Thank you. Hello everybody, welcome back, this
is Food for Thought, thoughts if it were you,
and I'm your host, Neo Gentrics. It's great to
have been back, it's great to make these episodes
again like I used to, and cover all sorts of
weird or interesting things, whether educational
or otherwise, as is the point of this podcast
in the first place. Now last time we covered
the dark truth behind Sleeping Beauty's story,
and I have to say, that was pretty gruesome.
And it only kept getting worse. With the moral
of the story being what it was, it wasn't exactly
the best type of childhood story. And in retrospect,
it kind of lets you know just how monotonous
Disney and other companies are on making the
story as sweet sounding as they can to cover
up the dark facts of the original book. Not every
story has a happy ending. Not every story is
supposed to have a happy ending. This unmitigated
aspect of society that everything must have a
happy ending where the princess survives or is
saved by her handsome prince isn't always the
case. Most often than not, most of the cases
are that the handsome prince saving her is the
one that actually put her in the situation she's
in in the first place. Or the so -called bad
guy actually isn't the bad guy. Like in Sleeping
Beauty's case, Maleficent wasn't the bad guy.
She was the wife of the king that put Sleeping
Beauty in the position she's in after she ended
up in the coma -like sleep state she's in from
her own doing. So, today we're going to go ahead
and cover Pinocchio. And like most stories written
by Disney, this too has also been changed to
make it more kid -friendly to a point. And they're
not the only ones that have done this. Stick
around for this episode if you want to hear the
true story behind Pinocchio and what it was actually
about after we take this short break. Alright,
and we're back. Let's go ahead and begin this
little meddling piece. So, as you probably already
knew, Disney has a habit of taking dark, twisted
children's fairy tales and turning them into
sickeningly sweet happy ever afters. Take Sleeping
Beauty, for example. It's based on a story where
a married king finds a girl asleep, can't wake
her, so rapes her instead. That's the original
version of that story. Well, In 1940, the version
of Pinocchio is no exception. The movie is based
on a story that appears as a serial in a newspaper
called The Adventures of Pinocchio. It was actually
written in 1881 and 1882 by Carlo Collodi. Leave
the pronunciation up to you. Jiminy Cricket appears
as the talking cricket in the book and does not
play as prominent a role. You know. He actually
first appears in Chapter 4, in which the truism
that children do not like to have in their behavioral
corrected by people who know much more than they
do is illustrated. Uh. Apropos. Okay. When the
talking cricket tells Pinocchio to go back home.
And it basically goes something like this from
the book. At these last words, Pinocchio jumped
up in a fury, took a hammer from the bench, and
threw it with all his strength at the talking
cricket. Perhaps he did not think he would strike
it, but, sad to relate, my dear children, he
did hit the cricket straight on the head. Alas,
weak Cree Cree Cree. The poor cricket fell from
the wall dead. That's right folks Pinocchio killed
Jiminy cricket Okay, now you might be happy to
know that Pinocchio did learn his lesson quite
soon after that or so it seemed While he didn't
seem to feel bad about killing the cricket. In
fact, he actually later later tells Geppetto
It was his own fault For I didn't want to kill
him. He did seem to regret not taking the cricket's
advice as he runs into more and more trouble
repeatedly afterward. You know, at last, Karma
catches up with Pinocchio and he gets his feet
burned off. I think that part is actually still
in the movie. But you'll have to go back and
check yourself. So, as he no longer had any strength
left with... which to stand, he sat down on a
little stool and put his two feet on the stove
to dry them. There he fell asleep. While he slept,
his wooden feet began to burn. Slowly, very slowly,
they blackened and turned to ash. That's the
line from the original, you know, story. In other
words, he got his feet wet and he tried to dry
it. Actually, let me pause right here and go
ahead and say that, you know, life hits you with
a lot of things, but if you honestly think that
nothing you do is going to come back and haunt
you later, or rather the seeds you've sown, whether
virtuous or evil, is not going to bear fruit
in some way in the future, you're sadly mistaken.
Sorry about that. Had to go take care of something.
But we're back. Now, moving on from what I was
telling you before. Like I said, don't worry.
Geppetto forgives the boy for what he did wrong
and builds him new feet, which is really more
than Pinocchio deserves in the first place. You
see, when Pinocchio first became alive and learned
to walk, the first thing he did was run off.
What's worse is that Pinocchio leads people to
believe that Geppetto was abusing him. which
lands Geppetto squarely in prison in the first
place. Now, you would think by this time Pinocchio
would have learned to be a good, obedient little
boy, but that's simply just not the case. The
talk at cricket returns as a ghost to tell Pinocchio
not to get involved with some people who claim
planting gold coins will result in a tree of
gold. Rather than apologizing for throwing a
hammer at the poor bug, Pinocchio scoffs at the
advice once more. And then Pinocchio's decision
to continue to ignore the crickets resulted him
finding more grief in the way of being hanged
by the very people who had told him about planting
gold in the first place. The line from the story
actually goes something like this. And they ran
after me, and I ran and ran, till at last they
caught me, tied my neck with a rope, and hung
me to a tree, saying, Tomorrow will come back
for you, and you will be dead, and your mouth
will be open, and will take the gold pieces that
you have hidden under your tongue. Kind of dark,
don't you think? The hanging scene was actually
where the story was meant to end. face grave
consequences for being disobedient. However,
the editor of the paper requested that Collodi
continue writing, perhaps wishing for a bit more
of a happier ever after himself. And that's where
the blue fairy tale came in to, you know, the
blue fairy came in to save the puppet in the
first place. Originally, that wasn't part of
the story, but Collodi added it after being requested
by the paper. In the additional chapters, however,
Cody made it so that Pinocchio learned his lesson
and decided to take care of his father rather
than spend his time playing and running amok.
In the end, Talking Cricket had a chance at revenge,
but didn't take it. And, you know, it goes a
little bit like this. Father and son looked up
to the ceiling and there was a beam sat the Talking
Cricket. Oh my, dear Cricket, said Pinocchio,
bowing politely. Oh, now you call me your dear
cricket. But do you remember when you threw your
hammer at me to kill me? You are right, dear
cricket, throwing a hammer at me now. I deserve
it. But spare my poor old father. I'm going to
spare both the father and the son. I have only
wanted to remind you of the trick you long ago
played upon me to teach you that in this world
of ours, we must be kind and courteous to others
if we want to find kindness and courtesy in our
own days of trouble. You are right, little cricket.
You are more than right, and I shall remember
the lesson you have taught me. Kind of ironic,
don't you think? Considering the original story
of this nature for Pinocchio isn't as actually
forgiving as it ended up being. Now, think about
it this way. We wouldn't have had a soft -spoken,
really nice Disney version of this story had
the editor of the paper not actually requested
that he continue it and give it a happy ending.
Because the original story, by far, is extremely
dark. In its own right, already. But, Keeping
in with the rules that we have, that ends the
very strange but yet not so friendly Pinocchio
that nobody ever knew. Well, that concludes this
episode for this podcast revolving around the
story of Pinocchio. Next time, we'll cover one
of the two, I guess you can say, next darkest
stories to be ever told. Either it's going to
be the story, the original story, of Little Red
Riding Hood, or the real tragedy behind Beauty
and the Beast. I'll leave the choice up to you
guys, the listeners. Tell me which one you would
like to hear. And that's the one I'll go over
next. Until then, though, this has been Thoughts
If It Were You, food for thought, and my name
is Neogentrix. Until the next time we meet, enjoy
the rest of your day.