Let's Get the Facts Straight

In honor of the recent release of the 70th anniversary edition of "Pinocchio" are the following fun facts about the film. If you like this type of post, let me know what other movies you'd like to know some trivia about.

• When Pinocchio is changed into a real boy, his hands are transformed from three-fingered and white-gloved "Mickey Mouse" hands into four-fingered (plus thumb) human hands sans gloves. Wood-carver/dad Geppetto sports a full compliment of gnarly digits throughout this 1940 classic.


• Lampwick, the red-headed boy whom Pinocchio befriends at Pleasure Island is a caricature of Disney animator Fred Moore.


• The song from Pinocchio, "When You Wish Upon A Star" was ranked #7 in the 2004 American Film Institute's List of the "Top Movie Songs of All Time", the highest ranking song on the list among Disney animated films.


• As of June 2008, "Pinocchio" is ranked #2 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Animation".


• On its first release, this movie was billed on posters as being filmed in "Multiplane Technicolor".


• "Pinocchio" gets its story from Carlo Collodi, who was really Carlo Lorenzini, a journalist who wrote children's stories. When he originally published "Pinocchio" in the form of a magazine serial, Lorenzini's intention was to kill Pinocchio by having him hang himself. At the suggestion of his editor, Lorenzini added chapters sixteen to thirty-two, giving the story a happy ending and creating the character of the Blue Fairy.


• The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio (as well as the prince in Snow White) was created by using the rotoscope technique.


• This was the first Disney feature available on DVD.


• The August 1993 issue of Playboy cited 43 instances of violence and other unfavorable behavior in this film, including 23 instances of battery, nine acts of property damage, three slang uses of the term "jackass", three acts of violence involving animals, two shots of male nudity, and one instance of implied death.


• The pool hall at Pleasure Island is in the shape of a giant eight ball with a tall cue-shaped structure standing nearby. This is a neat takeoff on the Trylon and the Perisphere at the 1939 New York World's Fair.


• Due to the war, the movie was not released in either Germany or Japan before the 1950s.


• During the musical number "When You Wish Upon A Star", when it shows a spotlight on Jiminy Cricket, you are able to see two books to the left of the screen. The names of the books are Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Walt Disney would come to create these stories for the big screen in the future.

Thanks to imdb.com for the trivia!