Movies - Pinocchio

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	Movies - Pinocchio

Pinocchio is the second animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Productions and was originally released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on February 7, 1940. Based on the book Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, it was made in response to the enormous success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
. The plot of the film involves a wooden puppet being brought to life by a blue fairy, who tells him he can become a real boy if he proves himself worthy by learning courage, kindness, and honesty. Thus begins the puppet's adventures to become a real boy, which involves many an encounter with a host of unsavory characters.

Voice cast

Crew

The movie was adapted by Aurelius Battaglia, William Cottrell, Otto Englander, Erdman Penner, Joseph Sabo, Ted Sears, and Webb Smith from the fairy tale Pinocchio: Tale of a Puppet by Carlo Collodi. The film was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske, and directed by Art Babbitt, Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Jack Kinney, Eric Larson, Fred Moore, Wolfgang Reitherman, Bill Roberts, Frank Thomas, and Bill Tytla.

History

Production

The plan for the original film was considerably different from what was released. Numerous characters and plot points, many of which came from the original novel, were used in early drafts. But 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 wise guy, equally rambunctious and sarcastic, just like in the original novel. He looked exactly like a real wooden puppet with, among other things, 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 the designers had to redesign the puppet as much as possible. Eventually, they revised the puppet to make him look more like a real boy, with, among other things, a button nose, a child's Tyrolean hat, and regular, four-fingered hands with Mickey Mouse-type gloves on them. The only parts of him that still looked more or less like a puppet were his arms and legs.

Additionally, it was at this stage that the character of the cricket was expanded. Jiminy Cricket (voiced by Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards) became central to the story. Originally, he was depicted as a really-for-real cricket with toothed legs and waving anntenae. But again Walt wanted someone more likable, so Ward Kimball conjured up "a little man with no ears. That was the only thing about him that was like an insect."

Mel Blanc (who also performed the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and dozens of other Looney Tunes
and Merrie Melodies
characters from the Warner Bros. classic theatrical animation line-up), was hired to perform the voice of Gideon the Cat, who was Foulfellow the Fox's sidekick. However, it was eventually decided for Gideon to be mute (just like Dopey, whose whimsical, Harpo Marx-style persona made him one of Snow White's most comic and popular characters) and all of Blanc's recorded dialogue in this film had been deleted, save for one military hiccup, which was heard a three of times in the film.

According to Leonard Maltin's book, The Disney Films, "With Pinocchio, Disney reached not only the height of his powers, but the apex of what many of his (later) critics considered to be the realm of the animated cartoon."

Release: Reactions and criticisms

Unfortunately, however, Pinocchio was not commercially successful when first released, and Disney only recouped about half of its $2.3 million budget, which was due in part to poor timing, with the cut-off of European markets, thanks to World War II. By the time the film was released, the mood of Americans had also darkened, also due to the war. People just weren't as into seeing fairy tales then as they were in the days of Snow White.

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