FROM "PINOCCHIO"
WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!
"Pinocchio" certainly has quite a gallery of
baddies. There's the comical conning duo Gideon and Honest John (and yet so
many people refer to him as Foulfellow despite that he's never called that once
in the film); the jolly and plump and yet greedy and abusive Stromboli; the
dastardly Coachman who takes away children to a magical land where they’ll be cursed
for life; and the giant whale that would rival the great White Whale Moby Dick
himself, Monstro! Despite each of them having little screen-time, they all pose
as a threat to Pinocchio for many different reasons. But the one who has always
stood out to me as the most manipulative, the most fascinating, and the most
frightening one of them all is the Coachman! This to me is a Disney villain who
gets criminally overlooked. Many people talk about all the other villains and
even put them on their lists, and though people talk about the "Pleasure
Island" sequence and the disturbing transformation scene, not many people
talk about the guy who runs the place.
When he first enters film, much like the villains that we
saw earlier, he seems normal as he sits at the end of the table silently
smoking his pipe when he listens to Honest John sing and tell him about what he
did to poor little Pinocchio earlier. But red flags begin to raise when we see
him give an unfriendly smile, indicating that he's got the two hoodlums figured
out, for being smart but goofy enough for him to control and intimidate.
And when he sees a tiny bag of money with one or two gold coins inside it from
the crooks' latest crime, realizing that these two aren't even getting paid
real money, he smiles again knowing how to reel the two criminals
into his little operation. As soon as he's asked by Honest John what his
proposition is, he smokes his pipe once more calmly asking if they want to
"make some real money" by throwing a huge bag of big and bright shiny
gold coins that clash loudly when he tosses them on the table. Honest John thinks
that he'll be doing something as low as murdering a man for that kind of money,
but it is revealed to be much worse. So worse, that he has to stop and look to
see if anybody at the Inn is listening before whispering to them what his
racket is. He tells them he collects "Stupid little boys", the
ones that play hooky from School to do low-life things, revealing that he takes
them to "Pleasure Island". This causes Honest John to double take
realizing the dangers and forbidden nature of the Island by the law, until the
Coachman assures them that there is no risk since the boys who come to the
Island "never come back as BOYS!!!"
Ooohhh my heart just stopped just by looking at this
picture! This moment always had me jumping as a kid, and it still does now from
how he goes from normal and relaxed to demonic and insane when his face and
tone changes, supported by chilling music, a wicked laugh, and the two crooks cowering,
fearing, and sweating when they look at him and learn about his operation!
And instead of the Coachman asking them if the two are still
willing to aid him, he just forcefully pulls the two forward to tell them to
bring any boy they find on the street to him at the crossroads,
and angrily makes it clear to not double-cross him by telling the authorities
of where they're meeting. This action seems more like that he's forcing the two to work for
him due to his intimidation and what he might do to them if they turn him down after
knowing too much. But to be sure that they keep their mouths shut if they bring
a boy to him, he keeps his side of the bargain by paying them with gold
willingly since he was more than enough of it, indicating that he's been running
this racket for a long period of time! This leads me to the first reason of why I love the
Coachman so much as a villain because despite being intimidating to the point
to make others do his bidding whether he'll pay them or not, he's a very
calculating and persuasive villain who can quickly understand people's desires
and weakness' and use them to draw them in. And no way is that exploited much
better than for what he has in-store at "Pleasure Island" for the kids he lures there.
Before we had the Child Catcher from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" to provide a great example to children about stranger danger, we
had this guy. Think about it. He's a creepy old man with a pedo smile who lures
little boys to get inside his coach to take them to a place that has every
child’s desire, when he in reality has a dark purpose. Those
are pretty much the signs of a pervert. But unlike how many pedos in real-life
don't give what the children expect to get, this guy on the other hand does.
Once he lures them in his coach, he takes them on a ferry with many other
children already on board (indicating that he has either collected them earlier from other
villages, or has more people working for him) and drives them to "Pleasure
Island" that seems like the perfect place for any kid, whether you're a
trouble maker or not. The place is a bright and colorful carnival full of
rides, balloons, all you can eat candy and food, a place for kids to rough house, a
model home that kids can trash filled with beautiful artwork, a pool hall
inside a giant 8 ball, tobacco and beer for the under-aged youngsters, and
everything is ALL FREE! But as wonderful as the place and the sequence pulling
the viewer in is (despite already knowing that something bad will eventually
happen), there are a few things that seem unsettling about this place. When the
kids are let loose on the Island, the Coachman welcomes them all inside with a smile that's
supposed to come across as friendly, but instead comes off as perverted from
the way he smiles at them weirdly and rubs his hands together. And as nice as
the place may seem the only things that look as scary and unfriendly as the Coachman are
the talking robots of clowns, tough guys, and Indians that motivate the kids to be bad and
give them free stuff.
Everything goes back to being as grim as we first met the
Coachman for when he cracks his whip ordering his men to lock the gates so that no one
can get out, and to get the crates ready! At first glance when we see his minions
close the gate they seem like guys in black outfits and masks in the distance.
But when we see them assisting him up-close later on, they don't look human at all, but
instead look like some kind of Gorilla monsters with black fur and glowing
lifeless green eyes that never ever say a word but obey what their master tells
them to do! Who are these creatures, where did they come from, were they possibly
men that worked for him to bring boys to the Island that have turned into these
hideous things by either trying to screw him over, or not being much use to him
when they were getting paid? Will never know! You know the more I think about
it, I don't think the Coachman is human either. I mean he's designed to look
like one, but why does he have four fingers instead of five like all the other
humans? How can he go from having a normal face, to suddenly changing it to
look unholy? Again, where did he find these demonic henchmen? And how does the
transformation of kids turning into Donkey's exactly work on this Island? Could
it be that he's some kind of monster disguised as a human and has been running
this soul stealing amusement park for centuries? There are so many tiny hints and
clues that prove that he's more than just a twisted old man, and yet we never get
the answers which in the end make him such an ambiguous villain with plenty of
mystery and back-story. He could be just an ordinary man that just simply has
access to all this, but there's still that possibility that he's not who he
appears to be.
After the Coachman orders his minions to get things ready,
the scene fades out for bit until the next frame of animation reveals the
amusement park looking destroyed and abandon where all the color and life that we saw
earlier is reduced to a black and grey gloomy environment with the once
colorful rides that we just saw, now being muted. We (along with Jiminy
Cricket) wonder where all the boys have disappeared too, until a scene later
when we see the boat dock full of donkey's in crates being loaded on to a boat.
It turns out that all the boys on the Island have been turned into donkey's from their bad behavior who are being torn from their clothes, and kicked into crates to be sold to
the "Salt Mines" and "The Circus", or are being forced to pull the
Coachman's coach (as shown earlier) for the rest of their lives, never to see
their family or friends ever again! And if a donkey could still speak in a
child's voice, they get thrown into the pen with the others that can still talk,
and we can only guess that whatever’s going to happen to them will not be
pleasant. It's likely that they'll either remain in there until they are turned into regular donkey's, OR
will lose their hide so the Coachman can still make a quick buck. The more I
watch this sequence the more disturbing it gets for how depressing and scary it
is! Especially in the scene that follows when Pinocchio's delinquent friend
Lampwick transforms into a donkey. He may be a bad influence on Pinocchio, but
his punishment is unjustified considering that he's only a kid. We hate him for
what he does to Pinocchio and even poor Jiminy, but at the same time we
sympathize with him for when he turns into a jackass. Not to mention that he's the
first person that Pinocchio has ever encountered outside of his home who sees him
as a normal boy, unlike the others who see him as an object. The scene itself
is also very intense, for how he slowly becomes a donkey without even noticing
as the music starts out as eerie, to everything becoming dramatic and insane for when he sees himself as a donkey and cries for
help. The most traumatizing moments that stand out during this scene are when we see his hands turn
into hooves, and hearing him cry "Mamma" as it changes to a He-Haw
where we see him now fully transformed into a wild Donkey destroying the hall,
ripping off his clothes, and running out of sight, leaving poor Pinocchio
behind as he nearly turns into one himself.
The worst thing of all this is, we never see poor Lampwick, the
boys, or the Coachman ever again! The last time we ever see him is him casting
a shadow over the speaking donkeys (the one being thrown back is ironically the same
kid who voices Pinocchio), cracking a whip to silence them and coldly telling
them that that they've had their fun, and that they now must pay for it! How
often do you see a Disney villain getaway with their crime, it's very rare!
Usually they would get some kind of downfall, and have the person/person's that
have been captured be saved in the end, BUT NOT HERE! And for all we know this
guy is still probably running this racket and turning millions of boys into donkeys!
Out of all the awful qualities that Coachman has, his most devious one is his sadistic nature. He enjoys watching once little boys now Hee-Hawng in
pain and misery. He loves to brutally whip his minions and the donkeys that
pull his carriage. He likes challenging the kids to try to speak as donkeys,
before tossing them in a crate or the pen. He gets a kick out of intimidating
others! He's simply an all-around psycho, where his only pleasure is by tormenting and
abusing others and making money off of it! He's not trying to teach them a
lesson, or personally believing that he's doing justice by ridding society of
juvenile kids, he just sees these little boys as profit and nothing more!
Adding to the insane and creep factor of the character is Charles Judels voice
work, who also voices Stromboli as well. Unlike how Stromboli is always
comical, even when threatening Pinocchio, this performance isn't. He never
brings anything fun to the character at all, thus making him straight out scary with his evil
laugh and demanding voice through his soft and thick Cockney accent that still
manages to sound creepy when he's talking like a normal person.
If there are three important things that kids can learn from
this sadistic pervert is to never trust strangers; nothing in life is free; and
be a good boy, because this man or hinted demon does a perfect job of scaring
the young viewers straight. He shows no mercy for what he does, and enjoys torturing
and harassing the poor little boys to make himself rich! The Child Catcher is a
good example of all those lessons too, but for me I hated him more than I
feared him as a kid. I always wanted to bite off his nose or give him a good crack in the teeth, despite still finding him a bit creepy.
But with this guy on the other hand, I don’t even want to make eye contact with him for how horrifying and heartless he is! And the fact that he gets away with
it all makes the message stick to kids for life!
"Give a bad boy enough rope, and he'll soon make a jackass of himself. Mmhahaha."
-The Coachman
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