Sunday, November 4, 2012

Pin-occhio, Part Two

Not many people are fans of Pinocchio Part Two, Carlo Coloddi's follow up to his hit story-book, Pinocchio.  Pinocchio Part Two is one of those sequels that doesn't feature the characters from the previous story, instead
it tries to tell a similar story with new characters.  P-2 is about a a lonely bowler who drinks too much and
doesn't bowl very well.  No matter what he does, he leaves one pin standing.  Eventually, he develops an
attachment to this one pin.  One night, he wishes that the pin would come to life so that he could have a son
like he always wanted.  When he passes out in a beer stupor, the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio Part One comes
to the bowling alley and brings the Pin to life!
The bowler is very happy with his son, who he calls Pinocchio, as in Bowling Pin-occhio.
Together they figure out a scam to help the Bowler become "good" at his bowling job.  Pinocchio learns how
to infiltrate the "Bowling Pin Arranging Machine" (Collodi's words, not mine) at the end of whatever lane the Bowler might be bowling in.  Pinocchio then poses as one of the pins and no matter how badly the Bowler
rolls, Pinocchio just wobbles himself and knocks over all the pins. Eventually, The Bowler becomes rich and famous, goes pro and gets all sorts of product endorsements and $$$ for public appearances, but in the end, Pinocchio finds out he's gotten brain damage from all the fake falling he's been doing.  He also has a lot of
inner ear trouble - but that's more because he only has EARS-ON-THE-INSIDE, cause the Blue Fairy played
 him out like that when she brought him to life.