It was also used in later media including House of Mouse, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Up.Īs an official conscience, Jiminy is famously known as a level-headed and wise figure, capable of leading Pinocchio down a righteous path. That expression is also Howard Cunningham's catchphrase on Happy Days.

Another time it is used is in the short 1938 cartoon starring Mickey Mouse Brave Little Tailor. It had also been used as an exclamation by the Swedish father several times in the 1930 film Anna Christie. She is very frightened and quickly retreats, saying 'Jiminy crickets!' (Garland also says the expression in her 1938 film Listen, Darling). Dorothy submissively starts to introduce herself, but is interrupted by the Wizard roaring 'Silence, whippersnapper!' and producing smoke and huge flames. Another example occurs in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz when the group first enters the Wizard's chamber. The name of the character is a play on the exclamation (which itself was uttered in Pinocchio's immediate predecessor, 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). Jiminy's name is derived from ' Jiminy cricket(s)!', a polite expletive euphemism for Jesus Christ. According to Ward, this was a disgusting sight, so he made the character more and more of a cartoonish and sweet-looking creature to the point that the audience only knows he's a cricket because the film says so. Some of the earliest ones resembled more of a realistic cricket. Like every animated Disney character, Jiminy went through an evolution of designs. Walt realized this and decided to give Ward the job of designing and animating Jiminy Cricket out of sympathy. Despite spending eight months animating the scene, it was eventually dropped as it was viewed as unnecessary, and Ward was devastated. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Ward animated a scene where the dwarves were eating soup. Jiminy was animated by one of Walt Disney's Nine Old Men, Ward Kimball. According to Walt Disney and the filmmakers, Jiminy's role in the film was meant to develop the heart of the story in the friendship between him and Pinocchio. However in the film, the cricket is named Jiminy and instead of being a cameo character, he was made into a major character and joins Pinocchio on his journey to becoming a real boy.

In the book, the cricket tries to lecture Pinocchio about his bad behavior, only to be killed with a hammer for his efforts by Pinocchio, and then come back as an equally preachy ghost. Jiminy is based on the Talking Cricket from the original Pinocchio book that Walt Disney's film is based on.

Original pinocchio story kills cricket