Today I Found Out:
You probably already knew that Disney has a habit of taking dark, twisted children’s fairy tales and turning them into sickeningly sweet happily-ever-afters.
The 1940 version of Pinocchio is no exception. The movie is based on a story that appeared as a serial in a newspaper called The Adventures of Pinocchio, written in 1881 and 1882 by Carlo Collodi. Jiminy Cricket appears as the Talking Cricket in the book, and does not play as prominent of a role.
The Disneyfication of many of our favourite childhood stories might be a good thing. If you read many of the original stories of so much of what Disney has shown us, you’ll find they are not only significantly different but, in many cases, really disturbing.
I tried reading it to my kids, but they didn’t dig it. I think it was the vocabulary and syntax as much as the recurring theme of one bad choice after another.
Not disturbing, life mostly is not sweet.
That has been the difference between author/independent films and the Hollywood money grab thing.
It is an USA mainstream (religious) phenomena perhaps.
Disney did more than change the story. It locked up public-domain works by copyrighting the adaptations. Try doing a new Pinocchio adaptation now without Disney lawyers knocking at your door.
That’s nothing – in the original Cinderella the wicked step sister CUTS OFF HER HEEL trying to put on the glass slipper. The original fairy tales are far more gory that what Disney eventually went with….
There’s nothing stopping others from making Pinocchio movies, they just can’t use elements invented for Disney’s film, like the name “Jimmy Cricket”.
Those were Grimm times.