Pinocchio Trivia
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54 free Pinocchio trivia questions with answers. Pinocchio has been lying and growing his nose since 1881, when Carlo Collodi began serialising The Story of a Puppet in an Italian children's paper, and this quiz follows the wooden boy from that book to Disney's 1940 film, and on to the 2022 versions by Robert Zemeckis and Guillermo del Toro. The Disney questions cover Geppetto, Figaro and Cleo, Honest John and Gideon, Stromboli, Pleasure Island, Lampwick, Monstro and Jiminy Cricket's gold badge. The book questions cover the far darker original: the cricket Pinocchio kills with a hammer, the Fox and the Cat, the Field of Miracles, the Terrible Dogfish and the gorilla judge. Easy questions any family can answer sit alongside harder ones on the animators, the voice cast, the box office flop, the Oscars, and how del Toro moved the story to Fascist Italy. Kids can play the first half comfortably; the rest is for the grown-ups. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the novel, the films and the characters, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 54 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which song does Disney's Pinocchio sing on stage as the star of a travelling puppet show?
I've Got No Strings
I've Got No Strings is his first and only performance: that night the puppet master locks his money-spinning star in a cage rather than let him go home.
Q 02In Collodi's Pinocchio, which nickname mocks Geppetto for a yellow wig the colour of cornmeal porridge?
Polendina
Polendina means polenta, the cornmeal mush his wig resembles; when the talking log shouts it, a furious Geppetto blames Master Antonio and the two old men come to blows.
Q 03In Disney's Pinocchio, what appears at the end of his nose as his lies to the Blue Fairy pile up?
A bird's nest
A bird's nest crowns the leafy branch his nose becomes as the lies mount; the Blue Fairy shrinks it back and frees him from the cage, warning that this is the last time she can help.
Q 04Along with his blue top hat, what does Disney's Jiminy Cricket characteristically carry?
An umbrella
An umbrella is Jiminy Cricket's constant prop: he opens it to float down like a parachute, and the Blue Fairy swaps his tramp's rags for a top hat, tailcoat and a smarter umbrella.
Q 05What job does the Blue Fairy give Jiminy Cricket?
Pinocchio's conscience
Pinocchio's conscience is the job, and Jiminy at once asks for a badge to prove it; the Blue Fairy says only "we'll see", then awards him a solid gold one in the film's final scene.
Q 06What three qualities must Disney's Pinocchio prove to become a real boy?
Brave, truthful and unselfish
The Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio to prove himself brave, truthful and unselfish; he does so by braving the whale to rescue Geppetto, dying in the attempt before she revives him.
Q 07In Disney's Pinocchio, what are the names of Geppetto's pet cat and goldfish?
Figaro and Cleo
Figaro and Cleo were invented by Disney's team, and neither exists in the novel; Figaro went on to become Minnie Mouse's cat.
Q 08In Disney's Pinocchio, what is the name of the con-artist fox who leads Pinocchio astray?
Honest John
Honest John, formally J. Worthington Foulfellow, has a sidekick who was meant to talk: Mel Blanc recorded Gideon's lines, but the studio made the cat mute and kept only a hiccup.
Q 09In Disney's Pinocchio, which puppeteer locks Pinocchio in a birdcage after making him the star of his show?
Stromboli
Stromboli cages Pinocchio after his stage debut and promises to chop him into firewood once he grows too old to draw a crowd.
Q 10In Disney's Pinocchio, what is the name of the place where naughty boys are turned into donkeys?
Pleasure Island
Pleasure Island is where the Coachman's boys turn into donkeys; in Collodi's original it is the Land of Toys, where Pinocchio spends five months before sprouting ears.
Q 11In Disney's film, which delinquent boy does Pinocchio befriend on the way to the island?
Lampwick
Lampwick is the cocky boy who turns fully into a donkey while shooting pool on the island; Collodi's original calls him Lucignolo, which English editions render as Candlewick or Lamp-Wick.
Q 12In Disney's Pinocchio, what is the name of the whale that swallows Geppetto?
Monstro
Monstro swallows Geppetto, boat and all, while the old man is at sea searching for Pinocchio; a message from the Blue Fairy tells the puppet where his father has gone.
Q 13In Disney's Pinocchio, how does Pinocchio get himself and Geppetto out of the whale?
He makes it sneeze
Q 21In Collodi's Pinocchio, what does the puppet sell to buy a ticket to the marionette theatre?
His school book
His school book, a brand-new ABC primer, goes for the four-penny price of a ticket; Geppetto had sold his only coat on a cold day to buy it.
Q 22In Collodi's Pinocchio, where do the Fox and the Cat convince the puppet to bury his gold coins?
The Field of Miracles
The Fox and the Cat send Pinocchio to the Field of Miracles near the town of Catchfools, where buried coins supposedly grow into a money tree; they dig the coins up themselves while he waits.
Q 23What colour is the Fairy's hair in Collodi's novel?
Turquoise
He makes it sneeze by lighting a smoky fire inside its belly, but the furious whale smashes their raft and chases them to a cove, where Pinocchio is found lifeless after saving his father.
Q 14Which Disney animated feature followed Pinocchio into cinemas later in 1940?
Fantasia
Fantasia premiered in New York in November 1940, nine months after Pinocchio; its Fantasound stereo needed specially equipped cinemas, so at first it could play in only a few of them.
Q 15Pinocchio was the first animated feature to win competitive Oscars: one for its song and which other award?
Best Original Score
Best Original Score completed a musical double at the 1941 ceremony; Snow White had brought Walt Disney only an honorary Oscar, so these were the first competitive wins for an animated feature.
Q 16Why did Disney's Pinocchio flop at the box office in 1940?
The war closed its overseas markets
The war closed its overseas markets in Europe and Asia just as Disney released a film that had cost $2.6 million; it earned its money back only through reissues, the first in 1945.
Q 17Which singer, known as "Ukulele Ike", voiced Jiminy Cricket?
Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards got the nickname from a waiter who could never remember his real name, and it stuck through his years as a 1920s recording star; he went on voicing Jiminy Cricket for Disney long after the film.
Q 18What did Walt Disney insist on when casting the voice of Pinocchio, leading him to choose Dickie Jones?
A real child, not an adult
A real child, not an adult: Disney heard grown actors trying to sound like kids and said no, so he hired Dickie Jones, a boy who was already a Hollywood veteran.
Q 19Which animator designed Jiminy Cricket after nearly quitting Disney when his Snow White scenes were cut?
Ward Kimball
Ward Kimball went through 12 or 14 designs, cutting away the insect parts until he had a little man with no ears; audiences accept him as a cricket, he said, because the other characters say he is.
Q 20In Collodi's original novel, what does Pinocchio do to the Talking Cricket?
Kills it with a hammer
Kills it with a hammer: in Chapter 4 Pinocchio hurls a wooden mallet at the cricket, which returns as a ghost to keep nagging him, a long way from Disney's top-hatted sidekick.
Collodi's Fairy has turquoise hair, la Fata dai capelli turchini; Disney made her the Blue Fairy, and in the novel she also appears as a little goat with the same coloured coat.
Q 24In Collodi's Pinocchio, what kind of sea creature swallows Geppetto?
A giant dogfish
A giant dogfish, il Terribile Pescecane, though pescecane is also the everyday Italian word for shark; a dolphin warns Pinocchio it is bigger than a five-storey building, with a mouth a train could drive into.
Q 25How was Collodi's Pinocchio first published between 1881 and 1883?
As a serial in a children's newspaper
As a serial in a children's newspaper, the Giornale per i bambini: Collodi sent its editor the first chapters as a "bit of foolishness", asking only to be paid well enough to feel like carrying on.
Q 26How did Collodi first end Pinocchio's story at Chapter 15, before readers demanded more?
Pinocchio is hanged from a tree
Pinocchio is hanged from a tree, a great oak, by two robbers who turn out to be the Fox and the Cat; readers protested, Collodi was pressed to go on, and the story resumed months later with the Fairy's rescue.
Q 27The name Pinocchio is thought to come from a Tuscan word for what?
Pine nut
Pine nut is what pinocchio means in old Tuscan speech, though the origin of the name is not certain; del Toro's film has the Wood Sprite name the puppet for the wood he is carved from.
Q 28In Collodi's Pinocchio, what does Master Antonio intend to make from the talking log?
A table leg
Master Antonio, nicknamed Cherry for his red nose, planned to turn the log into a table leg; when it cries "Don't hit me so hard!" he is terrified and gladly hands it to Geppetto.
Q 29In Collodi's Pinocchio, what happens to the puppet's feet when he falls asleep trying to dry them?
They burn off
Pinocchio falls asleep with his feet on the brazier and they burn off; Geppetto, just released from prison, carves him a new pair and gives up his own breakfast of three pears.
Q 30In Collodi's Pinocchio, what animal is the judge who sentences the puppet to prison in Catchfools?
A gorilla
The judge in Catchfools is a gorilla, an old ape with a white beard and gold spectacles without lenses; he jails Pinocchio for being foolish enough to get robbed.