In its storied 100-year history, the House of Mouse has given us some of entertainment’s most iconic and timeless animated features. The late 1930s and early 1940s were arguably the company’s first Golden Era, as that period also represented the birth of animation as a new feature film medium. While it can be difficult to name one movie from those early years as the best,Rotten Tomatoeshas done just that.
Per the review aggregator, 100% of critics named the original 1940Pinocchio"certified fresh." It is the only Disney animated movie to earn the top score. The audience rating stands at a similarly strong 73%. That’s not bad, consideringPinocchiowas only Disney’s second-ever animated film. So why the perfect 100? Is the love driven by nostalgia? Or does the movie still hold up today, more than eight decades after its release? Disney wasn’t afraid to go dark either in those early days, withPinocchioa particularly dark standout.Let’s look at all the reasons why this classic earned that perfect 100% rating.
Why Disney’s Pinocchio Has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes
Everyone knows the story ofPinocchio. But in case you don’t, here’s a spoiler warning for the 84-year-old flick.Based on a novelwritten in 1880s Italy, the movie tells the tale of the titular puppet Pinocchio crafted by the woodcarver Geppetto. When Geppetto wishes for his creation to come to life, the Blue Fairy obliges and makes Pinocchio a real boy. Along the way, Pinocchio must prove he deserves to be real by learning the difference between right and wrong. To help him on that journey is Jiminy Cricket, acting as the puppet boy’s conscience.
Pinocchio’s legacy has stood for decades and influenced hundreds of projects, both Disney and otherwise. The “real boy” element is one of the best-known tropes in animation and has been referenced countless times in other media. Jiminy Cricket’s song “When You Wish Upon a Star” even became Disney’s official theme music, playing over the famous castle shot that opens every movie.
Beyond that,Pinocchiois a great, wholesome film about a kid learning to do good in the world. Maybe that legacy meant it shouldn’t fall victim to the Disney live-action reboot curse. But it did in 2022, and that Tom Hanks version sits at a brutal 28% on Rotten Tomatoes. To rub salt in the wound,Guillermo del Toro released his adaptationtwo months after that reboot, and his version almost matches the original at 96%. The character from the original book (not Disney’s version) has also appeared in at least 20 other movies with varying degrees of quality. But none compare to the animated original.
Pinocchiois not without its share of dark themes. The concept of a puppet coming to life lends itself well to horror, which is likely whyPinocchiowill be apart of the new Poohniverse. The movie also touches on kidnapping when Honest John tricks the puppet boy into ditching school and sells him to be enslaved by the puppet master, Stromboli.
Why exactly does this newly-animate creature immediately need education anyway? He also winds up (pun intended) on the innuendo-laden Pleasure Island to participate in drinking, smoking, and fighting with other delinquent kids. The island apparently curses the kids, too, and turns them all into donkeys before they’re sold into servitude again. Pinocchio manages to escape the donkey transformation, just to learn Geppetto went to Pleasure Island and was swallowed by a whale. Pinocchio frees Geppetto, though he dies in the process. However, the Blue Fairy rewards Pinocchio’s sacrifice by making him a permanent human boy. Family friendly kids movie, right?
Pinocchio vs. the Golden Age Disney Films
It’s clear thatDisney was still trying to figure out how to make children’s animation in the 1940s. They’ve since dialed back the death, human trafficking, narcotics, and mutant transformations just a bit.Pinocchiowasn’t exactly an outlier in its dark themes. Dumbo’s mother was locked up, and the baby elephant dealt with that pain by getting drunk and hallucinating. Bambi’s mother died, too, as did Snow White’s parents inDisney’s very first movie. The “dead parents” trope remains perhaps Disney’s greatest hallmark.
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Fantasiawas among the first tocombine live-action and animationthrough an anthology format. The final vignette,Night on Bald Mountain, introduced us to the demon Chernabog and his evil spirits in arguably the single darkest Disney animation ever produced. Morbid as it was, that animation from 1940 is more detailed and fluid than some of what we have today. Disney went dark all around in those early days to great success. No project from that Golden Era earned less than a 90% critical consensus.Pinocchiotops them all because humanity is at its core and centers on the basic tenet of good vs. evil.
Disney’s Other Near-Perfect Movies
WhilePinocchiois believed to be Disney’s only animated perfect Rotten Tomatoes-rated feature, several others have almost hit the mark. The rest of those first Golden Era films range between 95% and 97%.Bambiis the lone outlier with a still impressive 91%. In the decades that followed,Cinderella, 101 Dalmatians, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Zootopia, Aladdin,andMoanaall scored 95% and above.
Many more, includingFrozen, Big Hero 6, The Little Mermaid, Encanto, The Lion King,andBeauty and the Beast,achieved at least 90%. Disney has enjoyed highly positive critical reception for most of its history, with only 15 movies in total scoring below 70%. The record at the other end of the scale is held by 2005’sChicken Little—Disney’s first fully CGI animated project—at a dim 36%.
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Disney is perhaps the greatest animation studio there is, andPinocchiois one of the films that best exemplifies this. It came at the dawn of animated movies, so there were still a lot of kinks to work out. But its basic story of a child trying to do what is right resonated with audiences at the time and laid the groundwork for every similar tale.Pinocchiois Disney at its best, and it’s earned that perfect 100%.The originalPinocchiois streaming now onDisney+.
