DVDizzy Forum

I was convinced when I read Mel Blanc's name on the Amazon listing for the March release of Pinocchio that they had got it wrong !!

I never realised , until I checked in the Walt Disney A - Z by Dave Smith , that Mel Blanc ( Warner Bros Animation Voice for Bugs Bunny Porky Pig et al ) provided the hiccup for the non speaking role of Gideon the Cat , the sidekick of the wily fox John Worthington Foulfellow !!

disneyfella wrote:it says that one of the special features is going to be "The Sweat Box" the making of a Disney feature........I don't think it is, but what if it is that documentary made during Kingdom of the Sun. I mean, it has the same title ::shrugs::

It's not, unfortunately (and even if it was, it belongs on the DVD for The Emperor's New Groove, not Pinocchio! ). It's a 6-minute 22-second featurette about the actual Sweat Box and how it was used at the studio. Here's a description from the press release...

The Sweatbox was a small projection room at the Disney studio where Walt critiqued story reels, rough animation, and dailies of films in progress with his anxious artists. This piece traces the history of the Sweatbox and brings to life this important part of Walt Disney’s artistic process.

Regarding trailers, as far as we know the ones that were cleared by BBFC are the 1940, 1984, and 1992 trailers. I'd love for the others to be included ('44, '45, '49, '54, '62, '71, '78 ), especially after the generous amount of trailers/tv spots Disney unearthed for 101 Dalmatians (and yet they still couldn't be bothered to find any for Peter Pan, let alone shoot a new documentary or unearth the 1951 Christmas Show...)

albert

Big Disney Fan wrote:

ichabod wrote:Well I guess this mystery is solved

MEAGHAN JETTE MARTIN - WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR - PINOCCHIO PLATINUM EDITION Video Feature
Classified 06 January, 2009 . Run Time 3m 5s

Why, Disney, why?

Yes, "When you wish upon a star" deserves to be perormed by a famous singer, not by a vague teenager we soon will forget.
Why didn't they ask Paul Potts for instance? Or Vanessa Williams?

The last good Disney music video I saw was on the DVD of Treasure Planet. I don't remember the name of the man who performed it but it had real MTV-quality.

BelleGirl wrote: Yes, "When you wish upon a star" deserves to be perormed by a famous singer, not by a vague teenager we soon will forget.
Why didn't they ask Paul Potts for instance?

Who? lol, sorry, he's not famous to me! I could look him up...I was just saying that maybe he's not famous enough? But Meaghan Martin is only famous to people who watch Disney Channel...touche.

BelleGirl wrote: The last good Disney music video I saw was on the DVD of Treasure Planet. I don't remember the name of the man who performed it but it had real MTV-quality.

John Rzeznik of the band Goo Goo Dolls.

blackcauldron85 wrote:

BelleGirl wrote: Yes, "When you wish upon a star" deserves to be perormed by a famous singer, not by a vague teenager we soon will forget.
Why didn't they ask Paul Potts for instance?

Who? lol, sorry, he's not famous to me! I could look him up...I was just saying that maybe he's not famous enough? But Meaghan Martin is only famous to people who watch Disney Channel...touche.

Paul Potts is an amateur opera singer who won the "Britain's got talent" competition. He made a debut album called One Chance The man has been a guest in the Oprah Winfrey show, so how come you do not know him?

Watch his final performance on Britain's got Talent :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_5W4t_CBzg

Think "When you wish upon a Star" would be a piece of cake for him!

Really can't wait for Pinoccho to be released, I'm anticpating the audio commentary. Quite curious bout the Sweat Box Featurette too.

BelleGirl wrote: Paul Potts is an amateur opera singer who won the "Britain's got talent" competition.

Now that you mention all that, I did see a video of him before. Thanks!

I am greatly considering pre-ordering this from Amazon. I've gotten a gift card for it for Christmas and now I plan to use it.

Does anyone know if they will release the soundtrack like they did with Sleeping Beauty ?

I don't know about the soundtrack being rereleased, but the imported version is readily available at most Best Buy stores.

I went to the Disney Store today and they had plushes of Pinocchio, Jiminy Crickit, Figaro, and Cleo. I got Cleo for my mom because she is one of her favorite Disney characters and its so rare when they make merchandise of her.

Also, they had plushes for Oliver & Co.'s 25th anniversary. They had Oliver, Dodger, Georgette, and Tito.

I'm thinkin bout pre-ordering at Disney Store, wish they had shirts featuring Jimminy Cricket/Pinocchio and Honest John/Gideon.

They had a cool Jimminy one over the summer that I wish I had bought.

This might have been discussed already and I apologize if I missed it, but on Disney's website for the Blu-Ray (http://disneydvd.disney.go.com/pinocchi ... ge=Trailer) it lists a bonus feature that says:

Disney View -- Expand Your Viewing Experience Beyond The Original Aspect Ratio Of The Film!

Does anybody know what this is going to be? To me, it sounds like they have possibly added image to the side of the 1.33:1 image to make it 1.66:1. Now that would be a first.

omg that's awesome!

but i don't think they will be doing it for the whole movie, just maybe one segment where they found some extra background. But I hope it's for the whole film! (I don't really care about OAR unless the image is cropped, and even so sometimes it looks better that way i.e. Aristocats)

The more the merrier, IMO!

I was able to attend a screening of Pinocchio at the El Capitan and the print looks realy nice (no scratches or flaws) but in my opinion not as amazing as seeing Sleeping Beauty on the big screen after its restoration. I did notice that the flame was still pink in the one scene. Dickie Jones (Pinocchio) had some good stories. Over at mice age they have a full report http://miceage.micechat.com/suekruse/sk012309a.htm. One thing I noticed was that in the scene where Pinochio is walking of with Foulfellow in a overview it seems they are done very rudementary and they stand out from the perfection of the rest of the film.. i gues Im used to seeing it on the small screen.

A poster at Amazon had this to say. I didnt notice this, but I wasnt really looking for it.

"I just saw a special engagement of this latest 70th Anniversary version of Pinnochio at Disney's El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood in advance of the DVD re-release. Though I am happy to see the movie be given public exposure on a big theatrical screen, over the years I have seen many theatrical screenings of the movie on at least 12 different occasions including an original nitrate 3-strip Technicolor studio vault print in the early 1980's (before the studio dismantled its last nitrate screening room) and non-digital film restorations and was shocked to see that this latest restored version has digitally tampered with the film's original color palette for no justifiable reason.

Some of the chosen character hues are modern day, popular color hues, but look out of place in this early animated classic including certain pinks, reds and blues which are reused so often in identical shades that to classic animation buffs it becomes distractingly noticeable. For those animation buffs who know about Pinnochio, Walt intentionally muted colors in some of the scarier or sadder scenes. In the restored version, for example, when Pinnochio gets locked in Geppetto's "birdcage" the nighttime scene is bright and garish where it should intentionally be darker and muted.

The original movie had hand inked character outlines in colors that matched the interior ink colors, none of that is apparent in this restoration. The characters, though admittedly sharper and clearer, look color-wise like they were electronically tampered with, then reinserted in front of the original backgrounds.

At this point, the damage is done and obviously this restoration was "stylistic." But in any case, it might be compared with someone redoing the Mona Lisa with more modern color hues for the purpose of improving the artwork or making it more modern day acceptable. Either two things, perhaps no one at Disney was knowledgeable enough to notice what the outside restoration company was planning to do with the film in early test segments or maybe they figured that modern day DVD audiences would not know the difference or care, but this is the first "DIGITALLY RESTORED" classic Disney film that I have ever taken issue with. What a let down since it is my very favorite Disney film of all!!!

P.S. I was the founder of the former, long time Disney employees' Animated Film Club (later referred to as the Disney Film Club) which included Disneyland and Walt Disney Studio employees. It was founded in 1976 and continued on and off for many years afterward with visits from surviving original Disney animators, screenings of rare Disney footage and more.

Dang...!

steven132 wrote: Geppetto's "birdcage"

Um, Stromboli's birdcage...I know you didn't write it, Steven, but that just stuck out like a sore thumb.

Is it hard to restore an older film with the original colors? I know that they did it for Snow White, so why not for Cinderella or Pinocchio? I mean, the story is what matters the most, so it's not like I can't enjoy the film or anything, but it is tampering with a classic film...

goofystitch wrote:This might have been discussed already and I apologize if I missed it, but on Disney's website for the Blu-Ray (http://disneydvd.disney.go.com/pinocchi ... ge=Trailer) it lists a bonus feature that says:

Disney View -- Expand Your Viewing Experience Beyond The Original Aspect Ratio Of The Film!

Does anybody know what this is going to be? To me, it sounds like they have possibly added image to the side of the 1.33:1 image to make it 1.66:1. Now that would be a first.

No, they're placing special artwork on the sides of the 4:3 image to fill the 16:9 frame. Think of it like a screen saver that corresponds to the sequences in the film.

Pointless and distracting, I say. Thank God it's optional.

blackcauldron85 wrote:

steven132 wrote: Geppetto's "birdcage"

Um, Stromboli's birdcage...I know you didn't write it, Steven, but that just stuck out like a sore thumb.

Is it hard to restore an older film with the original colors? I know that they did it for Snow White, so why not for Cinderella or Pinocchio? I mean, the story is what matters the most, so it's not like I can't enjoy the film or anything, but it is tampering with a classic film...

When Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were shown the restored Snow White, the outspoken Ollie had this to say: "Nice colors. Not the colors we used in 1937, but nice."