THE PUPPET'S BACKBONE

 

 

After the truly shameful live-action version of Pinocchio recently released by Disney (a total betrayal of their great animation heritage) the prospect of another movie based on Pinocchio could only come with the knowledge that it couldn’t be worse than the one we’d just been given! As it happens it is, proportionally, as wonderful as its forerunner was dire.

 

If one could pick any director to film the story of a puppet that earns the right to become a real boy, Guillermo del Toro – having a reputation for emotionally complex movies – clearly deserves a place in any list of contenders and, with this truly astonishing film, he has not only proved himself worthy of the task, he has delivered what is nothing short of a masterpiece.

 

The medium in which del Toro has chosen to present this cinematic work of art is the time-consuming, labour-intensive craft of stop-frame animation. It is a technique as old as cinematography: it was responsible for some of film’s earliest experiments in conjuring the illusion of life, the amazing films of Czech puppet film-maker Jiří Trnka, Willis O'Brien’s legendary behemoth, King Kong, Ray Harryhausen’s dinosaurs and demons and the adorable menagerie of Aardman Animations. For this project del Toro has collaborated with Mark Gustafson who was responsible for the animation direction in Wes Anderson’s 2009 adaptation of Roald Dahl's  Fantastic Mr. Fox.  

 

 

Of course, del Toro’s Pinocchio is no closer to Carlo Collodi’s nineteenth century children’s story than was Walt Disney’s 1940 animated classic but – despite the undoubted moments of terror in Uncle Walt’s telling – del Toro has plumbed every nuanced psychological depth of the concept of a man-made creature given life that has been an ever-present narrative trope from Ovid’s Pygmalion and Galatea, via Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Chucky in the film Child’s Play and after.

 

Del Toro’s “little puppet made of pine” is no finely chiselled and polished marionette; he is a grotesque mockery of a child, crudely cobbled into being by an inebriated, grief-stricken Geppetto. We are in familiar del Toro territory: Pinocchio is a freak, a misfit, an outsider and a potential threat to everyone who conforms to societal norms. In a touching true moment of innocent self-understanding, Pinocchio compares his misaligned limbs with those of Geppetto’s finely carved figure of the crucified Christ (himself an image of the dangerous outsider) in the hillside village church. 

 

The script of this – the 22nd cinematic variation on the Pinocchio theme – admittedly plays faster and looser with Collodi’s didactic text than even Disney’s script-writers: the explosive puppet-theatre showman is neither Collodi’s Mangiafuoco nor Disney’s (volcanically named) Stromboli, he is, here, Count Volpe: an amalgam of the original man-mountain of malignancy (his original puppet-persona is still to be glimpsed as one of the carnival’s background-freaks) combined with the wily Fox and his side-kick Cat who were the stand-out rogues of the Disney version seducing Pinocchio from the straight-and-narrow with the romantic dream of “an actor's life.” In this new incarnation, the film’s central villain focuses the myriad ideas and forces that oppose Pinocchio's naive integrity.  

 

 

Collodi’s life-empowering Fairy with Turquoise Hair (Disney’s Hollywood-blonde Blue Fairy) is here transformed into an wondrous being: a mystical blue creature with wings of eyes like some Biblical phenomenon that del Toro names a Wood Sprite – the spirit not just of the woods, it seems, but of all things wooden – who with her similarly blue, many-eyed horned sister – are ancient, fantastical, creatures from a hitherto unexplored cavern in Pan’s labyrinth.

As in Disney, the talking cricket (so swiftly and violently dispatched by Pinocchio in Collodi’s novel) assumes the role of storyteller with the task of having charge of Pinocchio’s moral education given new meaning by his actually living in a knot-hole in the puppet’s chest. 

 

 

The cricket (or to give him his new, grandiose name ‘Sebastian J. Cricket’ is spoken – and sung – for by Ewan McGregor in a mix of bug bemusement and human irritation while David Bradley (in his third movie for del Toro) gives us the perfect Geppetto – a damaged soul, haunted by the past, wounded by loss and wrestling with those issues that have – throughout history – confronted fathers and sons. There is a starry line up of supporting voices including Christoph Waltz (as the, by-turns, charming and malevolent Count Volpe), Tilda Swinton (and the Sprite and Death) and an impressive vocal performance from young newcomer, Gregory Mann, as the titular character.

 

Eschewing the original period of the book in favour of Second World War Italy under ‘Il Duce’, del Toro gives uses his seemingly innocent puppet show to address a vast agenda of topics including war and peace, faith and disbelief, trust and deceit, wisdom and folly, grief and joy, cowardice and courage and, ultimately – in Geppetto’s relationship with both his long dead son and his own self-carved replacement – we are asked to grapple with nothing less than matters of life and death.

 

The scenario hurtles towards its climax in narrative territory with which we are familiar from book and earlier films: Geppetto’s rescue bid to save his wayward puppet-child leading to Pinocchio’s quest to save his creator-father from the monstrous dog-fish that has swallowed him and his little boat. The ending, however, is not quite what we may have been expecting, but – without spoiling your discovery – it is one that not only feels true to everything that has gone before but also, perhaps, the only place where del Toro could possibly ring down the curtain.

 

There are many moments en route to that place when – so bound up are we in this story and its telling – that it is difficult to remember that all the characters in this intimate drama are puppets – not just the one who looks like a puppet!

 

 

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio achieves what only truly great animation can achieve: permission for an audience to invest in the sheer wonderment of story and characters and so allow themselves to be moved to laughter and tears by the age-old magic of puppetry. 

 

SHORT CARTOONS

The fact that this is a spoof is as plain as the nose on Pinocchio's face.

Oh, I see......


These, on the other hand, are a genuine product: just £9.51 a pair!



Still, at least Messrs Milne and Shepard got a credit!

HIGHLY STRUNG

After watching Pinocchio you could haul out the old tool box and have a go at being Geppetto by simply following these not-quite-so-simple instructions, published in Popular Science in February 1940 and written, I notice, by some long-lost relative of mine, Hi Sibley...

Click on each page to enlarge

Good luck! And if you make one and it turns into a real boy, please let us know...

PUPPET'S PROGRESS

I was amused to see on the Amazon page advertising the new Platinum Edition DVD of Walt Disney's Pinocchio, the following details...

Pinocchio (2 Disc Platinum Edition) DVD - Mel Blanc

The thing is, to list Mel Blanc as the star of the film is, to say the least, perverse. You see, whilst Blanc - who was famously the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd et al - was indeed hired by Disney to provide the voice of Gideon the Cat, side-kick to that foxy gent, 'Honest' John Worthington Foulfellow, it was subsequently decided that Giddy (as HJWF calls him) should be played - like Dopey in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - as a mute pantomime character. As a result, all that remains of Mel Blanc's vocal performance - but enough, as far as Amazon are concerned to win him top billing - is an inebriated hiccup!

Anyway, you now know an arcane bit of Disney trivia and won't be too disappointed not to hear Mr Blanc among the film's voice cast.

Now, as long-term readers of this blog will know, I have posted before about my passion for this quite astonishing film...

Click on images to enlarge

...and I had an opportunity to enthuse when, a few months back, I was interviewed for No Strings Attached, the 'Making of...' feature that's included on the new 70th Anniversary DVD release of the film. Just to prove it, here is a screen-grab of me in mid-gab...


Naturally, I watched Pinocchio prior to the interview (although, over the years, I must have seen it close on fifty times) and having now seen it yet again in what is, literally, a sparkling restoration filled with the richest colours and deepest shadows, I am even more certain that this film is not just one of the great masterpieces of animation but also a great movie in any genre.

I first saw Pinocchio from the front row of the circle in the Odeon, Bromley, sometime in the early ‘sixties, when it was already on its umpty-umpth re-release. So entranced was I that I went back to see it again and again - and again!

This, of course, was in the days of 'continuous performances' which meant that I was able to watch Pinocchio eight times in one week!

Teaching myself to write in the dark, I filled an entire notebook with minute observations about the animation, the structure of the storytelling, the set-pieces and effects and the incredible richness of detailing (such as Geppetto's incredible array of carved clocks like the one on the right) that create an intense - almost claustrophobic - atmosphere of fantastical reality that swallows up the viewer as surely as Monstro the Whale has swallowed up Geppetto's boat.




The paintings (left and above) by the Swedish artist, Gustav Tenggren, are two of many pieces of inspirational art which helped create the ornately sumptuous styling of the film that is, essentially, a European picture book come to life.
Pinocchio was released in 1940, just two years after Disney's first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the picture undoubtedly benefited not just from all the lessons learned in animating Snow White, but also from the fact that the huge financial success of that debut outing made it possible for serious money to be spent on developing the studio's second feature. The refinement of craft and increased expenditure can be seen in almost every sequence of Pinocchio.

Nevertheless, he two films could scarcely be more different: the first has freshness, exuberance and a naïve innocence that no Disney feature would ever re-capture; the second is more a more mature and studied piece of film-making, bolder and braver in breaking with the sweet formula of the fairy tale and in creating a cast of characters several of whom have an ambiguous morality.









Then there is the tone and look of the film. Despite the occasional scary moments Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is essentially a light, airy film, whereas Pinocchio is dark and sombre…

It runs for just under an hour and a half and yet less than 15 minutes of that time takes place in daylight: the rest is made up of sinister night sequences and scenes shot underwater and within the gloomy, vaulted, cathedral-like interior of the whale.


There are scenes of menace and sheer out-and-out terror: Pinocchio cowering in a cage as Stromboli the puppet-master tells him that he will make a lot of money and when he is no longer any good he will make excellent firewood - a warning which he demonstrates by hurling a hatchet into the body of a lifeless puppet lying in a basket of wood...


Or, again, the scene in the dingy, smoky interior of the Red Lobster Inn where the Coachman reveals his scheme for abducting naughty little boys and taking them to Pleasure Island, his fat, flabby face transforming into a leering demon that terrifies even the crooked Honest John.

Above all, there is the shocking moment when the tough-kid, Lampwick, begins to transform into a donkey: running amok in the pool hall, kicking over chairs and tables and smashing mirrors with his newly-developed hooves.


True, at the end of the film there is a happy ending for Pinocchio, but not for Lampwick or for the other donkey-boys who have been crated up and sent to the salt mines.

A number of sequences carry a terrible sense of desolation: the ruins of Pleasure Island after the boys have reeked havoc and destruction; and the dusty interior of Geppetto’s deserted workshop after he has gone off to look for his missing boy.

Magically, the film juggles the terrifying with the funny, the harsh with the sentimental. And the forces of malevolence, whilst being an ever-present threat, are always counterpointed by the constancy of Geppetto and the loyalty of the temperamental but big-hearted Jiminy Cricket, who begins the film as a storyteller but then steps into the story itself not just as Pinocchio's conscience but also as the audience's guide and companion.


When Geppetto wishes on the Wishing Star that Pinocchio might become a real boy, Jiminy observes: “A really lovely thought but not all practical…” And when the Blue Fairy does, indeed, endow the puppet with life, he says with genuine astonishment, “What they can’t do these days!”

The Jiminy device (unique to the film since, in the original book by Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio flattens the Talking Cricket with one of Geppetto's mallets!) gives immediacy to the tale so that it appears to be a first hand recollection a true story that really happened.


We ought to wonder about the oddness of it all - a sharp-talking, street-wise American commentator who looks hardly anything like a real cricket and basically is only a cricket because we are told that he's a cricket. But we accept it entirely at face value despite the fact that this spunky little insect-man is providing a commentary on a story that unfolds in a quaint, old-fashioned European world that is less like Collodi's Italy than somewhere on the borders of Switzerland and Germany.


The use of the multiplane camera, that had been employed only sparingly in Snow White, gives Pinocchio great depth as can be seen in the opening pan across the moonlit rooftops and the spectacularly elaborate sequence of the hustle and bustle of the village coming awake to the sound of the school bell: the camera moves among the knotted jumble of streets and squares to reveal children running, laughing and playing at the pump; a mother giving a child's face a final scrub; an old man smoking his pipe; a baker going on his rounds; a goose girl driving her geese...


The animators also made skillful use of visual perspectives as in the shot filmed from Jiminy’s point of view as the camera - along with the cricket - literally hops towards the lighted window of Geppetto's workshop.

As for the special effects, they proliferate and are stunning: fire, smoke, lightning and rain; the Blue Fairy's magic wand; the distorted view of Pinocchio through Cleo’s goldfish bowl; Jiminy floating down on his umbrella reflected on the convex surface of Monstro’s eyeball; and the extraordinary sea scenes: the waves, wind and foam, the uproar of surf churned up by the enraged Monstro and the picturesque underwater landscape filled with reflections, bubbles and swirling shoals of fish...


Pinocchio is a tour de force of economic storytelling: compressing the many exploits in Collodi’s book into a single, compelling narrative, told in part through the music and songs that help delineate character and advance the plot: the fraudulent Honest John's 'Hi-diddly-dee, an Actor's Life for Me'; Pinocchio's 'There Are No Strings On Me', an ironic song of freedom sung just before his imprisonment by Stromboli; and Jiminy Cricket's 'Give a Little Whistle' and the opening and closing ballad, 'When You Wish Upon a Star' (movingly rendered by Jiminy's voice, Cliff Edwards) which became - and remains - the anthem of the Disney studio.


Apart from having restored the film to such pristine brilliance that is difficult to believe one is looking at a film that is seventy years old, the DVD contains a lot of extras.

There are puzzles and sing-alongs for the youngsters and many fascinating bonus items for the animation devotee including deleted scenes, an alternate ending, an abandoned song for Honest John, an art gallery, a feature about toys and toy-making past and present (that manages a not-to-subliminal plug for the unltimate WALL.E toy!) and, as has already been noted, an almost-hour-long feature on the background to the making of the film...


No Strings Attached explores every facet of the film from conception to release with inspirational art, storyboard sketches accompanied by the recollections, anecdotes and comments of animators past and present, sundry 'historians' (moi included!) and Dickie Jones, the original voice of Pinocchio who, it turns out, was a real boy after all!!

As for me, whenever I watch Pinocchio I, too, become a real boy once more...

BEAST OF BURDEN

While on Kalymnos, we saw an old, tired donkey, tethered in a field beneath a fig tree.

By and large, donkeys have had a bad press: they are stubborn, intransigent creatures who have to be harried, prodded and beaten into doing tasks that the far more noble horse will willingly undertake; they are what idle, disobedient boys turn into in Pinocchio; they are gloomy, melancholy pessimists like Winnie-the-Pooh's friend, Eeyore; or, at best, they are hee-hawing clowns like Shrek's garrulous companion.

George Herbert said: “If a donkey bray at you, don't bray at him,” and the Talmud advises: "If one man says to thee, 'Thou art a donkey', pay no heed. If two speak thus, purchase a saddle!” And, indeed, I have, myself, told a rather unattractive tale of a donkey.

But, as I looked into the large, liquid eyes of this sad, weary creature, my mind flew back to childhood and my first reading of that simple, yet affecting, poem by G K Chesterton...

THE OLD DONKEY

When forests walked and fishes flew
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood,
Then, surely, I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening bray
And ears like errant wings—
The devil's walking parody
Of all four-footed things:

The battered outlaw of the earth
Of ancient crooked will;
Scourge, beat, deride me—I am dumb—
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour—
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout around my head
And palms about my feet.

- G K Chesterton

Images: Brian Sibley & David Weeks © 2008 [Click on images to enlarge]

GIVE A LITTLE WHISTLE

Today: Another interesting sign for your enlightenment! Jen Miller encountered the following notice at Ardrossan Station for the ferry to Arran...

Not forgetting, of course, to---

"...ALWAYS let your conscience be your guide!"

[Images: Jen Miller & Walt Disney]

CRIKEY! I SAY, YOU CHAPS!

Remember Frank Richard’s larger than life (and non-politically-correct) schoolboy, Billy Bunter - the so-called Fat Owl of Greyfriars - who was superbly portrayed on television by the late Gerald Campion?


I mention this because of a comment posted on yesterday's blog about the origin of the name ‘Jiminy Cricket' which, I suggested, was really a euphemistic alternative to the (possibly) blasphemous use of the name 'Jesus Christ'.

Now, if you ever read the comments on any of my blogs, you’ll know that the Diva of Deception is a regular poster of comments and is, herself, not easily deceived! Hence her remarks on the matter of Mr Cricket and Mr Christ...

Thanks for the insight into the origins of both the 'Pinocchio' story and the character and name of Jiminy - my favourite character in all of Disney.

My first visit to Disneyland resulted in my buying a Jiminy doll. Now I wonder if, due to the origins of the name, it's an appropriate 'doll' for a Jewish person? And is the exclamation 'Crikey!' from the same stable? Literally?

What can I say, Diva, except----

Oh, Lor'! Yes, I’m afraid it is it is! So too, are the exclamations (if you're ever tempted) Cripes! and Criminy! Hence my thinking back to the days when Master Billy Bunter used to say Crikey! and Oh, Lor! all the time without any of us ever giving it a second’s thought!

As for the religious question…

I have to say that I consider a Jiminy Cricket doll an entirely appropriate thing for ANYONE to have about the place, because he’s a “happy-go-lucky fella” (as he sings in his other feature film, Fun and Fancy Free) and because he most definitely knows RIGHT from WRONG, which is pretty important - whatever your religion!

In our house, I can happily reveal, Mr Cricket gets on terrifically well with my friend Buttons who happens to be a Non-Conformist --- and a rabbit which is, after all, only one letter longer than a rabbi…


So, when it comes to the issue of having or not having your own personal Jiminy Cricket, I’d say: “always let your conscience be your guide!”

[Image of Gerald Campion as Billy Bunter: The BBC Guide to Comedy]

SUNDAY CRICKET

This may be an entirely inappropriate subject for a Sabbath-day blog, but my recent mention of Walt Disney's 1940 film, Pinocchio, reminded me that the name of the puppet's 'Official Conscience', Jiminy Cricket, has a curious history...

When, in 1883, writer 'Carlo Collodi' (real name Carlo Lorenzini) began writing Le Avventure di Pinocchio for an Italian children's newsparer he included a brief encounter between the marionette and a Talking Cricket who, in those days, still didn't have a name.

Pinocchio tells the Cricket that his ambition in life is to "eat, drink, sleep and amuse myself, and to lead a vagabond life from morning to night," and this prompts an outburst of weighty moralising by the Cricket who informs the puppet that: "As a rule, all those who follow that trade end almost always either in a hospital or in prison." This, in turn, leads to an exchange with an extremely ugly outcome...

"Take care, you wicked, ill-omened croaker! Woe to you if I fly into a passion!"

"Poor Pinocchio! I really pity you!"

"Why do you pity me?"

"Because you are a puppet and, what is worse, because you have a wooden head."

At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a rage and, snatching a wooden hammer from the bench, he threw it at the Talking-Cricket.

Perhaps he never meant to hit him, but unfortunately it struck him exactly on the head, so that the poor Cricket had scarcely breath to cry "Cri-cri-cri!" and then he remained dried up and flattened against the wall.

Later in the story, the Cricket's ghost comes back from the dead to do some more sermonising, but Walt Disney decided to keep the Cricket alive and to continue his spirited attempts at guiding Pinoke on “the straight and narrow path” throughout the movie.


Obviously, such a major character required a name… But the moniker 'Jiminy Cricket' wasn't Disney's invention; it was borrowed from an already everyday expression - dating back to 1848 - denoting puzzlement or surprise: “JIMINY CRICKETS!”

But, why Jiminy Crickets? Well, if you look at the initials of that name -- J. C. -- there's your answer…

Jiminy Crickets (or sometimes Jiminy Christmas) is a euphemistic alternative to swearing by the person Quentin Crisp used to refer to as "Mister Nazareth"!

It seems likely that the origin of the expression was overlooked by Disney who had already allowed it to be used by the dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (made three years before Pinocchio) when, on returning from their diamond mine, they discover that their home has been invaded by a princess with a penchant for cooking and cleaning!

Jiminy Crickets is an example of what is called a 'minced oath' - a kind of profanity chosen by those who would rather "mince their words", than risk giving offence…

So, instead of saying J**** C*****, you say Cheese and Rice, Jeepers Creepers, Jason Crisp, Judas Priest --- or good old Jiminy Crickets!

Other examples of 'minced oaths' include such Shakespearian expletives as 'Zounds', short for 'God's wounds' referring to the crucifixion, and 'Gadzooks', from 'God's hooks', or the nails in the cross.

By golly!, By gosh! and By gum! are all handy ways of NOT saying By GOD! And By Jove! is useful if you normally address the deity as Jehovah but want to avoid outright blasphemy.

On the other hand, the commonly used Drat! is a seriously shortened version of God rot it! which actually has a good deal more oomph to it and, in my opinion, really deserves to be reinstated into the language.

It should also be noted that Figs! and Fink! - should you happen to hear them used - are alternatives to the ubiquitous 'F' word - though, I'd guess, pretty much obsolete nowadays…

So, there you are: a bit of movie history and a lesson in etymology all in one!

Godfrey Daniels! What more could you ask?

[Image of Pinocchio and the Cricket by Greg Hildebrandt on Spiderwebart]

"NO REQUEST IS TOO EXTREME..."

“When are you going to play ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ on your Disney radio programmes?” my friend Mandy demanded. “I’ve heard three shows so far and you haven’t once played what must be the most famous Disney song of all!”

If you, too, are wondering when this much-loved, much-recorded number from Disney’s 1940 animated classic Pinocchio gets an airing on my BBC Radio 2 series, Ain’t No Mickey Mouse Music, well, I can tell you: the wait is finally over! Tonight’s the night!

The topic of this, the final programme in the series, is ‘The Mouse and the Message’, looking at the way in which Disney movies have taught us to ‘give a little whistle’, ‘look for the bear necessities’ and take a ‘step in the right direction’: a shamelessly optimistic philosophy that dates back to Disney’s 1933 film Three Little Pigs and the song that became the anthem of the depression-era America, ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?’

However, no song better typifies Disney’s positive, upbeat approach to life than Leigh Harline and Ned Washinton’s ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’.

I still remember the first time I saw and heard that song: sitting in the front row of the circle in the Odeon, Bromley, sometime in the early ‘sixties, when Pinocchio was already on its umpteenth re-release.

Up on the screen, the diminutive figure of Jiminy Cricket (wearing a top hat, tail-coat and spats and looking nothing like any cricket I’d ever seen), bathed in a spotlight and crooning this exquisite melody prior to telling us the story of the “little puppet made of pine” who becomes a real boy because his maker/father, Geppetto, believed that…

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do




Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true…




Of course, cynics will say that is, literally just ‘wishful thinking’ but, in 1940, it was a sentiment that caught the imagination of everyone who saw the picture and pretty soon established itself as the Disney Company’s official theme-song.

The night I watched Pinocchio for the first time, I fell totally under the spell of Disney and his artists; so much so, I and went back to the Bromley Odeon six more times that week to see, again and again (this was in the days of 'continuous performances'), what I still consider the greatest masterpiece of film animation.

‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ has probably been 'covered' by more recording artists than any other Disney number - from Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby to Eternal and ‘N Sync - and a zillion others in between - but, for me, it will always be associated with the oh-so-high voice of Cliff Edwards (below) a popular 1930s recording artist who was better known as ‘Ukulele Ike’.


Edwards, who had earlier had the distinction of performing the very first screen rendition of the song, Singin' in the Rain', in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, made a unique contribution to Pinocchio, not just with his singing of 'Wish Upon a Star' and 'Give a Little Whistle', but through his unforgettable vocal characterization as Pinoke's ‘Official Conscience’!

Anyway, that’s the plug for tonight’s programme: BBC Radio 2, 88-91 FM; or, if you miss it, then you can alway ‘Listen Again' on line - at least for the next seven days. [NOTE: THIS FACILITY IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE]

And now here’s a plug for the artist who drew the image of JC and Pinoke at the top of this blog as a design for a 2004 US postage stamp.

His name is Peter Emmerich and he’s not only responsible for creating some terrific Disney-inspired images, he’s also a diversely talented draughtsman with a witty line in caricature and a gift for capturing the foibles of humankind.

You can check out his work at Peter Emmerich's Sketchbook.

All of which should keep you busy; and, if it doesn’t, just remember: keep out of mischief --- and “always let your conscience be your guide”!