{"id":39492,"date":"2018-02-18T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-18T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=39492"},"modified":"2018-02-17T11:39:55","modified_gmt":"2018-02-17T19:39:55","slug":"the-pinocchio-song-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/the-pinocchio-song-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Pinocchio” Song Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>IF Walt Disney seemed complacent to let Max Fleischer have his day in the sun, he had good reason. Despite all the hoopla and hullabaloo surrounding Gulliver’s Travels<\/em>, Walt knew he had an ace in the hole.<\/p>\n

Disney knew that, in order to follow up on the success of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs<\/em>, he’d have to have something with a good story line and good songs to go with it. And, even when he put Bambi<\/em> on a back burner, he kept it simmering while he worked on the little wooden poppet’s adventures.<\/p>\n

Disney also knew that marketing the picture meant marketing songs as well.<\/p>\n

Following a practice he’d done with Ferdinand the Bull<\/em>, he decided to use songs to market the picture several months before the picture was to hit theaters.<\/p>\n

So, during August and September, 1939, several bands were encouraged to play and record three songs that wound up either not being used in the picture, or else were buried in the underscore, where most folks wouldn’t notice them.<\/p>\n

“Honest John”, “Monstro the Whale” and “Jiminy Cricket” would wind up being given to bands that were not the hottest swing groups. Instead of going to top-flight swing bands such as Benny Goodman or Tommy Dorsey, or to up-and-comers such as Artie Shaw or Glenn Miller, these songs went to solid name-bands, often trying to be all-around dance or show bands, or to obscure swing groups.<\/p>\n