Puppeteer Bob Baker became a lifelong friend of Walt Disney's after he saw "The Three Little Pigs" as an 8-year-old boy. Later on, he became a puppetry consultant for the studio, and designed the high-end collectible marionettes sold through Disney stores.
In Part #3 of this exclusive interview, Baker talks about working on the puppet sequences for Disney films like Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Escape to Witch Mountain and Geppetto. In this final segment, Bob talks about how the working atmosphere at Disney changed after Walt's death, and why people should still run out and see Pinocchio.
S101: After Walt died, how did the atmosphere at the studio change?
Bob Baker: "The kiss of death in the studio was to say, ‘That isn’t the way Walt would’ve done it.’
"One day, while I was working on Bedknobs and Broomsticks, (director) Robert Louis Stevenson took me into the projection booth to show me a bunch of stuff and he would say, ‘I don’t want that to be shown, or that, or that, or even that.’
"I thought ‘That isn’t something Walt would have ever done.’ Walt believed in showing everything in screenings: good, bad or indifferent. From some of the bad things, he got some of his greatest ideas.
"Working on Bedknobs and Broomsticks was a very unhappy experience because, at that point, the studio would pit people against one another. I was pitted against the special effects fellows that actually won the award. I went into the studio the day after they won the 1972 Oscar for Best Visual Effects, to see the producer and congratulate everybody, and those guys all stood with their backs to me. They wouldn’t look at me, or talk to me."
"A lot of people would look at stuff and say, ‘Walt wouldn’t have done it that way’ and of course you couldn’t dig him up and ask him! (laughs) It took about 5 years before they got rid of that little saying, and by then other problems took over."
Say somebody has not seen Pinocchio, but is vaguely interested in it. What would you tell them?
"Pinocchio was the beginning of it all. It’s not done with a computer; it’s all hand-drawn. It’s the same as our puppets: they’re all hand-made. When an animator can make the puppets dance and sing, and they give you tears in your eyes that’s a hell of a job.
"Computers are wonderful, but they’re a whole different medium. You must remember that Pinocchio was made way back in the beginning: it was the 2nd feature-length animated cartoon to ever be released. The colour in this DVD is supposed to be cleaned up. I’m really anxious to see because I know that, at the time I saw it, I was more than excited with all the things that they did with that film. Every time I show it, or look at it, the colour has gotten not as rich as it was but I’m still excited.
"Children will never have seen anything like this before; it’s all hand-drawn by these famous artists. And Disney’s such a great storyteller."
The Pinocchio 70th Anniversary Edition comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 10th.
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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