Of all the characters
in all the Disney films
the one I love the most
is Jiminy Cricket from "Pinnochio."
My favorite scene in the movie
is when the blue fairy
is saying to Pinnochio,
"Always let your conscience
be your guide."
Pinnochio asks, "What are conscience?"
and Jiminy Cricket is scandalized
by the question: "What are conscience!"
"What are conscience!
Conscience is that still small voice
that people won't listen to,
that's just the trouble
with the world today."
I love the way Jiminy Cricket
is always there
with a nerdy, ethical thing
just as Pinnochio's coming up
with some kind of good plan.
I think of him as speaking
truth to puppet.
I always wondered what it was
about Jiminy Cricket
that made me love him so much
and one day it hit me.
It was because he sounds
like my grandfather.
My grandfather was a very sweet
and cuddly man
and I loved him to the moon and back.
But I shared him with the big, wide world.
His name was Roy O'Disney,
and together with his younger
brother Walt Disney,
he came from a very humble
upbringing in Kansas
and started and ran one of the most
iconic businesses in the world.
Two things I remember the best
about going to Disneyland
with my grandfather.
The first thing was he always
gave me a stern warning
that if I ever sassed
anybody who worked there
I was in deep doo-doo when we got home.
He said these people work really hard --
harder than you can imagine,
and they deserve your respect.
The other is that he never
walked by a piece of garbage
inside of Disneyland
or anywhere else,
where he didn't bend over to pick it up.
He said no one's too good
to pick up a piece of garbage.
In grandpa's day,
a job at Disneyland was not a gig.
A person could expect to own a home,
raise a family,
access decent health care,
retire in some security without worrying,
on just what he earned there at the park.
Mind you, grandpa fought the unions
and he fought them hard.
He said he didn't like to be forced
to do something he wanted
to do voluntarily.
That was [rank] paternalism of course
and maybe a tiny bit of BS.
He wasn't an angel,
and everyone wasn't well
and fairly treated across the company,
something that's well-known