Pinocchio was the second film produced by Walt Disney Pictures; Snow White was the first.

The film is ultimately based on the Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, published in 1883.

Walt Disney considered Pinocchio one of his finest cinematic achievements, despite it being a box office bomb that nearly bankrupted the company.

“When You Wish Upon a Star” won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1940, and the film also won for Best Original Score.

Figaro the cat was a personal favorite of Walt Disney, and he later made the kitten Minnie Mouse’s pet.

Dickie Jones voiced Pinocchio at just 13 years old—this was before studios commonly used women to voice young boys in animation.

The whale in Pinocchio was named Monstro, which means “monster” in both Portuguese and Spanish.

Pinocchio was the first Disney film to be initially released in multiple languages, unlike Snow White, which was originally released only in English.

Early storyboards for the character of Pinocchio portrayed him as bratty and unlikeable, leading Disney to redesign the character.

Jiminy Cricket was almost cut from the film because his design was considered too strange-looking.

The Blue Fairy was one of the first animated characters to have a hairstyle heavily based on real human hair.

Disney once considered giving Pinocchio a female puppet as a love interest, but the idea was ultimately scrapped.

There is a lost scene in which Pinocchio makes pancakes—one of the first major deleted scenes from a Disney film.

Geppetto’s accent was originally altered so he wouldn’t be associated with any single nationality.

Like many of Disney’s early films, the ending of Pinocchio is much lighter than the original book’s, which included his death and resurrection.

The film used approximately two million individual drawings.

On Pleasure Island, boys are shown drinking beer and smoking cigars—content that was controversial even at the time of the film’s release.

Fascist Italy banned the film, believing that Pinocchio portrayed Italian boys in a poor light.

Pinocchio is considered one of the most iconic films ever made and was added to the National Film Registry in 1994.