User Reviews

This is the animated series that was very popular in German-speaking countries with the catchy title song sung by Mary Roos (lyrics by Florian Cusano).

The episodes tell the classic story of Pinocchio the wooden puppet, who often gets into trouble through being mischievous and naive. He leaves Geppetto to follow a puppet theater and together with a duck named Gina and a woodpecker called Rocco, Pinocchio finds his way through various adventures and eventually learns about values like friendship and courage. In the end, he finds his way back to Geppetto and a fairy transforms him into a real boy.

Good quality children's TV series suitable for children ages 4 - 8.

Pinocchio, a simple-minded, irascible, rough wooden block, his annoying duck Gina, the woodpecker Rocco, Gepetto, the good-natured, rather naive woodcarver, his lazy cat Guilietta and of course, the unappealing, bourgeois fairy were the so-called "heroes" of this gruff cartoon series.

On closer look, the "bad guys" weren't that bad anymore. Back then, the likeable characters were the mangy fox and the street cat for me even as a child, even if life (or the screenwriter) always played pretty bad, they were always looking for a little piece of luck and never gave up. Pinocchio is just right for them, since he only lets himself in his simple-minded stupidity put in too easily. Basically, however, it is only harmless rascals that the fox and the cat do with him.

But the punishment by the irascible Pinocchio is sometimes severe for me. Then the fox, which is already defenseless and half passed out on the floor, is kicked several times in the face by Pinocchio (episode 19), in many episodes Fox and cat are bitten in the foot and head until they howl in pain and sit whimpering on the floor.

Especially the tender, small and defenseless fox gets it pretty hard in almost every episode: about in episode 13 "The Adventurous Night", where he gets constantly beaten from a big, fat and sadistic innkeeper for every little thing because he was just hungry, hadn't eaten for days, had no money and bounced the colliery.

The fox was kept as a bargaining chip to process his debts. Towards the end of the episode, the poor fox is beaten half dead by the fat innkeeper for something he hasn't anything to do with because it was Pinocchio who threw the tray with the dishes on the floor. This injustice annoyed me immensely as a child and it still does now.

I cannot really understand that children are supposedly given special values, here it's quite the opposite. Always on the weaker I think that is not okay. The so-called "villain" here rather awakens my protective instincts because he is just defenseless.