But then the filmmakers decided to make Gideon a mute, like Dopey in "Snow White," and all of Blanc's voice work as Gideon was cut from the film, save for three hiccups. Honest John's sidekick, Gideon the cat, was initially a speaking character, voiced by Mel Blanc, better known today as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and most of the other "Looney Tunes" characters from rival studio Warner Bros. According to the Times, character actor Walter Catlett, who voiced the theatrical con artist Honest John the fox, based his characterization on two famous acting brothers whose name started with B - presumably, John and Lionel Barrymore.ġ3. She was also the model for the initial Columbia Pictures logo of a woman holding a torch.ġ2. The voice of the Fairy was provided by Evelyn Venable, an actress best known for her roles in "Death Takes a Holiday" (opposite Fredric March) and "The Little Colonel" (alongside Shirley Temple). She had performed a similar task for Disney's Snow White.ġ1. Future Broadway dance legend Marge Champion, then married to Disney animation director Art Babbitt, was the physical model for the Blue Fairy, acting out the character's movements on film for the animators to study. He also voiced Alexander, one of the boys on Pleasure Island.ġ0. Smith Goes to Washington," landed the role of Pinocchio. Dickie Jones, a 12-year-old who had also appeared in Frank Capra's "Mr. Ukelele Ike (the name he used as a popular novelty-tune singer in the 1920s and '30s) auditioned for the voice of Pinocchio, but the 43-year-old had too much grown-up in his voice, so he was cast instead as Jiminy Cricket.ĩ. Impresario Stromboli is called "Mangiafoco" ("fire-eater") in the novel, and Pleasure Island is called "Toyland." And the sea creature that swallows Geppetto and Pinocchio is a giant shark, not a whale.Ĩ. Other differences from the source material: In the book, the Blue Fairy has a team of animals working for her, including a poodle (her coachman), a group of mice (to pull the coach) and a snail (a messenger). He came up with the name Jiminy and the idea to make him wear clothes and walk and talk like a person.ħ. Nonetheless, Walt included him and decided to let him live. In Collodi's story, Pinocchio kills the cricket with a hammer, though the insect comes back as a ghost. Animator Milt Kahl finally hit upon the idea of drawing him as a human boy and then adding the puppet's nails and joints.Ħ. It took 12 artists 18 months to come up with a look for Pinocchio that was rounded and cute enough to pass muster. According to a 1938 New York Times article, Walt Disney tossed 2,300 feet of footage, representing five months work, "because it missed the feeling he had in mind."ĥ. But the trickier part was making him look more like a human boy than a block of wood.Ĥ. Collodi's story was rewritten to remove the wooden boy's mischievous (even malicious) streak and make him more passive. The hardest part of the production was making Pinocchio a sympathetic character. The name "Pinocchio" literally means "little wooden head."ģ. It was published as a book two years later.Ģ. Carlo Collodi wrote the original novel in installments in an Italian magazine in 1881. Here, then, are 25 things you probably didn't know about "Pinocchio." May our noses grow if we're lying.ġ. Still, as indelibly as "Pinocchio" has been imprinted on your memory, there may be plenty you don't know about the film, from who voiced the characters to the technical breakthroughs behind it to the unusual lawsuit threatened by the author's nephew. And the opening tune, Jiminy Cricket's "When You Wish Upon a Star," is ubiquitous as the theme music played before every Walt Disney movie and home video release. Everyone's image of the puppet-boy with the nose that grows when he lies comes not from Carlo Collodi's original novel but from the kid with the Tyrolean hat and the Mickey Mouse gloves, as drawn by Disney animators. Today, of course, the legacy of "Pinocchio" is inescapable. Upon its New York City premiere, on February 7, 1940, critics hailed the film as a masterpiece, and even to this day, many prefer it to Disney's pioneering first animated feature, 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Yet it took the film many years and multiple re-releases to make a profit. Given how revered Disney's " Pinocchio" is today, it's hard to believe it was a flop when it was first released exactly three quarters of a century ago.
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