BLUSHING BETTY BOOP

Children can also intuit sexuality long before they’ve got a clue what it is, and Pinocchio is the dirtiest Disney feature ever. The unavoidable Exhibit A is the Freudian no-brainer of the hero’s lengthening proboscis, though I’d forgotten that in the scene when it happens he’s a) locked in a cage and b) lying to the Blue Fairy, the only adult female in sight. As if the fact that “blue” was the contemporary slang for “dirty” wasn’t enough, she’s also drawn in an eroticized Maxfield Parrish style that has no equivalents elsewhere in Disney. When not only leaves but chirping little birdies sprout from his “nose’s” tip at the scene’s–wait, the word’ll come to me–climax, the image is as pornographic as anything in a Tijuana bible. Even Betty Boop would blush…–Tom Carson in GQ on Pinocchio
See also: Knock On Wood, Tim Parks on Collodi’s original in NYRB