Land of Toys

The Land of Toys (Italian: Paese dei Balocchi) is a fictional location in the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. In the Disney film adaptation of the novel, the land is renamed as Pleasure Island. The size and nature of such location is unclear (the Disney adaptation depicts it as an amusement park, whereas the novel implies it is at least as large as a township); the ambiguity in the original name (paese can mean country or land, but also town or village) adds to the confusion. Its real use for a slave trade.

Located in the fictional land of Cocagne, Pleasure Island serves as a haven for wayward boys, allowing them to act as they please without recrimination. However, the truer and more sinister purpose of Pleasure Island is eventually revealed as it begins to physically transform the boys into donkeys, apparently by means of a curse.

The Land of Toys in the Novel

The original take to the Land of Toys mixes the aspects of a morality tale with those of social critique. Boys are lured there by the promise of never having to go to school again and being able to spend their whole time having fun. Boys there play hide-and-seek, whistle, watch puppets in canvas theatres, play shuttlecock, bounce on balls, trundle hoops, and ride wooden horses. They never have to do any work or learn anything, and the graffiti on all the walls is proof of that. As a result, almost as a natural consequence, they become donkeys (in Italian culture, the donkey is symbolic of ignorance and stupidity).

When framed in the context of the late 1800s, the chapters set in the Land of Toys also serve as social commentary: abandoning school means securing oneself a future with no other chance to make a living but hard labor, and there are plenty of people (like the ruthless coachman) who will try and take advantage of that.

Pleasure Island in the Disney Film

The segment from Pleasure Island in the film version is much more of a morality tale. The boys who are taken to the island go voluntarily with the promise of fun and unlimited freedom, although it is implied that Pleasure Island has some sort of bad reputation despite its name because the Fox and the Cat react in horror at the name when they meet the Coachman at the inn and also the Fox and the Cat mention about a law about that place meaning the country outlaw Pleasure Island. While on the island, the boys are encouraged to commit acts of gluttony, vandalism, fight, drink beer, smoke cigars, and gamble - all things that good little boys are not supposed to do. In short, the park was designed for boys to "make jackasses of themselves". The nature of the Coachman and of Pleasure Island itself is shown as more preternatural and inherently evil. The first real indication of this occurs while the boys indulge themselves; the Coachman orders his henchmen, who are shown as terrifying dark ape-like silhouettes with no distinguishing features, to close and lock the entrance.

The transformation into a donkey is not instantaneous. When boys arrive on the island, they remain human for some time, as their "jackass" behavior must build up sufficiently for the curse to activate, before showing any signs of the curse changing them. The first indication is braying replacing the boy's normal laughter, followed by the growth of donkey ears and a tail. The head, torso, and extremities come next, after which the boy is then forced into a quadrupedial stance. The final notable change is losing the ability to speak. Before the donkeys leave Pleasure Island, the Coachman checks them by asking their names to make sure they have lost their ability to vocalize, which signifies they are fully transformed. They probably retain human minds, as the non-vocal donkeys seem to understand the Coachman when he tests them, but most of them most likely have a tendency to go berserk immediately after transforming, indicated when almost all the attractions of Pleasure Island have been completely destroyed by the donkeys' insane behaviour.

When the Coachman tests out the donkeys, he does many things to them. The ones that can no longer vocalize (as in Lampwick's case) are stripped bare of their clothes, chucked into wooden crates and then sent on to salt mines or circuses. The ones that can still talk (as in the case of one named Alexander) are taken back to a pen where other talking donkeys plead in vain for mercy. It is not clear what happens to them after this; the Coachman probably either has to either keep them on the island until they lose their vocalization or their death. Unlike in the original text, where the transformation would apparently automatically complete itself once it started, Pinocchio is able to get off the island with merely a donkey's ears and tail, lending further weight to the idea that the island itself is cursed.

Trivia

• The Pleasure Island theme was taken up again by science fiction author Cory Doctorow in his short story "Return to Pleasure Island", where it is told from the perspective of cotton-candy-vending Golems.
• The 1990 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appears to pay tribute to Pleasure Island by showing an underground lair with drinking, smoking, gambling, and showing wayward teenagers engaging in more modern forms of fun such as blasting offensive music and playing video games. The only skills that are taught are martial arts and how to move stolen goods.

• Pleasure Island is featured in The Adventures of Pinocchio, called "Terra Magica" (it means "Magic Land" in Italian) in this version. After Pinocchio's initial adventures, he ends up wandering in the woods where he encounters Volpe and Felinet who trick him out of his money. After this betrayal, he is then lured onto a carriage driven by a sinister-looking coachman, who takes him to Terra Magica with a load of other boys (including Lampwick, Pinocchio's friend). Terra Magica is actually owned by the evil Lorenzini, who is luring the boys to the place with promises of fun and then turning them into donkeys through the park's cursed water. Lorenzini's evil schemes are thwarted when Pinocchio reveals Lorenzini's plans and encourages Lampwick (turned into a donkey) to knock Lorenzini into the Park's cursed water, transforming him into a monstrous whale. In the end of the movie, Volpo and Felinet are tricked to drink the water by the human Pinocchio (though this scene happens offscreen), who tells them that if they drink the water while holding a rock, it will transform it in pure gold. As result, the two thieves are turned into a real fox and a real cat.

• Pleasure Island is shown once more in in the 2000 TV musical Geppetto. After Pinocchio escapes from Stromboli's cruelty he hitches a ride on a stagecoach full of boys to Pleasure Island. In Pleasure Island boys are seen breaking windows, eating cakes, pies, and candy, playing in the mud, and running wildly. Some can even be seen gambling. In this version Pleasure Island is not cursed and doesn't cause the boys to turn into donkeys like the Disney film's version. Instead a roller coaster, the island's main attraction, is what causes the boys to transform into donkeys, much like in the 1996 film version.