Geppetto

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Geppetto is a Disney TV musical released in 2000, starring Drew Carey, Brent Spiner and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It retells the story of Pinocchio from its maker's perspective.

After watching parents interacting with their children, Geppetto the toymaker (Drew Carey) muses how many of the mothers and fathers don't seem to be doing a good job of bring up their kids. That evening, after closing his shop up for the night, he wishes how his newly-made puppet was a real boy, and that night, the Blue Fairy (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) appears in his shop and grants his wish.

Geppetto finds that parenthood is a lot harder than it looks, and after an argument, Pinocchio runs away, provoking Geppetto to go after him. Along his journey, Geppetto finds out what it means to be a parent.

Tropes used in Geppetto include:
  • Adaptation Expansion: Goes into more detail about Geppetto's personality than the book or Animated Disney film.
  • An Aesop
  • Become a Real Boy
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: There's Usher as the Ringmaster.
  • Ironic Echo:
    • At the beginning, Geppetto boasts that all his toys are 'satisfaction guaranteed'. Later in the film, he stumbles across the town Idylia, where Professer Buonragazzo claims that all the children he creates in his machine are 'satisfaction guaranteed'.
    • Another one: When the Blue Fairy animates Pinocchio, she says, "For what good is a real father if he does not have a real son to come home to?" Right at the end, after turning Pinocchio into a real boy, she says, "What good would it do making Pinochhio a real boy, if he did not have a real father to come home to?"
  • Large Ham: Stromboli, Buonragazzo, Lazardo, the Ringmaster, pretty much everyone except Geppetto and Pinocchio.
  • Perspective Flip
  • Please, I Will Do Anything!: A variation near the end.

Geppetto: Isn't there anything I can do?
Stromboli: No!
Geppetto: You can take anything.
Stromboli: No!
Geppetto: Take everything!"