Various Writers

In order to understand Pinocchio, we have to look back at its source material. To the time machine, loyal Shmoopers.

The Original Reboot

The Adventures of Pinocchio was written by Italian writer Carlo Collodi, first as a serialized story and then as a children's book in 1883. The book is legendary for quite a few reasons…most notably as one of the first ever works of children's literature.

Yeah. So the next time you pick up a copy of The Boxcar Children, be sure to thank Carlo Collodi.

But there are some major differences between The Adventures of Pinocchio and the Disney animated classic. We see them most notably in the character of Pinocchio: in the original, he's portrayed as rude, brash, and almost wholly lacking redeeming qualities. In the film, however, he's portrayed as good-hearted, if a bit bumbling.

The other big change is the addition of Jiminy Cricket. After a year of working on Pinocchio, the team was stuck: they just couldn't figure out how to make Pinocchio seem less dumb. To fix this, they resurrected a cricket side character from an earlier draft, named him Jiminy, and made history.

There's No "Me" in "Screenwriter"

But who actually wrote the dang thing? Well, a whole slew of people.

Like most early Disney films, Pinocchio was written, animated, and directed by committee, and ultimately credits seven men for its script.

Check it out:

• Ted Sears
• Otto Englander
• Webb Smith
• William Cottrell
• Joseph Sabo
• Erdman Penner
• Aurelius Battaglia

That's a lot of names. Although we don't know each individual's contribution to the final product, this is part and parcel with the nature of traditional animation, which requires more behind-the-scenes collaboration than perhaps any other genre of film…especially back in the good ol' days, when each panel had to be hand-painted.