In each case, the failure to know the difference between right and wrong results in a character being captured. The film is structured around three episodes of capture and escape, each more dangerous than the last: Stromboli’s birdcage, Pleasure Island and Monstro’s belly. Each decision exposes them again to the possibility of victimization, so each decision must be morally based. While they eventually learn to act correctly, the triumph over evil is never final. Only by behaving in a moral fashion can they avoid or escape evil. In Pinocchio, the characters Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket and Geppetto are faced with dilemmas, and their own actions result in them becoming victims of evil. These characters are innocent of wrongdoing and have done nothing to warrant the problems they face. In Dumbo, the main character is an outcast who triumphs over a birth defect. In Show White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, the main characters are victims of injustice who are eventually restored to their rightful places. The problems that Pinocchio’s characters must deal with are different from those in other Disney films. The studio used Pinocchio’s ongoing moral education as its approach to each segment of the film. The challenge was to choose which incidents to preserve or adapt, and to find a way to structure them. With Pinocchio the situation was reversed: the novel by Collodi was lengthy and chock-full of incident. The primary story challenge lay in fleshing out the tale to sustain a feature film. In that film, the source material was a short fairy tale documented by the Brothers Grimm. Pinocchio (1940), the Disney studio’s second feature-length cartoon, presented story problems that were in stark contrast to those of the studio’s first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). (This article is based on a paper given at the first conference of the Society for Animation Studies, held in Los Angeles, California in 1989 and was later printed in Animato #20.)
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