The day is finally here! The live action movie of Pinocchio is now available on Disney+!
The film features Tom Hanks as Gepetto who carves a wooden puppet that is brought to life by the blue fairy after he wishes upon a star for Pinocchio to be a real boy. The story is based on the classic 1940’s animated movie that we all love. Speaking of this animated film and in honor of the big debut of the live action remake, we want to share with you 10 fun facts you might not know about this film:
Creating Jiminy Cricket was not easy, animator Ward Kimball tried to come up with as many cute cricket designs as he could but Walt kept calling them “too gross”, until Kimball decided to draw him as a little green man with a large head. Jiminy’s character was also changed from the original novel making him Pinocchio’s conscience in his journey to become a real boy, very different from his fate in the novel where he was instantly killed.
Originally, there was going to be a scene of Gepetto telling Pinocchio the story of one of his arboreal ancestor, a pine tree. The story was elaborate, it was about a mighty pine that sat against storms, etc, and while hearing the story, Pinocchio would recreate the story in this mind with birds flying around and more.
Pleasure Island was going to be called “Bogeyland,” or “Sillyland.”
A song about bad behavior called “Three Cheers for Anything” got cut from the film as it was too long. The song mentioned all the bad things they were going to do in Pleasure Island like swiping a pie or telling a lie.
This film was an innovator when it comes to animation effects. Fantasy elements like the fairy dust was non existent in animation at this point, so Disney hired Oskar Fischinger, an abstract animator who was also working on Fantasia to animate the magical particles for the Blue Fairy! But one effect that was hard to accomplish was the water. The animators worked for a whole year to make the most convincing water for the film, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas created the ground breaking effects seen in the movie. They work was so good that even almost 50 years later when The Little Mermaid was in production, animators came to Pinocchio’s animation team for advice.
Easter eggs have been a big part of Disney films for years. Pinocchio had two that might have missed, during the opening scene we see Jiminy Cricket sitting on top of a bookshelf starting out the window into a night sky and singing “When You Wish Upon A Star,” well while this is happening, if you pay close attention, you can see two books with the titles Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, films that will come out in 1951 and 1953.
Figaro was Walt Disney favorite character! This is why we later saw Figaro in other projects and even became Minnie Mouse official pet replacing her former cocker spaniel puppy. Figaro also made an appearance in Alice in Wonderland as a caterpillar.
A song called “Straight Ahead” that was supposed to be sang by the Blue Fairy got cut off once Jiminy Cricket became a huge part of the story. In the song, she sang “easy goals don’t be misled, your smartest choice is straight ahead.” In an original scene, Pinocchio was discouraged when getting picked on, and after hearing this song, he walked straight ahead and saw the school.
The movie cost $2.3 million to make, which is a big amount for an animated movie in the 1940’s. Unfourtunally, it didn’t have a big box office success making only $1.9 million at the end of its initial theatrical run. It wasn’t until it re-release in 1973 that it earned $17 million.
Pinocchio was the first to Disney animated film to win Best Original Score and Best Original Song for “When You Wish Upon A Star” at the 13th Academy Awards. The next Disney film to win these categories was Mary Poppins 24 years later.
Related – Celebrate Disney+ Day with Special Perks and Offers for Subscribers
Did you know these fun facts about Pinocchio? If not, you just learned something new! We hope you enjoyed it and don’t forget to watch Pinocchio available now on Disney Plus.
Credit: Disney
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