The sprawling, costly follow-up to Snow White on which Bill Peet first proved his story talent. His wildly imaginative "Boogie Men" sketches caught Walt Disney's eye and earned him a permanent move from in-betweening to the story department, though the finished film gave him no screen credit, a grievance he never forgot.
Bill recalled the production with some frustration. As he told interviewer Mike Barrier in 1978: "After Snow White was such a success, Walt started padding out, and he didn't know who was doing what. Here were all these people jammed in there. Pinocchio was just a ponderous, impossible thing. They had hundreds of story boards on that thing, and countless storymen. They threw people in from shorts. They were just thrown in there. Walt thought that if they had ten times as many people, they'd do it ten times as fast."
His contribution
Bill's "Boogie Men" story sketches, wildly imaginative character designs created on his own initiative, finally caught Walt Disney's attention and earned him his transfer to the story department. He spent roughly two years contributing story work to Pinocchio, but received no screen credit on the finished film. "Yes, it was a crusher," he told Mike Barrier in 1978. The experience hardened his feelings about how Disney doled out credit: "Everything came out 'Walt Disney presents' and the rest of our names might as well have been in the phone book." (Bill Peet, L.A. Times, 1990)
Story sketches
- RELEASED
- February 7, 1940
- DIRECTOR
- Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske
- BASED ON
- The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (1883)
- BILL'S ROLE
- Story Sketch Artist
- RUNTIME
- 88 min