Pleasure Island: Disney’s Darkest Scene

Courtesy of Disney

For many years, Disney has entertained families, from classic Mickey Mouse cartoons to animated classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s, with films like Aladdin and The Lion King, Pixar movies like Toy Story, and the numerous properties they acquired, including Marvel and Star Wars. Disney has distributed various projects throughout the years and has had many dark scenes and moments in various projects. One scene, though, feels as if it triumphs over all the others, and it’s from one of Disney’s earliest projects, Pinocchio.

Pinocchio was the second animated movie Disney made after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Pinocchio was released in 1940 and was based on the 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. At first, Pinocchio seems down-to-earth in telling the story about a wooden puppet who comes to life and tries to become a real boy, with his conscience, Jiminy Cricket, trying to redirect him. Pinocchio runs into trouble at first when he is tricked by a fox known as Honest John and falls into the hands of Stromboli, who keeps Pinocchio to perform for his shows. Luckily, Pinocchio gets free when the Blue Fairy helps him.

After this, Pinocchio takes a darker turn. The audience checks in on Honest John and his cat partner, Gideon, sitting with a mysterious Coachman. Honest John is still laughing about how he tricked Pinocchio when the Coachman offers them a large sum of money to help lure in stupid little boys, who are the ones who skip school and misbehave. Honest John and Gideon are excited to participate until the Coachman says he will send them to Pleasure Island. Honest John is horrified and worries about the law. The Coachman isn't worried and says they never come back as boys, his face turning sinister and red with an evil smile. Honest John and Gideon are freaked out, but go along with the Coachman's plan. Here, the audience who are watching for the first time have no idea what horrors await.

Honest John runs into Pinocchio and tricks him into going with the Coachman to Pleasure Island. Here, Pinocchio meets Lampwick, and them, along with the other boys who are convinced to go with the Coachman, head to Pleasure Island. They engage in various activities like smoking, drinking, vandalism, fighting, rides, and eating plenty of food. Jiminy feels something is off as he looks for Pinocchio, and the Coachman orders his shadowy henchmen to close the gates and get the crates ready. Later on, Pinocchio and Lampwick are playing pool with the rest of the boys missing.

After Jiminy leaves in anger at Pinocchio seeming to pick Lampwick over him, he sees a lot of crying donkeys in crates. He wonders where they came from. One of the Coachman's shadowy minions brings the donkeys, who are dressed, to the Coachman, who asks them what their names are. If a donkey makes a donkey noise, they are pushed into a crate. If they can still speak, they are placed in a gated area. We learn that one of the donkeys is named Alexander, and he wants his momma. He and the other talking donkeys beg the Coachman to transform them back, but he cracks his whip and refers to them as boys who had their fun and now have to pay for it. Jiminy realizes the donkeys are the other boys who transformed and rushes to find Pinocchio.

Right afterward, Lampwick transforms into a donkey. As he transforms, he begs Pinocchio to help him, and then cries for his mom before he loses his voice and fully transforms. Pinocchio starts to transform, but Jiminy finds him in time. The two escape Pleasure Island, and Pinocchio only has donkey ears and a tail. The rest of the movie focuses on Pinocchio saving Geppetto from Monstro the whale and eventually turning into a real boy. No mention of the Coachman, the donkey boys, or even Pleasure Island is ever brought up again. Pinocchio never tells Geppetto or anyone else about the Coachman's evil crimes.

Pleasure Island and the Coachman feel like the darkest corner in Disney's history. Here we have a sinister villain who makes sinister faces that lures young boys away to an island with fun things and no rules and later transforms them into donkeys to sell off to others. We have no idea what will happen to Alexander and the other donkey boys who can still talk. We assume Lampwick is all alone on Pleasure Island, still freaking out over his transformation, as we never see the Coachman go looking for him or Pinocchio. Speaking of the Coachman, this guy is a rare Disney villain who never got caught or faced any consequences for his actions. Honest John and Gideon, who were accomplices to his crimes in luring boys away, also never got caught. His shadowy minions are also mysterious and sinister-looking, making us, the audience, wonder who they are and where they came from. Were they like the boys and transformed into these minions on Pleasure Island years ago?

Whenever I hear Alexander's scared voice and how he wants his momma, it breaks my heart. Lampwick’s transformation still makes me uncomfortable when watching. Regardless of how naughty these boys were, they are still children who lost their humanity and will never see their families again. No one deserves this fate. While Disney made many changes to Pinocchio to not be as dark as the original book, this is one dark change that was never made.  What's even scarier is that the Coachman feels like the most realistic Disney villain out of all the villains. He's trafficking children, and while in real life people don't turn into donkeys, people are still lured and trafficked in real life, also making most of the Pleasure Island situation one of the most realistic situations in an animated Disney movie. It's also a reminder of a horrible, dark reality. The world has too many people out there like the Coachman, too many people like Honest John who help these evil people commit this horrible crime, and it's a reminder that this horrible crime has happened before Pinocchio and is still happening after Pinocchio.

Overall, Pinocchio has an innocent beginning, but a dark corner once the Coachman and Pleasure Island come into play. Even with all the villains and dark Disney moments that came afterward, this scene and villain still freaks me out to this day and casts a light on trafficking, even if the audience doesn’t realize it right away. Even if you include MCU and other IP movies, the villains still get defeated, whereas the Coachman never gets caught. We never saw the donkey boys get turned back into humans and get free. It does have a message to kids to not trust strangers and not to believe in free stuff. Regardless, as an adult, I realized this scene has darker undertones, and it's why I feel this is Disney's darkest moment in a movie.

Do you think The Coachman is the most evil Disney villain, and do you think Pleasure Island is the darkest moment in a Disney movie? Let us know in the comments below.