Jiminy Crickets!

Jiminy may be small, but he's far from your average cricket. He can turn an umbrella into a parachute and looks great in a top hat and spats, and he carries a mean tune, as well as a nearly inexhaustible supply of home-brewed common sense. It's no wonder he is chosen by the Blue Fairy to be Pinocchio's "official" conscience. Unfortunately for Jiminy, it's only after he blushingly agrees to his appointment as "Lord High Keeper of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, Counselor in Moments of Temptation, and Guide along the Straight and Narrow Path," that he realizes what a job he's gotten himself into. Like any conscience, Jiminy is occasionally late on the job, and frequently ignored even when he is around. Fortunately, Jiminy is nothing if not persistent, and he eventually succeeds in steering Pinocchio back to the right path.

Despite his pivotal importance to "Pinocchio," Jiminy was not part of the film's original story line. Concluding that "something was missing," the creators of the film took the minor character of a cricket from Collodi's original story as a source of inspiration and expanded him into the character we know as Jiminy Cricket. Before Walt selected Jiminy Cricket as the character's name, the phrase was used as an exclamation denoting surprise or bewilderment. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase has been around since 1848. In "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," made over two years before "Pinocchio," the dwarfs exclaim, "Jiminy Crickets!" when they return to their cottage and find the lights on.

Jiminy was the first Disney feature character to speak directly to the audience. This precedent set the tone for his going on to become one of Disney's premier emcees, educators, and storytellers, both on television ("Walt Disney Presents," "The Mickey Mouse Club") and in educational media.

Voice Artist: Cliff Edwards (1940-1971)
Eddie Carroll (since 1975)
Character Design: Ward Kimball

Taken from here.

"Jiminy Cricket!" or "Jiminy Crickets!" was originally a polite expletive euphemism for Jesus Christ. 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). Another way to say this is "Jiminy Christmas!", "Jeeminy Christmas,"or "Jiminy Crispus." Another example occurs in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. When the group first enters the Wizard's chamber, they are startled by the Wizard's sudden thunder-and-lightning display, and Dorothy cries, "Oh! Oh! Jiminy Crickets!"

Taken from here.

Hey, Spencer.... Look what I learned!

--Kate