After NBC's Brooklyn Studio had been transformed into "Early Fairytale" for Hallmark Hall of Fame's Sunday night musical special, producer Richard Lewine talked about some of the problems involved in turning "Pinocchio" into a real live show.     "The scene of Gepetto (Burl Ives) inside the whale's belly worried me. Everything had to happen at once: the interior of the whale had to look convincing, the whale had to sway, the stove had to spout smoke and the whale's sneezing had to be

heard. And when Gepetto and Pinocchio (Peter Noone) stage their whale escape, things got even more tricky.     "Pinocchio's nose was another ticklish problem. Since we didn't want to cheat the audience out of seeing it grow, we hired Bil Baird to create one. Bil stood behind Pinocchio, out of camera range, holding the end of a rod that attached to the nose. When he pushed the rod, the nose, made from expandable material, lengthened. It worked beautifully. But when we went on camera, we discovered that you could see the separation between the fake nose and Peter's real one. Two hours of work with the make-up man solved the problem, but it was worrisome.     "It's remarkable," Lewine continued, turning to the story itself, "how relevant 'Pinocchio,' which was written in the late 19th Century, is to today. There's the whole generation gap problem: Pinocchio is alive for barely an hour and Gepetto wants him to go to school, to be a success.     "There's the breakdown in communication between father and son. And, in the Land of the Runaways segment, Pinocchio, who thought he could solve his problems by escaping the real world, discovers a group of runaway kids. But they all turn out to be preoccupied misfits, doing their thing, and Pinocchio learns that 'dropping out' isn't the answer."

Previous | TV Magazine Index | Next