OBSCURE MEDIA #1: Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987)

Obscureness Rating:

Even though this is one of the lesser-known adaptations of the famous fairy tale, there are a couple things about this movie that prevented it from being completely forgotten about:

1. It’s based off a famous fairy tale (in this case, Pinocchio).
2. It’s made by the same company who did He-Man and She-Ra
3. It has an infamous transformation scene that many kids who grew up in the 1980s remembered very well.

Media Type: Movie

Recommended?: YES

Summary:

Pinocchio and his friends, a glow worm and a marionette, search for a magic music box, putting them in danger from the evil Scalawag and the Emperor of the Night.

I have watched many versions of Pinocchio over the years and the one that always stood out to me was Disney’s 1940 version of the classic fairy tale. It was the version that I grew up with the most as a child and the one that I think of the most when I think about Pinocchio in general. However, there was another version of Pinocchio that I grew up with and that was Filmation’s version of the classic fairy tale.

This film was really weird and intriguing at the same time as it featured Pinocchio trying to go to the Land of Dreams to get his father’s jewel box back after he disobeyed Geppetto early on in the film when he traded the music box for a fake jewel from Scalawag and Igor, when he was supposed to take the jewel box to the mayor. Once Pinocchio goes to the Land of Dreams, things get really weird with this movie, such as the Land of Dreams sequence itself and the Emperor of the Night himself. The film was also infamous for having a sequence where Pinocchio is turned into a puppet by the Emperor of the Night’s underling, Puppetino, as this scene was famous for scaring the pants off of any kid who grew up in the 1980s. It even gave Disney’s Pinocchio’s donkey transformation scene a run for its money.

Overall, while the plot of this movie is pretty much a rehash of the original fairy tale, I really liked the message of this film about the importance of freedom of choice and I like the fact that this was a darker and weirder version of the original fairy tale. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who is interested in watching a Pinocchio film that’s underrated.