characters and settings from Disney...

. The inside of Monstro is also featured as one of the worlds. Jiminy Cricket appears as well, acting as a recorder, keeping a journal of the game's progress in Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
is an action role-playing game developed by Square Enix and Japanese studio Jupiter and published by Square Enix in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance. The game serves as an intermediary between the two larger-scale PlayStation 2 games in the Kingdom Hearts series. It was one of the first GBA games to...

, and, Kingdom Hearts II
Kingdom Hearts II
is an action role-playing game developed by Square Enix and published by Buena Vista Games and Square Enix in 2005 for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console...

. Pinocchio's home world was slated to appear in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, but was omitted due to time restrictions, although talk-sprites of Pinocchio, Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon have been revealed. As compensation, this world is set to appear in the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, although the manner of Pinocchio's return to puppet form has yet to be explained. It is revealed that this new area contains the town, circus, and Monstro as part of this new world, and also features appearances by Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket, and the Blue Fairy.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK