The Dancing Puppets are characters from the 1940 Disney film Pinocchio. They are a group of puppets used by Stromboli in his touring puppet theater during the musical number "I've Got No Strings".
Background[]
The dancing puppets are a group of puppets that perform on Stromboli's puppet theater with Stromboli himself serving as the greedy owner of his puppet theater. Though they are non-sentient puppets, Stromboli uses them to help entertain the guests as well as using them for Pinocchio to interact with.
Each outfit the puppets wear represents a costume of a different nationality: Dutch, French, and Russian respectively while each background seen during the puppet show performance indicates which puppets are being used for a different sequence. For the Netherlands scene, the puppets based on Dutch girls wear Dirndl clothes with aprons and skirts to represent the Netherlands. For the France scene, the puppets wear traditional cancan dresses to represent French cancan-dancing girls and France. For the Russia scene, the Russian girl puppet wears a purple sarafan wearing a white kokoshnik on her head while the others are black-bearded males representing Cossacks, dressed in blue pants, dark red shirts, with black hats and boots and their eyebrows lowered down, making the puppets represent Russia. The colors of the costumes the puppets wear vary depending on which puppets are seen during performance.
Appearances[]
Pinoccho[]
When Pinocchio is taken to Stromboli's puppet theater and Stromboli himself introduces Pinocchio to the audience, a group of toy soldier puppets blow their trumpets to begin Pinocchio's introduction and as Pinocchio performs on stage, he sings the musical number "I've Got No Strings" while Jiminy Cricket watches the show via lamppost. After Pinocchio performs his solo act, the audience cheers for his performance and a Dutch-style background drops where a puppet representing a Dutch girl sings her part seeing Pinocchio being an unusual puppet during performance. After the Dutch puppet sings her part, four Dutch puppets dance together while Pinocchio while Stromboli conducts the orchestra. After the Dutch puppets perform their part, they leave as a French background drops behind Pinocchio. A puppet representing a cancan dancer appears next to Pinocchio and performs her part where she describes Pinocchio being an unusual puppet and after that, four cancan puppets dance in front of Pinocchio performing their cancan dance while Jiminy sees an illustration of a woman in the background in excitement while the cancan puppets continue dancing. After the cancan puppets perform their act, they leave as a Russian background drops behind Pinocchio. A puppet representing a Russian girl appears and sings her part doing her traditional Russian dance while interacting with Pinocchio. As the Russian girl leaves, various Cossack puppets dance in front of Pinocchio just as Pinocchio dances along with them. Just as he dances with the puppets, Pinocchio sings, "There are no strings on me", just as the Cossack puppets leave. The audience cheers for Pinocchio's performance, much to Jiminy commenting on Pinocchio about the audience liking his performance. It then turns out that Stromboli's show is a touring puppet show, luring Pinocchio to a trap. The puppets make no further appearances after that.
Pinocchio (2022)[]
The puppets appear in the 2022 reimagining of the classic Disney film. One of the puppets seen in the remake is a ballerina puppet named Sabina who was created exclusively for the remake.
After Fabiana introduces Pinocchio to Sabina, Stromboli then announces Pinocchio's performance on stage and as the show begins with Pinocchio being introduced to the audience, a group of toy soldier puppets appear and blow their trumpets to introduce Pinocchio's introduction and as Pinocchio performs on stage, he sings the musical number "I've Got No Strings. After Pinocchio performs his solo act, the audience cheers for his performance and a French-style background drops where various puppets representing cancan dancers appear and dance in front of Pinocchio performing their cancan dance. After the cancan puppets perform their act and then leave, Sabina appears next to Pinocchio performing her own ballet act while a castle backdrop is displayed behind the two. After Sabina leaves, various Cossack puppets dance in front of Pinocchio just as Pinocchio dances along with them. Just as he dances with the puppets, Pinocchio sings, "There are no strings on me", just as the Cossack puppets leave. The audience cheers for Pinocchio's performance. It then turns out that Stromboli's show is a touring puppet show, luring Pinocchio to a trap.
No other puppets other than Sabina make further appearances after that. However, after Pinocchio learns of Stromboli's arrest as revealed by Fabiana, it is revealed that she has started her own puppet show known as the New Marionette Family Theater.
Video game appearances[]
Pinocchio (video game)[]
The puppets appear in the video game adaptation of Pinocchio in the level where Pinocchio dances with the puppets. The player must have Pinocchio copy the moves the other puppets are doing by pressing the buttons on their controller. The more the player copies the puppets, the harder the level becomes with puppets performing additional movements, making the level more difficult.
How the audience reacts to Pinocchio's performance depends on how well Pinocchio copies the puppets' movements exactly. If Pinocchio exactly copies their movements the correct way, the audience cheers for Pinocchio's wonderful performance and they throw helpful items for him. If Pinocchio does not exactly copy their movements the correct way, the audience boos and throws tomatoes at him, causing him to receive damage.
Disney Parks[]
Pinocchio's Daring Journey[]
In every version of the attraction, the first scene where the guests ride on their vehicles is the scene where Pinocchio performs in Stromboli's puppet theater and the two puppets next to him are a Dutch girl puppet and a cancan dancer puppet and two toy soldier puppets blowing their trumpets can be seen behind the curtains in that area. In the Disneyland and Disneyland Paris version, the song heard in this scene is "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee" while in the Tokyo Disneyland version, it is "I've Got No Strings". After passing through the scene, it passes through the scene where Pinocchio is caged at with other puppets in their own individual cages as it is revealed that Stromboli's puppet theater is a touring show, luring Pinocchio into a trap. The next scene after that is Pleasure Island where it is shown that Pinocchio has escaped from Stromboli.
Additionally, exclusive to the Tokyo Disneyland version is a facade depicting a Dutch girl puppet and a cancan dancer puppet respectively with a castle background which can be seen when the guests enter the attraction.
Fantasmic![]
The puppets appeared in the nighttime show at Disneyland where they appear after the Pink Elephants on Parade sequence where they dance with Pinocchio while instrumental scores of "Little Wooden Head" and "I've Got No Strings" played in the background. The sequence then looped to Jiminy Cricket underwater. However, as of the 2017 revamp, this scene was entirely replaced with the "Friend Like Me" sequence.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Concept art shows several puppets of different nationalities scrapped in the final version of the film. Some the puppets originally going to be used were harem girl puppets, geisha puppets, African tribesmen puppets, and gendarme puppets respectively but were unfortunately scrapped in the final version of the film. The reason why they were scrapped is unknown.
- However, this concept art later become the inspiration for the It's a Small World Dolls in the boat ride It's a Small World, in which there are over 300+ Audio-Animatronics dolls in traditional costumes from cultures around the world, frolicking in a spirit of international unity and singing the attraction's title song, which has a theme of global peace and harmony.
