Puppeteer Bob Baker owns the longest-running marionette theatre in Los Angeles. He has also worked on many films, including Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Escape to Witch Mountain, Aardman Animation's Wallace and Gromit shorts "A Close Shave" and "The Wrong Trousers" plus the feature-length The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
That's Bob Baker manipulating Beauregard the animated plant in the 1966 Star Trek episode "The Man Trap."
In this exclusive interview, Bob shares his memories of the classic animated film Pinocchio which comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 10th. Look for a review coming to this space.
When was the first time you saw Pinocchio?
"I saw Pinocchio on its 2nd night at the Carthage Circle Theatre. It didn’t last long there, and then it went to the RKO Pantages Theatre. The next time I saw it was at the Pantages: I stayed there from the time the theatre opened until the time it closed, watching every performance they had of Pinocchio until they asked me to leave. It showed about 8 times that day! (laughs)
What struck you about the movie?
"I think the first opening sequence: the pan down the street, all through the village and under the door and then on to Jiminy Cricket. That was the most exciting pan that I’ve ever seen and I’ve remembered that all through the years. I’ve been the governor of animation for the Motion Picture and Television Academy and I’ve never ever seen that duplicated. And it was all drawn; it wasn’t computerized. I couldn’t get over seeing what I was seeing.
"A lot of that was very new for the animators. For instance, they didn’t know how to draw the inside of a whale. A friend of mine, Bob Jones, had to create the inside of a whale for them. Bob also made the back end of Stromboli’s wagon and they had it on a thing that would move it from side to side because the animators couldn’t seem to draw that.
"And there’s another sequence: if you see Pinocchio in the cage, that was a little tricky thing: they made a cage to go in front of the animation because they couldn’t get the cage the way they wanted it."
You eventually worked at Disney. Which animators did you meet there?
"I knew Josh Meador, Charlie Pesante, Mary Blair: what designs she came up with! Sylvia Holland, who did all of the sprites in Fantasia. She wouldn’t let anyone else draw them: she drew them, she coloured them, she airbrushed them, nobody else could touch them.
Charlie Pesante, he did mountains. Any time there was a sparkle, that was Josh: he did the special effects animation."
Did you meet Milt Kahl? Because I know he did the Monstro the Whale sequences –
Yes, I knew Milt, I knew all of the Nine Old Men . . . I’m terrible with names; they tell me it’s a senior thing! (laughs).
"Ward Kimball told me a lot about working on Pinocchio; he said that cleaning up the character was the hardest thing to do. (In the original story by Carlo Collodi), he was just a nasty little boy.
"Ward said they first made him into a teasey-type character, then he was a little sassy, and then Walt said, 'Let’s just make him a nice little boy who doesn’t know too much about the wide, wide world.'
"Building up Jiminy Cricket's character helped them (in the original story, Jiminy is just a pontificating cricket who Pinocchio kills with a hammer); Ward created him. I gave him a copy of the Jiminy puppet for his toy museum."
Can you tell us more about Ward Kimball?
"I used to go out and ride his train all the time and see his toy collection. In fact, Ward’s son – he and I were at the Television Academy together, he followed me as governor – he used to tell me how his dad used to play with these toys over and over and he didn’t know why he was doing that.
But when Ward got really interested in trains (a hobby he shared with Walt and Ollie Johnston), the toys weren't as important; he still collected them, but he didn’t play with them.
"I'm still in touch with the family. His daughter Kelly worked for me for a year and a half, making puppets for (the 1979 ABC mini-series) The Old Curiosity Shop. I didn't know who she was at first because she had grown up so much!
"Ward was basically a clown. He did (the short) "Noah’s Ark" as a lunchtime project in stop-motion animation, using all these erasers and pencils, stuff that he found in the studio. It was a very clever film, and he did that as a lark. But then Walt saw it and said, “We’re gonna release it.” And they did!" (laughs)
(In Part #2 of this exclusive interview, Bob talks about working with Walt Disney and the Pinocchio collectibles he designs for the studio)
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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