Pinocchio Part 24

Another very short sequence. Monstro starts to eat and Geppetto madly pulls the tuna into the boat to nourish himself and his pets.

Geppetto is handled by Walt Kelly here, whose birthday (he would have been 94) was just a few days ago. While Kelly learned an enormous amount while at Disney, he was never in the first rank of animators. At Disney, action was not as respected as acting, so lesser animators were given action shots so the top animators could be saved for acting.

While the layout of scene 4.1, looking out from inside Monstro's mouth, is similar to one used in The Brave Little Tailor (see shot 61 here), it is beautifully animated by Don Tobin. There's a tremendous sense of scale in the contrasting sizes of Monstro's teeth and the water and fish that pass over them. Tobin's water animation is just excellent; there's a level of complexity that's very difficult to achieve.

Eric Larson contributes some good comedy with Figaro swatting the flailing tuna to prevent them from escaping. This pays off in a later sequence.