Walt Disney animation studios history

Chapter 2: pinocchio

Thanks to the success of Snow White, it allowed Disney to grow his company even bigger than before and move his studio to a much larger facility in Burbank where they could bring even more artists to produce more cartoons and especially more movies. So now that Walt knew the formula to create animated films, it was time to see if he can make lightning strike twice with his next feature Pinocchio

The film centers on Pinocchio, a wooden puppet who came to life by the Blue Fairy by granting the wish of his creator, Geppetto. By his side, a cricket named Jiminy was appointed by the Fairy to be his conscience so that the wooden kid would stay out of trouble and learn what it means to be a real boy. But because of the puppet's wide-eyed and curious nature of everything around him, the conscience's job is not working out well, as Pinocchio often finds himself hanging out with shady characters, going to dangerous places, and even getting swallowed by a whale

The idea of the movie began during the end of production of Snow White back in 1937 when one of Walt's top animators Norm Ferguson handed him a book called The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

The book sparked Walt's imagination and got him all excited, as it had tons of amazing material to turn this into one of his animated features. But if he were to adapt it into a movie, he had to make some major changes, especially regarding the wooden puppet himself. In the original novel, Pinocchio was cold-hearted, rude, arrogant, and self-centered who had to learn to be a good boy the HARD way.

In fact, the crew was close to having him stay true to the source material by having his personality emulate the one of Edgar Bergen's ventriloquist dummy, Charlie McCarthy. In other words... Pinocchio was supposed to be a douchebag!