What A Cartoon Movie! - Pinocchio

To follow up on a question about current kids attention spans when watching this movie. I saw this with ny 7 and 6 year old boys. They both were fully engaged with the movie as was I (well I had to take my mandatory dad nap in the middle).

FootFungus

You fellas did a really great job with this one! Even better than I was expecting, actually. A perfect mix of historical context & irreverent humor!

Not to promote another podcast, but Totally Trans did an episode about Pinocchio with a trans reading on it. It's obviously not canon, but the 'wishing to be a real boy' sentiment a lot of trans guys felt in childhood feels relevant. I recommend it to anyone interested in trans readings in media, they have episodes that cover a lot of different shows and movies so there's something for everyone.

glowstickjuice

Wow, well done - great history part - super interesting! Thanks!

Loved the podcast, guys! Great job, as always. ^_^ Btw, I was waiting for Henry to bring up the Ultron connection and he didn't disappoint. :D

To Boldy Joe... Moore

I did get to go to Pleasure Island a fair few times at Downtown Disney in Orlando, back in the halcyon days of 2006. However, I was 18 turning 19 then so I didn’t get to enjoy the pleasures of beer and spirits at the nigh clubs. Anyway, I fully agree Pinocchio is the zenith of 2D animation and still holds up today on a technical level, and the Roberto Benigni live action version is just as bad as it sounds. If you can somehow check out the 2002 Miramax dub, it is both notoriously bad and oozes that Harvey Weinstein energy of calling in favors from his blackballed Hollywood acting cabal. I grew up as a wee ‘un on a consistent diet of Disney’s version and the 1996 JTT version.

Alex Irish

Loved learning about the history of this classic, we appreciate all the time put in and the research done-and I’m going to grab a copy of the original story for myself, if only for the super dark illustrations! Also, not sure if you guys mentioned it, but the actress who voiced the blue fairy was in a Shirley Temple movie, the little Colonel. Hearing her voice reminded me of her in that film I watched (due to my mother’s love of Shirley Temple). but she really was beautiful and the spitting image of the blue fairy-in brunette form! Finally, at the end of the movie, the choir singing “when you wish upon a star” sounded eerily similar to the same choir/music singing at the end of Cinderella and sleeping beauty and probably some others I can’t remember off the top of my head.. It just made me feel as though I was watching a different Disney classic movie…not sure if anyone else felt it too?

I'm going to Jazz Island

mavrick

The talk about Disney re-releasing films to theaters reminded me that the one and only time I saw The Great Mouse Detective was in 1992 during its second theatrical run. Fantastic episode, as always, and this really is a marathon of a podcast. Appreciate all the work you put into these.

Jonathon

Honestly this might be the first time I've ever seen this movie (or at least, with a brain that can form memories properly) and Henry's upfront discussion of the movie being visually great with some lackluster storytelling really hits the mark. It's ASTOUNDING how good it looks, especially considering it was made 80 years ago, and I could really appreciate it on that level, but animation as a medium really advanced their storytelling in the decades since. -- I was shocked at how little his nose growing came up since that's pretty much Ponicchio's THING in pop culture (endlessly made fun of in Shrek and its ilk) besides the "I have no strings" song, but it amounts to bupkis in this movie. I knew that other Disney tales had been heavily watered down, such as all of their "takes" on Grimm fairytales and the Hunchback adaptation, but I did not know how bastardized this was. In some regards this makes sense, but ultimately Pinocchio's naivety and borderline stupidity get very frustrating when he just blunders his way in and out of scenarios, rather than someone who makes bad choices intentionally and has an actually character arc of growth and change. He DOES act selflessly and heroically in the end, but it's not like he was willfully an asshole before that or even that selfish, he was just dumb and easy to lead around (almost like Forrest Gump, in a way), so it's kind of like... did he really need to DIE to earn mortality? -- I hope Del Toro's take on the source material has more depth in that regard, though at this point I'm also just kind of skeptical about ANOTHER Pinocchio story (even from someone with his pedigree).

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

I'm rewatching for the first time in at least 25-30 years, and I'm shocked at how many of the small details are still embedded in my brain.

Erin Hardy

Also, just to be a pedant, I'd say the design of the film is more Central European than Northern. Tyrol (wear Pinocchio's hat is from) is split between Italy and Austria, just next door to Switzerland. So the setting is more Italian adjacent, than Italy proper. And they wear lederhosen in Tyrol too.

Amy B

Remember, in 1940 Disney also had another massive box-office bomb with 'Fantasia'. Like Pinocchio, it too had a massive budget (and a soundtrack system which couldn't be reproduced in most cinemas), as well as limited audience appeal. So it's understandable that Disney thought there was no point being innovative or artistically-minded because the audience wouldn't pay for it. Why give 'em fillet mignon when they'll eat meatloaf instead? I hate it, but that's capitalism. And Disney was a capitalist.

Amy B