The Washington Post’s film historian and fact-checker, Carl Matushka, today released his review of Pinocchio’s claim that he didn’t go to school because he was kidnapped by “two big monsters, with big, green eyes.” Matushka gave the statement “Four Romneys.”
Pinocchio makes the claim while answering questions put to him by the Blue Fairie in the animated 1940 Walt Disney film, Pinocchio. Here is the transcript of the interview in question:
Blue Fairie: Pinocchio, why didn’t you go to school?
Pinocchio: School? Well I … uh … I was going to school, ‘til I met somebody.
Pinocchio: Yeah. Two big monsters, with big green eyes!
Blue Fairie: Monsters? Weren’t you afraid?
Pinocchio: No ma’am. But they tied me in a big sack!
Blue Fairie: You don’t say! And where was Sir Jiminy?
Pinocchio: They put him in a little sack!
The Facts
In actuality, Pinocchio was on his way to school, but allowed himself to be sidetracked by con artists Honest John and Gideon, who convinced him to join Stromboli’s puppet show.
The Finding
Pinocchio’s musings about why he didn’t go to school were patently false. For proof of the wooden boy’s prevarications, one need look no further than his nose, which grows with each misstatement he tells the Blue Fairie, until his protruding proboscis stretches some four feet in length, and grows a bird’s nest on the end of it.
Overall, the reasons given for his having missed school – his first day of school, no less – were completely untrue. There were no “big monsters with big, green eyes,” and nobody tied Pinocchio in a big sack.
These claims earn Pinocchio Four Romneys.
FOUR ROMNEYS
LOL!
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