Line #5 WesternAnimation/PinocchioAndTheEmperorOfTheNight


1	%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1628658633090171400
2	%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
3	%%
4	[[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pinocchio_and_the_emperor_of_the_night_poster.png]]
5
6	''Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night'' is an animated feature film produced by Creator/{{Filmation}}, distributed by New World Pictures, and released on Christmas Day, 1987.
7
8	One year after becoming a real boy, Pinocchio is entrusted by Geppetto with a delivery job: take a [[MacGuffin hand-crafted jewel box]] to the Mayor. Unfortunately, he instead trades the box away to a pair of con artists he meets on the road, in exchange for a [[DistractedByTheShiny big, shiny]] -- [[GenreBlindness and fake]] -- [[DistractedByTheShiny ruby]]. Geppetto, upon finding out, [[BigWhat is somewhat less than pleased]].
9
10	That night, a guilt-ridden Pinocchio [[TheRunaway runs away from home]]. What follows is a series of hijinks including a [[CircusOfFear mysterious carnival]] run by a creepy puppetmaster who transforms Pinocchio back into a lifeless puppet, "The Land Where Dreams Come True" that offers freedom and toys but at a terrible price, and a WackyWaysideTribe for Pinocchio's sidekick Gee Willikers.
11
12	The movie is ostensibly a sequel to [[Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio the classic tale]], but it draws a lot from the [[WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}} Disney version]]: it has a duo of FunnyAnimal con artists (albeit a raccoon and monkey, instead of a fox and cat), a cordial, wisecracking anthropomorphic insect conscience figure in the style of Jiminy Cricket (complete with a name cribbed from a common mid-20th-century American interjection), a sadistic Italian puppetmaster, a place that tempts children and then punishes them, a titanic battle on the high seas and a few musical numbers. [[DisneyOwnsThisTrope Disney noticed and sued Filmation for copyright infringement]]; they lost, as the original is public domain.
13
14	See also two sister Filmation productions: ''WesternAnimation/JourneyBackToOz'', a sequel to ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', and ''WesternAnimation/HappilyEverAfter'', an unofficial sequel to ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'' produced at the same time as this film (and which Disney had more success in driving into obscurity).
15	----
16	!!''Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night'' contains examples of the following tropes:
17
18	* AesopAmnesia: The movie pretty much runs off this, in regards to Pinocchio forgetting every single lesson he learned in the original story!
19	* AndIMustScream: While Pinocchio is being turned back into a puppet, the camera cuts several times to closeups of Twinkle watching, implying that her original human self is still conscious, but trapped inside her now-puppet body -- and she's aware of what's happening.
20	* AnimationBump: While the animation is noticeably above the usual effort put forth by Filmation, there's instances where the animation is far more fluid and expressive than others, such as the musical numbers and the Emperor's death.
21	* BewareTheNiceOnes: Pinocchio, of all people. He doesn't actually throw any punches, but he still gets surprisingly badass during the film's climax.
22	* BigBad: Puppetino [[DiscOneFinalBoss seems to be this for the first half of the film]], but then the Emperor of the Night comes in for the second.
23	* BigWhat: "You did '''''what?!'''''" from Geppetto when Pinocchio tells him he traded away the jewel box for a ruby that turned out to be fake.
24	* BlatantLies: Pinocchio's explanation to the Good Fairy for how he came to be Puppetino's prisoner. Invoked later on when he deliberately tells lies in order to make his nose longer so he can use it to open a very high lock. He also discovers that BrutalHonesty will make his nose shrink again.
25	* BlueIsHeroic: The FairyGodmother is the BigGood who has completely blue skin, hair, clothing and a blue aura. Pinocchio himself wears a blue jacket and radiates a [[PowerGlows powerful blue light]] when he squares off against the RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver Emperor of the Night and all his [[GoodColorsEvilColors red energy]].
26	* BrickJoke: In Scalawag and Igor's introductory scene and EstablishingCharacterMoment, Scalawag yells out that the sky is falling to distract their customers from the con. During the climax, as the Emperor of the Night's dimension starts crumbling around them, Scalawag yells out that the sky is falling again. This time, Igor points out that it's no trick.
27	* BroadStrokes: While it's never confirmed outright, the movie seemingly takes place in a continuity where Pinocchio never went through his adventures from the original book and instead it implies that the Good Fairy turned him into a real boy and nothing of note happened until the events of the movie. This would explain why none of the other characters from the original story are even mentioned and why Pinocchio doesn't find anything that's happening to him even remotely familiar.
28	* CaptainErsatz: Most of the film's characters for characters from the original book, especially as they were presented in the Disney adaptation. Gee Willikers is Jiminy Cricket given Pinocchio's origin story, Scalawag and Igor are Honest John and Gideon with redeeming characteristics, Puppetino is Stromboli with magical powers, and the Emperor of the Night is an ''even scarier'' version of the Coachman. The giant ship turning out to have a magical underworld within it combines the Pleasure Island locale and Monstro the whale.
29	* CigarFuseLighting: When trying to escape from the circus grounds via cannon, Scalawag snatches a sleeping strongman's cigar and uses it to light the cannon's fuse (along with briefly [[OfCourseISmoke hacking and wheezing from puffing on the cigar]]).
30	* ComicBookAdaptation: Had a one-shot comic book released by Creator/MarvelComics around the same time the film came out.
31	* ContrivedCoincidence. When Igor and Scalawag shoot themselves out of the cannon to escape the angry mob, they just happen to crash into Pinocchio. The plot ensues.
32	* CreepyChild: The kid in the cowboy hat that encourages Pinocchio to drink what's implied to be alcohol. [[spoiler:He turns out to be one of the Emperor's disguised forms.]]
33	* DancePartyEnding: Well, at least Geppetto, Twinkle, and Pinocchio dance before [[RuleOfSymbolism heading off into the sunrise]]. Comes this close to being a YeahShot ending.
34	* DealWithTheDevil: The Emperor tries this on Pinocchio, and it nearly works as he willingly forfeits his free-will over to guarantee his family and friends' safety. But the Emperor screws up, [[ForTheEvulz as he fails to live up to his end]] of the deal, triggering [[{{Determinator}} Pinocchio's wrath -- and vow to leave by force]].
35	* DirtyCoward: When the Emperor's ship starts breaking apart, Puppetino tries to make a run for it along with everyone else. The enraged Emperor [[OneHitKill instantly strikes him down]].
36	-->'''Emperor of the Night:''' You worthless coward!
37	* DisneyDeath:
38	** The bugs mourn Willikers when he seemingly dies while getting rid of a [[AmphibianAtLarge vicious toad]], Grumblebee especially breaking down into tears, before Willikers reveals that he's still alive.
39	** Initially Geppetto and Willikers get sad after Pinocchio's HeroicSacrifice, before noticing that he safely washed up ashore.
40	* DisneyOwnsThisTrope: Disney certainly thought so, and sued Filmation for copyright infringement. A judge disagreed, on the grounds that Carlo Collodi's original ''Pinocchio'' story was out of copyright, and Disney lost the suit.
41	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything A more subtle form, but listen very closely to the song "Do What Makes You Happy", which sings about the joys or abandoning home to pursue the life of a rule-snubbing vagabond. How many kids and teenagers have ran away from loving homes just for a taste of freedom? And how many have later come to regret it? "No one to scold you/No one to hold you"...
42	* DoorRoulette: During the escape from the Emperor's CollapsingLair, the heroes are stuck trying to find the right door to escape, and each wrong door they pick opens up to unsettling visions.
43	* TheDragon: Puppetino, it turns out. While very effective at first, particularly in using temptation to get Pinocchio to make his DealWithTheDevil, by the end he proves to be next to useless, cowering like a random {{Mook\|s}}, and when the shit hits the fan is a DirtyCoward. Even his powers seem to be a gift from the Emperor, if his ultimate fate also implies a stripping of those powers, thus rendering even his earlier crowning moments rather lackluster in retrospect. His fear of his boss, however, was likely due to fear of YouHaveFailedMe ([[ProperlyParanoid and he was right to worry]]).
44	* EvilBrit: Puppetino, TheDragon, speaks with a strong Cockney accent.
45	* EvilCannotComprehendGood: When Pinocchio [[spoiler:stands up to the Emperor outside the boat, the Emperor is outright surprised the former would sacrifice himself.]]
46	* EvilPuppeteer: Puppetino fits this role to a T. He has the power to turn Pinocchio back into a puppet, and has already done that with Twinkle before him. Which makes you wonder if his other puppets are also children and people he transformed.
47	* EvilSoundsDeep: The Emperor of the Night, who is the main antagonist, has a deep voice due to being played by Creator/JamesEarlJones.
48	* {{Expy}}:
49	** It's obvious that Scalawag and Igor are meant to be stand-ins for [[CunningLikeAFox Foulfellow]] and [[CatsAreMean Gideon]]. However, because [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute raccoons are cute, chubby, and cuddly]], and these two end up proving their inner heroism by swallowing their cowardice, doing a HeelFaceTurn, and helping Pinocchio out in the end--if only by getting him to the empire and then [[YouAreNotAlone standing by him when it counted]].
50	** Besides those two, we have Gee Willikers, a small insect named after an interjection who tries to keep Pinocchio on the straight and narrow, much like Jiminy Cricket; evil puppet master Puppetino (Stromboli) who imprisons Pinocchio; and a painfully obvious expy of Lampwick in the Neon Cabaret scene. And like Monstro, the Emperor's ship [[MegaMawManeuver swallows their boat whole]] and provides the backdrop for Pinocchio's final battle.
51	* FourFingeredHands: Most of the characters have only four fingers on each hand. The only exception is the Emperor of the Night himself.
52	* FriendOrIdolDecision: The Emperor of the Night pulls one of these on Pinocchio, trying to make him choose between Geppetto, Twinkle, and his friends on the one hand versus his freedom. [[spoiler: Pinocchio decides to TakeAThirdOption.]] Things end poorly for the villain.
53	* GiantSpider: Grumblebee ends up falling into a spider web and is attacked by multiple spiders, which from a bug's perspective are very big. Willikers comes to his aid fending them off, but then they're both attacked by the huge mother of the spiderlings. They make their escape [[HoistByHisOwnPetard tangling her up in her own web]].
54	* GlamourFailure: The [[GlowingEyesOfDoom glowing]] [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]] on all of the Emperor's various incarnations.
55	* GoodHurtsEvil: Or at least, the purity of Pinocchio's HeroicSacrifice and ThePowerOfLove does. Both [[IncrediblyLamePun lampshaded and foreshadowed]] by the Blue Fairy's pep-talk song.
56	* HeelRealization: Scalawag's moment in prison, when he realizes that all of them had succumbed to the power of their own dark desires, which allowed the Emperor to manipulate, corrupt, and ultimately ensnare them.
57	* HiddenDepths:
58	** If Puppetino’s unusually wistful reaction when telling Pinocchio about carnival life is anything to go by, he may have joined the Emperor because [[IJustWantToHaveFriends he wanted to meet people]]. This is, of course, [[AmbiguousSituation assuming]] Puppetino [[spoiler:was human to begin with]].
59	** Scalawag and Igor also get this when they give a BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil explanation to Pinocchio, about the Emperor's and Blue Fairy's diametrically opposed motives and goals concerning free will.
60	* HolyBurnsEvil: Neither Emperor nor Empire of the Night can stand up to Pinocchio's display of free will, love and sacrifice for his loved ones.
61	* HumanoidAbomination: The Emperor of the Night is a monstrosity; he has four arms but lacks a whole body, seeming to be part-darkness.
62	* IdiotHero: Almost all of the bad things that happen in the film are the direct result of Pinocchio not only completely disregarding common sense, but ignoring the shrieking bug telling him that what he's doing is a bad idea.
63	* ILied: The Emperor pulls this trope after Pinocchio agrees to give away his freedom in exchange for Geppetto, Twinkle, Scalawag, and Igor being released. [[BewareTheNiceOnes Big mistake.]]
64	* IncredibleShrinkingMan: The Emperor shrinks [[spoiler:Geppetto]] so small he can fit into the jewel box.
65	* {{Irony}}: The Emperor wants Pinocchio to have no choice, this ends up ''going badly for him'' as Pinocchio, having no choice, [[spoiler: sacrifices himself to save his father]].
66	* JumpScare: The Emperor gives a particularly ''nasty'' one to the younger viewers, when his fingers transform into ''screeching demons'', emphasizing that his empire can suddenly switch without warning from a dream to a nightmare.
67	* KarmaHoudini: Technically, everything that happens in the movie is the fault of Scalawag and Igor for taking the music box from Pinocchio, yet because in the end they [[HeelFaceTurn change sides]] and stand by him, they're given free passes, everyone walks off as friends, and this is never really brought up again. Justified, perhaps, in that unlike Foulfellow and Gideon, they were thieves and con men for fun and profit, not out of malice, they clearly [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone regretted their mistakes]], and they genuinely do redeem themselves. In fact, they even offer to take Pinocchio's place as lifeless puppets (though the Emperor of the Night isn't interested).
68	* LargeHam: Creator/JamesEarlJones as the Emperor lingers over every syllable of every line here, clearly having a blast with the role.
69	* LaserGuidedKarma: Puppetino's fate. [[AmbiguousSituation What isn't clear]] is whether this is just the Emperor inflicting a particularly delicious and ironic punishment, or if he was restoring him [[PuppetPermutation to what he used to be]].
70	* MalignantPlotTumor: Gee Willikers and Lieutenant Grumblebee enlist the aid of bugs everywhere by visiting "Bugzburg" and fight off... a frog. The side-story has little consequence, ''consumes a lot of time'', and nearly derails the plot of the entire movie! Considering the film was supposed to get a spin-off based around the town (which came very close to a Fall 1989 debut, but scrapped due to L'Oreal disposing of the studio with their purchase of it), it comes off more as a poorly disguised BackdoorPilot than anything else.
71	* MoodWhiplash: It happens ''several times'' in this film - a charming moment plays out with a upbeat song, only to be followed by a nightmarish scene.
72	* NotUsingTheZWord: It's pretty obvious that the Satan-esque Emperor wants to take Pinocchio's soul, as he has done with countless others. Despite this, the word "soul" is never used. Instead, the Emperor turns people into puppets so he can take away their "freedom".
73	* PikePeril: During the paddle tugboat trip Pinocchio saves Scalawag and Igor from a great white shark-sized pike. Later during the DoorRoulette Scalawag gets spooked by the wrong door he picked showing an underwater POV of the pike charging at him.
74	* PinocchioNose: Similar to a scene from the Disney film, Pinocchio causes his nose to grow when the Fairy Godmother comes to his aid from the puppet master and asks him to explain himself. Later Pinocchio purposefully lies to use his nose as a ChekhovsGun to reach the handle and open a big door, and shrinks it down by "telling the truth" which consists in him declaring his love for Geppetto, missing home, claiming he learned his lesson and promising to never be tempted by anything again. The nose grows a little from that last part, and fully shrinks when Pinocchio corrects "At least I'll sure try not to!"
75	* PowderGag: Scalawag is thrown into the boat's coal bunker when he's rescued from the pike, coming out completely covered in soot.
76	* PuppetPermutation: What Puppetino dishes out to Pinocchio (and before him, Twinkle and countless others), and what [[BadBoss the Emperor of the Night]] [[LaserGuidedKarma in turn]] [[YouHaveFailedMe does to him]].
77	* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: Lieutenant Grumblebee is an anthropomorphic animal version of this. He has an IAmVeryBritish accent and is something of an UpperClassTwit in his pomposity, ''and'' is also the bug world's equivalent of a World War I or II fighter pilot (i.e. the character of Biggles).
78	* SatanicArchetype: Let's be honest with ourselves here: "Emperor of the Night" is a fancy way of saying "Satan" without MoralGuardians getting upset; the Emperor is a demonic entity of darkness who rules over a realm called "[[{{Hell}} the Empire of the Night]]", to say nothing of how he tempts people into sin and makes [[DealWithTheDevil deals]] in exchange for people's "freedom", complete with contracts. At the very least, however, his design is unique and not a BigRedDevil like most would expect.
79	* SatelliteLoveInterest: Twinkle exists pretty much to tempt Pinocchio and be a LivingMacGuffin for the second half of the movie.
80	* ShapeshifterShowoffSession: The eponymous Emperor reveals himself to Pinocchio with this, transforming into all the various forms he's held while Puppetino was guiding the boy through his evil little wonderland before finally assuming his fearsome true form.
81	* ThatRemindsMeOfASong: The set-up for "Love Is a Light (Inside Your Heart)" probably qualifies as this, particularly since it existed solely to show off the talents of Rickie Lee Jones. [[SubvertedTrope However]], the song in question is crucial to the lesson as well as the climax of the film, and while never mentioned explicitly again an instrumental version of it does play as part of the soundtrack during said climax. Lacking in subtlety, but still effective.
82	* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: Pinocchio's determination to get the [[MacGuffin jewel box]] back and thus prove his responsibility and trustworthiness, whatever the cost. He means well, but it does come across as a bit of LawfulStupid behavior.
83	* ThoseTwoGuys: Scalawag and Igor are always together when they appear in the movie.
84	* ToyTransmutation: The Emperor of the Night does that to kids as a DealWithTheDevil to strengthen himself and weaken the [[BigGood Blue Fairy]]. His main goal is to do that to Pinocchio himself, since turning back the only doll to ever become human is bound to shift the balance in his favor a lot.
85	* TransformationHorror: Puppetino reverting Pinocchio into a wooden marionette is depicted as utterly horrifying with its sound effects, Pinocchio's helpless screaming, the CreepyCircusMusic throughout and the [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything unsettling subtext]] of a grown man forcing this onto a kid who is begging to stop.
86	* VaudevilleHook: Scalawag and Igor attempt to dance on stage to snap Pinocchio out of his fame-and-fortune illusion, but they end up getting yanked offstage by a hook.
87	* WholesomeCrossdresser: Scalawag and Igor, [[WeNeedADistraction as a distraction]] to snap Pinocchio out of his fame-and-fortune illusion.
88	* WritingAroundTrademarks: Even though Filmation won the case when Disney sued them for copyright infringement because they don’t own the original book and characters, it is pretty clear with some of the characters in the movie that they were trying to copy the Disney movie:
89	** Because Disney came up with the name of “The Blue Fairy,” the characters only refer to her equivalent here as “The Good Fairy” and “Fairy Godmother,” despite her blue dress, skin and hair and the “Blue Light” making it pretty obvious.
90	** Gee Willikers being an obvious stand-in for Jiminy Cricket even though the Talking Cricket didn’t have a real name in the book and didn’t fill the same role and his name being a blatant reuse of the idea of using an interjection as his name (“Gee willikers!” as opposed to “Jiminy cricket!”).

Context WesternAnimation / PinocchioAndTheEmperorOfTheNight