Pinocchio (1940) [22/0239]

The Disney classic "Pinocchio" from Walt Disney is one of those films like "Snow White" that has that special magic. Pinocchio is another French Disney release to have more than one dubbing. There were two actual dubs done to this film, the first in 1946 and the second in 1975. The second 1975 dubbing was slightly altered 3 times in 1995, 2003 and 2009. The laserdisc I am reviewing uses the 1975 dub with the slight alteration from 1995 included. So, that makes the laserdisc version unique in that this version does not appear on DVD!

So how does all this look? In a word, fantastic! The colors are vibrant and a joy to look at on screen....they have a certain glow to them that is indescrible and that "Snow White" has to a lesser degree, presumably since technology had improved since 1937. In my opinion this is the finest animation Disney ever did and in this release it really shows on screen. When watching it you sometimes forget that this is a laserdisc since at times you can see tiny film defects like you would expect in a theater, instead of what it has become on the DVD release, which is far too scrubbed digitally and looks more like a videotape than a film....yuck! The sound is equally well done with no muddy dialogue and all is crisp and clean. The simple packaging for this one-disc CLV release is beautifully done as well with nice slick graphics. Chroma noise, unsharp picture or laser rot, you may ask? Not a trace of either....bon appétit!!!