Allusions and references to the classic fairy tale in other media. See also Become a Real Boy for a trope that relates to story elements associated with the tale, Pinocchio Nose for a particular storytelling device that originated with the tale, and Referenced By/Pinocchio for references to the 1940 Disney movie adaptation.
Anime and Manga
- Gunslinger Girl. Pinocchio is the chosen name of a teenage assassin working for the Five Republics organization, because he's a good son who lives to kill for the man who rescued and trained him. When cyborg girl Triela is tracking him down she reads the story and thinks it's silly, rejecting the idea of an artificial person who wants to please the man they regard as their father (in her case, her handler Hilshire).
Asian Animation
- Happy Heroes: A Season 8 episode is about Pinocchio, renamed "Pino" here (in the English dub, at least), getting help from Happy S. to find his nose.
Film Animation
- Luca: During a fantasy sequence in which Luca and Giulia fly over the land, he sees Pinocchio walking with the Fox and Cat, which transitions into an illustration on one of the books in Giulia's room.
- Shark Tale: Mentioned during Oscar's staged battle with Lenny.Oscar: (inside Lenny's mouth) Don't. Swallow.Lenny: Oscar?Oscar: No, it's Pinocchio. Of course it's me!
- Pinocchio is one of the more prominent supporting characters in the Shrek franchise, being one of Shrek's allies who constantly fails to become a real boy.
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: When Neptune unfreezes Krabs, he accidentally has his trident set on the "Real Boy Ending", turning Krabs into a human, before just turning him back to normal.
Film Live Action
- A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is pretty much a SciFi Reimagining of the story, it even has the characters reading a copy of The Adventures of Pinocchio which makes David decide to go look for the Blue Fairy in order to Become a Real Boy and be accepted by Monica.
- Aquaman (2018): A copy of the book is given to Mera, although Arthur is more familiar with the Disney movie as he suggests hiding inside a whale, instead of the Terrible Dogfish.
- Child's Play 2: Miss Kettlewell reads the book in Andy's class, although from the sound of it it's a slightly colored version with Pinocchio shouting "I'm alive!" while the Cricket tells him "Boys who are bent on following their caprices and will have their own way, sooner or later repent", which is instead lifted off from the original book.
Literature
- The Dresden Files: In Ghost Story Harry describes the disembodied necromancer Corpsetaker's plan as she "gobbles a bunch of killers and she gets to be a real boy again".
- Pinocchio-papirene ("The Pinocchio Papers") by Tor Åge Bringsværd is a Norwegian book for adults that's partly a Scrapbook Story mystery, partly an Urban Fantasy, partly a savage criticism of Carlo Collodi's Scare 'Em Straight moralizing... and partly a collections of essays and theories about fairy tales and the life of plants. In this book, an in-universe collection of manuscripts, diary excerpts and field notes, the main story involves a mysterious murder, a kidnapping and a mental hospital where patients are tortured and brainwashed — but the story of Pinocchio is constantly brought up, mainly in manuscripts left behind by the murder victim, and little by little it's revealed that Collodi's book was loosely based on true events but that Pinocchio was in reality an emissary from the plant kingdom who was manipulated and brainwashed by the Blue Fairy (in reality a Manipulative Bitch In Sheep's Clothing and the Big Bad of the book) into thinking he was an obedient puppet she could manipulate. Pinocchio himself shows up in the climax of the book, finally free of the manipulations and brainwashings, as the true plant emissary and hero he was meant to be all along.
- Another Norwegian book is Pinocchios nye liv ("Pinocchio's New Life") by Unni Lindell. The story is a more traditional kids' story, and takes place in the modern day, long after the events of Collodi's book (though Collodi is referenced in the story, as someone who wrote The Adventures of Pinoccio based on real events). Pinocchio is back to being a puppet (his human self aged and died like a normal human, after which he became a puppet again and since then just kept on living as a puppet), and teams up with Thumbelina and a teddy bear named Sir Benton in order to help a restaurant owner who turns out to be a descendant of Mastro Cherry, as well as Carlo Collodi's great-great-granddaughter.
- Caparezza's "Nel Paese dei Balordi" is somewhat of a contemporary retelling of the Pinocchio story, with TV celebrities and such, and Pinocchio himself turned back into a puppet again. ("Paese dei Balordi", meaning "Land of the Foolish", is a pun on "Paese dei Balocchi", i.e. Pleasure Island)
- Elio e le Storie Tese's "Puppet on a Swing"/"Burattino senza fichi" is about a liar puppet asking Geppetto to craft him a big wooden dick, and him becoming naughtier than in the original story.
- In RWBY, Penny Polendina is a Robot Girl designed after Pinocchio, and whose name references Geppetto's Berserk Button nickname. She hiccups whenever she begins to lie and utilizes strings and wires as part of her remote weapon attacks, much like a puppeteer.
- In Robotboy the episode "Crying Time" has the protagonists going to see a show set up by the villains about Mochio blatantly inspired by Pinocchio, in which Mochio is a chocolate boy made by a lonely candy maker (Constantine) with a peppermint nose that grows every time he says "Bummer". It's implied that Mochio is actually a combat robot, but before Kamikazi could active its super-mode to attack the heroes, it got already eaten by Gus.
Video Games
- Halo 3: 343 Guilty Spark has a rare and comedic line if you start shooting at him for no good reason.
- "That hurt my feelings! Oh my God, I have feelings? I'm a real boy!"
- Lies of P is an adaptation of the book, even beginning with a dedication to Carlo Collodi, with several characters appearing either directly (P and Geppetto) or indirectly (the Blue Fairy as Sophia, the Talking Cricket/Jiminy Cricket as Gemini).
- Library of Ruina: Of the many Abnormalities, creatures and beings brought into existence by the trauma of others, Pinocchio is one of the handful drawn from fairy tales. In this iteration, Pinocchio learned from mimicking humanity that in order to become human, it must learn how to lie like them. It also serves as an Allegorical Character for the intense dishonesty rampant in the setting the game takes place, and especially the character of Angela, a machine built in the resemblance of a human who has long since passed, who has a tendency to lie to themselves a lot, and especially has a desperate wish to finally become human through the events of the game.
- "People lie all the time. Why is that a bad thing?"
- Namco's 1986 arcade game Toy Pop is a top-down shooter starring two toys, Pino the marionette and Acha the doll. Pino is clearly named and modeled after Pinocchio.
