Evening Star Newspaper, April 21, 1940, Page 91

Jollywood custom. But two show the featured player, is something kit Disney’s latest feature picture, 1as been taken shows both Jiminy popularity the little boy-puppet hese is Jiminy Cricket, who steals ar but also from his expert fellow istently out in front in every test. announce that we have signed these pages in a weekly series of Adventures of Jiminy Cricket.” he eminent actor himself, one of entertainment has ever produced. r. Jiminy Cricket: REAT ACTOR HANK you, thank you. I am delighted, delighted. More hearths to conquer, and [ 2]l that sort of thing. Confidentially, I've st been looking at the script of “The Further Hventures of Jiminy Cricket,” and it's a great hicle for me. If I don't wow you in it, my me’s not Jiminy Cricket. A good actor can usually tell. / was not at surprised at my success in ‘‘Pinocchio.” The nute Disney cast in the show, I ew it was my big ance and that I'd k in it. But, boy, took some doing! bu know what Walt going to do? He s going to let me killed off after one asly scene. That’s way it was in the ginal book. Just a E part. Can you hgine doing a thing k2 that — to me! [ wouldn’t say a rd against my good end Figaro, but ucks, he had it y: His part was a one in the first ce, and a natural him, with plenty business. But me, I had to show a lot of that he was wasting me in a bit part. But I | say this for him: once I got it through his d that I was really good, he kept rewriting script to give me more and more scenes. ‘ore we finished shooting, I had almost as ch footage as Pinocchio himself. )f course, Walt couldn’t really do anything :, the way I was stealing the scenes. Re- mber that underwater scene where I hop on rock that Pinocchio is using for an anchor, | say to the crabs that've gathered on it, »me on, boys, break it up”? Just a little e of business, but it practically laid 'em he aisles when they ran it off in the projec- 1 room. And that business with the whale sing us. I sure had to give that one every- “We crickets have always been actors. Look at our family tree"’ ff in that one little scene.so Walt would . THIS WEEK MAGAZINE 2,22 STHL A SHOW thing I had in expression and action. Imagine trying to get attention away from a guy whose eye alone is fifty times as big as you are! But did I do it, or didn’t I? Want to know how the whale made out when they took the audience tests at previews and early showings to find out which characters were liked best? He was just an also-ran, trail- ing along somewhere behind the fairy and the goldfish. And me — well, I saw the figures on the first 4,780 votes, and I had 1,151 of them against 930 for Figaro and 655 for Pinocchio. And that’s the way it’s been going all the time. Ovut-Butlering Rhett ND did you see what Winchell said about me being “‘another Rhett Butler”’? And the nod I got from the theatrical paper ‘‘Variety’’ on box-office appeal? Not that I’'m boasting about it, mind you. But it does give me a laugh the way the critics have all been “discovering’’ me. (“‘Oh, the critic found a cricket.”” There’s a good lyric line for you.) Discovering me! That'’s good. Of course I couldn’t miss. Runs in the family, you know. Oh, sure, we're old-timers in the profession. A cricket would rather entertain than eat — almost, anyway. Been doing it so long it’s second nature. Of course music has been the principal racket of the family —no pun intended — but look at all the big singers who have been going into movies lately. So I said to myself, “‘Jiminy, if Bing Crosby can do it, you can do it. If Lawrence Tibbett can do it, you can do it. If Nino Martini can do it, you can do it. What have they got that you haven’t got? After all, they're upstarts compared to you. Look at the family history you've got behind you.” Why, you can go way back to Egyptian times and find crickets in the entertainment business. - Roman times, too. Ever read Pliny? He tells a long story about some fellow named Nigredius who was a sucker for any cricket that came along. He used to teil Pliny how it “never ceaseth all night long to creake very shrill.” Of course that’s not exactly a rave notice, but I guess old Nig was talking about some average, run-of- the-stage cricket, not the ones that got gen- uine top billing, like me. But everybody knows that some of our folks were playing before the crowned heads of Europe be- fore anybody ever heard of a Barrymore. For instance, take Msieu Crs-Cre (that’s our name in French). = He had a swell spot in the palace of old Louis the Fourteenth — and, from all I hear, Louis’s palace was a pretty swell spot itself. Ever hear of the Holy Crickets of Madagascar? They're great troupers, bred to it for centuries. Singers, you know. They live on the fat of the land, those African audiences are so fond of their music. Gerald Came Through EVEN the grasshoppers are pretty fair enter- tainers, when they go in for it. They're cousins of ours, you know; that’s probably why. I'll admit I was a little annoyed when Walt cast old Gerald Grasshopper in the *“Grasshopper and the Ants.” I thought he ought to have given one of us crickets the part. But old Gerald came through, all right. And his grandson Wilbur showed plenty of stuff in “Goofy and Wilbur,” too. But I suppose our biggest headliner — before me, of course — was the cricket Dickens wrote about in ‘“The Cricket on the Hearth.” He was right in there, doubling as a musician and a Good Spirit, right from the beginning to the end — playing the title role, no less. He was a house cricket, too — same branch of the family I come from. I guess maybe we house crickets had more opportunities to cultivate our his- trionic talents than some of the other kinds of crickets. Here in America the field-cricket branch of the family is a lot bigger. Our folks only came over from England after the country had got well settled and had something to offer us. But. I never high-hat my field-cricket relatives. You've probably heard their family chorus. It's famous all over the country. I was reading just the other day a piece about it by a fellow named Snodgrass in a Smithsonian Institution bulletin. It made me pretty mad, too, because he started as if he was giving them quite a hand, and then all of a sudden he turned critic, and had to get in his ten cents’ worth of superiority. “There is little music in them,” he says, “but the player has enough conceit to make up for this lack.” Now, 1 ask you! Conceit! Who does this Snodgrass think he is, anyway? As if we crickets were conceited! But I suppose every theatrical family has to take that. Just Stating Facts MYSELF, I've always tried to pattern after old Marmaduke Cricket, who wrote his life story with the help of an author named Candeze in “The Curious Adventures of a Field Cricket.” He always seemed to me to be the greatest performer that branch of the family ever produced. But he was always mighty " careful not to brag. He just stuck to facts. For instance: ‘“To own the truth,” he said, “I have a very good opinion of my own personal appear- ance.” And then he would make notes, like the time he was performing for a kingdom of ants on his travels: “My success was prodigious,” he noted, quite unprejudicedly. Just stating facts, you see. And that’s all I'm doing when I tell you that I'm going to wow you in my newest starring vehicle, “The Further Adventures of Jiminy Cricket.” So long until next week. Jiminy Crickel’s slory, as depicted here, is an exclusive THIS WEEK feature, and does nol ap- pear in Walt Disney’s * Pinocchio.” * llustrated especially for THIS WEEK Magazine by Walt Disney Studios find crickets in show business’ “My ancestors have played before half the crowned heads of Europe” *Of course music has always been the principal racket of my family" “My cousin Gerald panicked them “Well, so long, folks. So long, Pinoke. I'll be seeing you next week in my new act"’