GUEST STAR

Linda Ronstadt has a surprise guest star in her upcoming music video of “When You Wish Upon a Star:” she’s joined by Jiminy Cricket, who introduced the song in “Pinocchio” in 1940.

At the end of the tune, Jiminy comes to life from a sheet-music cover, hops into her hand and gets a kiss. (He can’t sing with her: Radio star Cliff (Ukulele Ike) Edwards, who provided his voice, died in 1971.)

The 15 seconds of animation were drawn by Mark Henn, 28, the Disney artist who animated the Cricket as the Ghost of Christmas Past in “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” (1983). Henn and his assistants had only a week to complete the assignment, less than half the normal time for such duty.

For the segments on Disney Channel, Chuck Braverman has re-cut sequences from classic cartoons to rock songs, including David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” but this marks the first appearance of a Disney character with a rock star.

A studio spokesman declined to say why they had reversed the long-standing policy of refusing to allow its characters to appear in non-Disney entertainments. Jiminy was noticeably not around when KISS’s Gene Simmons recorded the song in 1978.