A NEW PINOCCHIO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 165, 21 August 1942, Page 6

A NEW PINOCCHIO

ZB Stations Feature Radio Version of Famous Story

Y’ INCE Walt Disney produced his film version a year or so ago we have all become familiar with the Pinocchio story, not to mention Pinocchio dolls, Jiminy Crickets, Figaros, Cleos, Pinocchio puzzles, and other impedimenta brought home at. intervals by father for the children. Now there is to be another revival of the story by the ZB stations. This time the producer is not Walt Disney, but Edward Sloman, well known not only as an American radio producer, but also as a film director. Although the theme is old, some of the later adventures of Pinocchio are new, as are the songs and the setting of the story. The musical director is Paul Sawtell, a Pole whose musical education began in Germany at a very tender age. There is also an original theme song "I’m Pinocchio" written by Tony Romano and. Morey Amsterdam. But it is not only the music that is: likely to become popular. There are also the animal noises, some recorded from

real animals in the High Sierras of Northern California, others imitated by a trapper named Tox Gilmore. Moreover, Edward Sloman even went to the length of inventing an entirely new gadget to get the right echo sounds for the scene "The Land of Lost Souls." The story was written as long ago as 1880 for an Italian children’s newspaper, Giornale Dei Bambini, by Carlo Collodi. Collodi was the editor of a Tuscan newspaper and an ex-soldier who had years before fought for his country’s freedom. Memories of the pranks of his own youth perhaps inspired his tale of the puppet who comes to life. Since that day the story of the puppet Pinocchio has been translated into many languages and with films and radio will become even better known. . Pinocchio may be heard from 1ZB on Thursdays and Saturdays at 6.30 p.m., from 2ZB on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, at 6.30 p.m., and from 4ZB on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5.30 p.m. .