Pinocchio, a 1957 60-minute television special production of Pinocchio, is a live musical version directed by Paul Bogart and starring Mickey Rooney in the title role of the puppet who wishes to become a real boy.
Based on the 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, which also inspired the Walt Disney animated film, this version featured a now-forgotten new score by Alec Wilder and William Engvick.
Other notable actors who appeared in the special included Walter Slezak (as Geppetto), Fran Allison (as the Blue Fairy), Martyn Green (as the Fox), Jerry Colonna (as a Ringmaster), and Stubby Kaye as a Town Crier, a role he repeated in Wilder and Engvick's 1958 television musical, Hansel and Gretel.
The first television Pinocchio was a satirical version featured as an episode of The Spike Jones Show in 1954.
One novel touch about the 1957 Pinocchio was that when the puppet finally became a real boy, pieces of wood began falling off of his body onto the floor.