Episode 232 — The Adventures of Pinocchio: LIVE!

[gigi-tastic 2322]

1 hour ago, DrGuts1003 said:

The studio must have really thought this movie was going to be a bigger deal than it was.  I was reading an article about it written back in 1996 where the director, Steve Barron (who also directed the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie) says that it took two years just to get the songs rights.  Stevie Wonder wrote and performed two songs for the movie.

I also discovered that this film actually had trading cards.

 

Not surprisingly, the majority of the cards seem to feature Jonathan Taylor Thomas despite him being in the film for less than five minutes.  And for those of you who are thinking this is the only way to get an Udo Kier trading card, you would be wrong.  He is also featured in trading cards for Barb Wire, another HDTGM classic.

 

 

Hmmm no card of The Photo I see...

[gigi-tastic 2322]

1 hour ago, DrGuts1003 said:

Gigi, clearly you are just way too sensitive.  The people of Tuscany not only see nothing wrong with the story, but absolutely adore it.  So much so, that they even created Pinocchio Park.  According to a Tuscan tourist site "The legacy of  Pinocchio’s teachings is kept alive by the Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi, 'promoting, since 1962, culture of children and for children, starting from the world famous literary masterpiece for children, The Adventures of Pinocchio.'

If you’re staying at one of our villas in Tuscany with pool, kids (or adults) with a deeper interest should visit Collodi. This small town whose name the author adopted is close to several of our villas near Lucca.

Collodi’s Pinocchio Park celebrates and retells the story with monuments, mosaics, a maze and water features."

Here is the website to see all the attractions and things to do at Pinocchio Park.

 

(And jk about being too sensitive; this story is nightmarish)

I had a mini anxiety attack about the fact I called in to fix a mistake and I made a mistake and I'm currently working on if I should call again to fix it. We can all clearly see I'm too sensitive!

[Cameron H. 23786]

Following the debacle at the chili pepper incinerated puppet theater, Gepetto is desperate to find his creepy wooden moppet but doesn’t know where to begin his search. Leona, ever the rationalist, starts asking him questions to see if they can’t narrow down where his soulless little abomination might have run off to. After some cajoling, Gepetto says that Pinocchio would go somewhere he “feels safe” and concludes that, because he’s made of wood, Pinocchio would probably feel the safest in the forest.

I’m sorry, but I don’t follow that line of thinking at all. Just because he’s predominantly composed of wood, doesn’t mean that somehow being surrounded by trees should have some kind of ataractic effect on him. By that line of thinking, since I’m 60% water, if I’m ever running away from transmogrifying puppeteer hellbent on forcing me into the theater arts, my safe space, and the most logical place for my loved ones to start looking for me, is in the middle of the goddamn ocean. It’s just a bizarre conclusion to draw.

Also, in the next scene, I found it super weird when Pinocchio arrives in the forest and he comments on the pleasing smell of the pines. It’s strange because we learned earlier in the film that his name, Pinocchio, is derived from the fact that he’s been carved out of pine. I don’t know why, but that feels incredibly icky to me. It would be like walking into a crowded room and getting off on sniffing other people’s musk. 

[MariahN 11]

ok, I don't think I've ever had such a bad time watching a HDTGM movie. Throw this cursed, idiot puppet into the fire.

That being said, can anyone explain why the score takes several pieces from the score for Benny & Joon? Go listen, I swear, I just need to know why. 

PAUL! WHY?!?! 

[Cameron H. 23786]

I get that Felinet and Volpe we’re trying to take advantage of Pinocchio’s naïveté by promising him that if he planted his gold in a cemetery it would multiply; what I don’t understand is why they had him bury it so deep—especially if part of their scheme was to have him stare at a clock for an hour. It’s their con! They could have just as easily suggested six inches instead of six feet. It just seems to be a monumental waste of time and energy when they know they’re going to have to go back and dig it up.  I know they’re a couple of unscrupulous con artists, but that’s not really an excuse for shoddy work. No matter your profession, it always pays to work smarter rather than harder.

[Cameron H. 23786]

Did anyone else feel like Pinocchio’s lies at the end of the movie we’re pretty fucked up and cruel? Like, I get that he’s trying to hit the monster’s gag reflex with his massive wooden nose, but there’s no rule in the movie that the growth in his nose has any correlation to the magnitude of the lie he’s telling. Instead of looking his caregiver and guardian in the eye and calling him a piece of trash, couldn’t Pinocchio have just said, “Snow is hot” or something else equally prosaic? Gepetto might be a big old sack of who-gives-a-fuck as a character, but he did risk his life to save your ass, you ungrateful little abomination. He was swallowed by a rival puppeteer. His day has been bad enough.

[GrahamS. 803]

I haven’t seen the film but was intrigued by the question “why does Pinocchio have human teeth?” 
 

My super-dark theory: Gepetto is a serial killer in his spare time and uses his trophies for his marionettes. 

[GrahamS. 803]

5 minutes ago, GrahamS. said:

I haven’t seen the film but was intrigued by the question “why does Pinocchio have human teeth?” 
 

My super-dark theory: Gepetto is a serial killer in his spare time and uses his trophies for his marionettes. 

Perhaps this theoretical Gepetto is the grandfather or the great-grandfather of the butcher that Paul’s grandmother warned him about. Sure, when Paul told the butcher story, it seemed like a very entertaining tangent. But maybe there are more hidden depths to this podcast than we give it credit for!

[Cameron H. 23786]

While it all looked like fun and games, even if those boys on Pleasure Island weren't polymorphed into a bunch of donkeys, Recreational Water Illnesses (RWIs) are a real thing and if after drinking a pint of unfiltered amusement park water the worst thing they experience is diarrhea, they can count themselves lucky. Even when properly chlorinated--which I'm guessing 19th-Century tween boy Bacchanalian nightmares probably are not--public water parks are notoriously unsanitary. You can catch anything from Legionnaire's Disease to the norovirus all due to the fact (as the CDC points out) that even with proper wiping, the average person is walking around with about 0.14 grams of fecal matter tightly lodged within their sphincter. So when you enter the water, get splashed, or are otherwise soaked to the bone on one of those wonderful flume rides we all love so much, all that fecal matter diffuses into the water. And while chlorine certainly does help, it can't always take care of *all* of it. So, no, I don't recommend drinking any of the strange water spouting from amusement park fountains.      

[gigi-tastic 2322]

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

While it all looked like fun and games, even if those boys on Pleasure Island weren't polymorphed into a bunch of donkeys, Recreational Water Illnesses (RWIs) are a real thing and if after drinking a pint of unfiltered amusement park water the worst thing they experience is diarrhea, they can count themselves lucky. Even when properly chlorinated--which I'm guessing 19th-Century tween boy Bacchanalian nightmares probably are not--public water parks are notoriously unsanitary. You can catch anything from Legionnaire's Disease to the norovirus all due to the fact (as the CDC points out) that even with proper wiping, the average person is walking around with about 0.14 grams of fecal matter tightly lodged within their sphincter. So when you enter the water, get splashed, or are otherwise soaked to the bone on one of those wonderful flume rides we all love so much, all that fecal matter diffuses into the water. And while chlorine certainly does help, it can't always take care of *all* of it. So, no, I don't recommend drinking any of the strange water spouting from amusement park fountains.      

As an adult I shudder to think about the amount of water park water I have ingested in my lifetime.I assume that is how you get modern day cholera. Forget poisoned wells that are also sewers, wave pools are the new breeding ground for monstrous disease.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

While it all looked like fun and games, even if those boys on Pleasure Island weren't polymorphed into a bunch of donkeys, Recreational Water Illnesses (RWIs) are a real thing and if after drinking a pint of unfiltered amusement park water the worst thing they experience is diarrhea, they can count themselves lucky. Even when properly chlorinated--which I'm guessing 19th-Century tween boy Bacchanalian nightmares probably are not--public water parks are notoriously unsanitary. You can catch anything from Legionnaire's Disease to the norovirus all due to the fact (as the CDC points out) that even with proper wiping, the average person is walking around with about 0.14 grams of fecal matter tightly lodged within their sphincter. So when you enter the water, get splashed, or are otherwise soaked to the bone on one of those wonderful flume rides we all love so much, all that fecal matter diffuses into the water. And while chlorine certainly does help, it can't always take care of *all* of it. So, no, I don't recommend drinking any of the strange water spouting from amusement park fountains.      

As an adult I shudder to think about the amount of water park water I have ingested in my lifetime.I assume that is how you get modern day cholera. Forget poisoned wells that are also sewers, wave pools are the new breeding ground for monstrous disease.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

Who exactly was this movie for? Like what age group were they hoping to get? Because it's pretty horrifying so I don't think young kids would be able to handle it. Much like the evil owner of Pleasure Island they lured them in with the promise of a fun time with harmless J.T. T but then did a switcheroo and boom it's the story of a terrifying puppet and actors only your parents know. You cannot tell me other children were raised on Absolutely Fabulous vhs tapes (God bless you grandma and your insistence we watch what you wanted. Though maybe it isn't good that  7 year old me wanted to be Patsy ..)  And knew Dawn French on sight. I'm willing to buy they  maybe clocked Rob Schneider because he was on SNL but I would assume the target audience is too young for that?  

So who is this for?  Nostalgic parents who yearn for the terror of the cartoon? ( You cannot tell me that shit wasn't scary) 

Kids old enough to handle it but not so old they find it boring? 

What is that age?!

[Cameron H. 23786]

Did anyone else find it odd that in a story in which one of the major themes is “don’t tell lies,” that at the end of the movie—when Pinocchio tricks Felinet and Volpe into drinking the tainted amusement park water— the lesson Pinocchio appears to have learned isn’t  so much ”lying is bad” but rather “when there are zero consequences, you can 100% weaponize lies to exact revenge on those who have wronged you?”

 

[JaguarScribbles 4]

Geostorm!!

Ok, hearme out on this one.

It's a Jacob's Ladder movie. It's the only thing that makes sense and makes this movie make sense.

Gepetto has a fatal heart attack in the bath.

He longed for love, lost his only love, then made a puppet out of his only lasting sign of affection.

In his final moments he lives a life with a child, overcomes inappropriate feelings for a child (Pinocchio in the tub, then later the nose moving toward his mouth).

He sees a cricket through the water (Pedro always looks like someone looking through distorting lenses at him) subconsciously adding him to the narrative and his own observations of the kids and people around the town also warp in his dying mind (human whale? The criminals? Boys becoming donkeys?)

And realizes he is drowning (swallowed by the whale).

Then is brought to his own heaven by his creation and lives all eternity with the love he never had....

Tell me I'm wrong....

Kumite

[DrGuts1003 462]

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology recently conducted a large new study of Italian adults and found that eating chili peppers four times a week significantly reduces the risk of fatal diseases.  In fact, the pungent pepper reduced the overall risk of fatal illness by up to 23%, and cut the risk of stroke by nearly 50%.

I have to believe that Lorenzini was eating them regularly for the health benefits and that the fire breathing was just a (fortunate?) side effect.  Sadly, it does not appear that eating chili peppers helps in preventing you from becoming a hideous sea monster when ingesting poisoned water.

[Greg T 48]

On 1/31/2020 at 11:25 AM, twrecks14 said:

Pinnochio is basically like a new born baby in a lot of ways in this movie. He doesn't know what anything is, how things work etc... yet the first day he's "alive" he follows the boys to school sits in class (no one notices or cares which is a whole topic in itself) but he knows how to lie immediately! He can barely speak coherently but somehow already knows what lies are, how to lie, and under what circumstances a person would lie...?? 

I didn't understand that either.  He lies presumably out of fear of being punished, but seemingly knows no basic societal rules.  He also apologizes despite not understanding the concept of forgiveness until later in the church. 

[Greg T 48]

I realize there obviously is an evil plan to turn boys into donkeys, but given that there isn't the slightest hint of that for the first hour or anything that suggests any characters know of it, why is Lorenzini presented as a villain?  His evil plan at the start of the film is to go to a puppet maker and....buy a puppet to put on a show for kids in a theater?  When that fails his plan is to massively overpay for the puppet and keep an old man out of prison?  If anything, the sentient block of wood that, in an effort to save inanimate objects, sets fire to a theater full of children is the problem character at that point of the film.

[RyanSz 3140]

On 1/31/2020 at 8:24 AM, AlmostAGhost said:

 

With zero context that is fucking horrifying.

On 1/31/2020 at 2:15 PM, DrGuts1003 said:

I also discovered that this film actually had trading cards.

 

Not surprisingly, the majority of the cards seem to feature Jonathan Taylor Thomas despite him being in the film for less than five minutes.  And for those of you who are thinking this is the only way to get an Udo Kier trading card, you would be wrong.  He is also featured in trading cards for Barb Wire, another HDTGM classic.

 

 

If there was a movie made in the 90s, there was almost a 90% chance of there being at least a trading card set, pogs, a Saturday morning cartoon, a line of action figures that had nothing to do with the movie (like the Dennis Nedry figure for Jurassic Park being a skinny guy with a rocket launcher), and a video game that had very little if anything based from the film. SNL had a great segment that was made like a commercial promoting the new action figures and video game based on Philadelphia, but it was nowhere near what the movie was about as it featured aliens, exploding chairs in the courtroom, and the lead characters have jetpacks and lasers. The video game doesn't even take place on Earth and is instead a spaceship fighting game.

[RyanSz 3140]

22 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

Did anyone else feel like Pinocchio’s lies at the end of the movie we’re pretty fucked up and cruel? Like, I get that he’s trying to hit the monster’s gag reflex with his massive wooden nose, but there’s no rule in the movie that the growth in his nose has any correlation to the magnitude of the lie he’s telling. Instead of looking his caregiver and guardian in the eye and calling him a piece of trash, couldn’t Pinocchio have just said, “Snow is hot” or something else equally prosaic? Gepetto might be a big old sack of who-gives-a-fuck as a character, but he did risk his life to save your ass, you ungrateful little abomination. He was swallowed by a rival puppeteer. His day has been bad enough.

Like with most public domain stories, there are different iterations of the growth ability in connection to the lie being told, but some have it as growing based on the magnitude of the lie being told. Another fucked up version of the character came from the amazing comic series Fables (seriously if you haven't read it yet, do so) where Pinocchio was left as a 10 year old boy once he was transformed from a puppet by the Blue Fairy, leaving him unable to grow up and in the world of the series, unable to go into a bar or have a relationship because everyone who wasn't a Fable thought he was just a small boy. It ultimately leaves him filled with anger and bitter contempt for the Blue Fairy to where upon the first time he comes across her in centuries, he attempts to kill her.

Also, I figured this would fit well with the whole phallic nature of his nose and kinda lend credence to the idea that Geppetto had ulterior motives.

 

[jjulius 16]

Pinocchio's nose growing when he lies is not really a thing in the novel. The Fairy with the Turquoise Hair (known as the Blue Fairy in the Disney version) uses her magic to make his nose grow when he lies to her. It's not an natural function of his body, and it only happens once! (This is also true in Disney's version, by the way.)

Also, in the novel, the log from which Pinocchio is carved is already talking before Geppetto starts working on it. It's not explained how it came to life, but the fairy or Geppetto's wish for a child had nothing to do with it. 

[muttnik 476]

 

 

 

 

2

17 hours ago, RyanSz said:

If there was a movie made in the 90s, there was almost a 90% chance of there being at least a trading card set, pogs, a Saturday morning cartoon, a line of action figures that had nothing to do with the movie (like the Dennis Nedry figure for Jurassic Park being a skinny guy with a rocket launcher), and a video game that had very little if anything based from the film.

Also a pinball machine.

This movie just solidified why I never liked any version of Pinocchio as a kid. Though my something nice: I think Bebe Neuwirth and (begrudgingly) Rob Schneider did a fantastic job as the Cat and Fox. I got who they were supposed to be immediately, and Felinet did act cat-like even without the Cat Woman purring. That's it. I deeply hated this movie other than that.

Also Gigi you did a great job!

[muttnik 476]

I think Geppetto's day job was the janitor at the puppet theatre? If not maybe he was the village dentist, and Pinocchio was going to be an office puppet.

[Cameron H. 23786]

I just wanted to point out the insane amount of money Lorenzini is apparently making off of his transmogrified jackasses. In the movie, he tells his henchmen that he wants them sold to the circus for "20,000 lira each." That is a fucking crazy amount. First of all, 20,000 lira is the exact amount of money the court says Gepetto needs to pay in damages to the bakers, as well as an additional 10,000 lira in court fees. At that point, Gepetto tells the judge that he can't pay that because it's the equivalent of three years wages. That means for someone of Gepetto's modest, middle class income, each weredonkey is worth exactly two years wages! That seems to be pretty fucking excessive for what appear to be some pretty basic-ass donkeys.

I actually tried to come up with what the inflation figures would be for that, and while I couldn't get an exact figure, using these two websites, I was able to get a pretty good approximation of how much he was selling each donkey in modern currency.

(A couple of caveats. Obviously, Pinocchio takes place in the late 19th Century and I couldn't find a decent inflation calculator that went that far back. I also couldn't anything specific to the lira, but the calculator I did use went back to 1956 with the euro. Of course, the euro wasn't an official currency until 1999, so I am assuming they are making the conversion from lira to euro for me.)

In 1956, 20,000 in lira would be worth ~577,081.52 euros. Converted to US dollars, that amounts to about $639,555.14. And, again, I could only go as far back as 1956. It's easy to extrapolate just how much more that would be if you added another 60 years of inflation.

So, in essence, Lorenzini is selling each of those donkeys for AT LEAST $600,000 a pop. That's a fuckton of money for a bratty pseudo-donkey. I mean, I'm not advocating what Lorenzini is doing, but I get it.      

[RyanSz 3140]

2 hours ago, muttnik said:

Also a pinball machine.

This movie just solidified why I never liked any version of Pinocchio as a kid. Though my something nice: I think Bebe Neuwirth and (begrudgingly) Rob Schneider did a fantastic job as the Cat and Fox. I got who they were supposed to be immediately, and Felinet did act cat-like even without the Cat Woman purring. That's it. I deeply hated this movie other than that.

Also Gigi you did a great job!

Ah yes the pinball machines, which nine times out of ten were usually better than the shitty movie they were based off of. Every year when I go to Las Vegas, I always make sure to stop at the Pinball Hall of Fame and without fail the machines for Last Action Hero, Johnny Mnemonic, and Demolition Man are still the best adaptation machines in the whole place.

[muttnik 476]

4 hours ago, RyanSz said:

Ah yes the pinball machines, which nine times out of ten were usually better than the shitty movie they were based off of. Every year when I go to Las Vegas, I always make sure to stop at the Pinball Hall of Fame and without fail the machines for Last Action Hero, Johnny Mnemonic, and Demolition Man are still the best adaptation machines in the whole place.

I love that place, I got pretty good at the Stargate machine when I used to go. I love the two Mario Bros. machines as well even though I'm terrible at them. If it's Mario it's fun no matter the outcome. Last year or so they said it was going to move closer to or on the Strip, which would be a bummer for me (even though it would be closer to my house), but better for business and the tourists, but it hasn't happened yet.