High Definition Review recently had a chance to speak to Dick Jones, the voice and reference actor for Walt Disney’s Pinocchio, ahead of Monday’s Blu-ray release. The former child actor and veteran of numerous westerns talked to us about his memories of Walt himself as well as his time on the production, and how he initially got involved at the age of ten:

“Walt Disney Studios put out a call for auditions– they tell me there was close to 200 people auditioning for the part of Pinocchio,” Dick recalled. “Over several months of going back and forth and reading different dialogue and doing different aspects of the film, it narrowed down to two of us. And then the last time we auditioned, we parted ways, and bid Walt Disney ‘adios’ - until he called up, and invited my mother and I to have lunch with him in the old Hyperion studio. It was there that he asked me if I would like to do the part of Pinocchio. And I jumped up and went ‘Oh boy, you bet that’s what I really want to do!’”

Pinocchio 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition is released on Disney Blu-ray and DVD on 9 March - for the full interview check out issue 18 of High Definition Review, available from the start of April.