10 Dark Storylines That Disney Movies Left Out
7. Pinocchio gets Gepetto arrested for child abuse and kills Jiminy Cricket
The 1940 Disney film of Pinocchio already had some dark moments in it, such as the naughty children being turned into frightened donkeys. However, the original Italian version in 1883 by Carlo Collodi was more disturbing.
Intended as a moral lesson for children, it starts with a carpenter who is terrified when the tree he is chopping up starts to talk to him. He gives it to his neighbour Gepetto who carves it into a marionette of a boy. Pinocchio is horrible and kicks Geppetto after he has finished carving his feet. He then runs off into town and gets Gepetto falsely arrested for mistreating him.
Pinocchio encounters a talking cricket, who tries to teach him about kindness, but instead he throws a hammer at the cricket, killing him.
Other highlights to this lovely story include a man who tries to drown Pinocchio as a donkey so he can skin him to make a drum, a kidnapping puppet master who wants to use him as firewood and a fox and cat who try to hang him from a tree. Even the scene where Pinocchio lies, and his nose grows is slightly more macabre as it only shrinks when it is painfully chiselled down to size by a flock of woodpeckers.