The Walt Disney Studios' 1940 masterpiece Pinocchio is often regarded as the most perfectly realized animated cartoon feature. Producer Walt Disney had taken a tremendous risk when he invented the genre of the animated feature film in 1937 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Its success prompted him and his staff to adapt Carlo Collodi's nineteenth-century tale of a puppet-boy, in Disney's version a well-meaning but undirected character who becomes a real boy when he attains wisdom and offers himself in heroic sacrifice. Using 1500 different hues of paint to color the million celluloid drawings in the film, and a Disney Studios-invented device called the "multi-plane camera" to give an illusion of depth and solidity, the film possessed astonishing beauty to go along with a fast-moving and dramatic story.

The film was directed by Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske. It cost $2,600,000, making it an unusually expensive picture for the age. One of the animation directors, Wolfgang Reitherman (who stayed with the Disney organization until 1980 and became head of the animation department) estimated at the time of his retirement that to make Pinocchio in that year would have cost $50 million. As it was, the animation staff of the studio expanded from 300 to 2,000 artists during the time between Snow White and Pinocchio. When the costs for animating the first half minute of the film reached $25,000 for the photography alone, Disney had to personally rein in his team's enthusiasm.

The film was also brilliantly scored by Leigh Harline, using a series of songs that he also composed (with lyrics by Ned Washington). Harline shared composer credits with Paul J. Smith, but it has been said that in no other Disney animated film was the contribution of a single composer so dominant.

Pinocchio is one of the richest of all films in its share of classic popular standards. Many are memorable and instantly recognizable, and all advanced the plot. In Pinocchio there is never a sense that the story has paused for a musical number. One of the songs, "When you Wish upon a Star," not only served to introduce the theme of the movie and to establish the character of Jiminy Cricket, but also became the aural icon for the entire Walt Disney organization, as much a symbol of the company and its image of delivering dreams and magic as the drawing of sprightly Tinker Bell and the image of Cinderella's castle.

"Little Wooden Head" depicts woodcarver Geppetto's loneliness and growing affection as he carves Pinocchio; "Give a Little Whistle" defines the Cricket's function as the puppet's conscience, while "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee" and "I've Got No Strings" illustrate the impulsive spirit of Pinocchio. Harline used a variety of ensembles for the score, using 80 musicians in all. The largest is the 50-piece orchestra called for in the whale sequence. Harline won the Oscar for the Best Original Score, and he and Washington took home additional Best Song statuettes for "When You Wish Upon a Star."

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