I'm

M.

The Welcome to Spirits podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore.

Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world.

I'm Amanda.

And I'm Julia.

And this is episode 317, Pinocchio. Yeah, Amanda, so between the movie that was released on Netflix by

Guillermo del Toro and the newest season of Dimension 20, where he is played by the incomparable

Lou Wilson, I have been thinking a lot about the story of Pinocchio lately.

And I don't know about you, Amanda, but as a kid, I was never really a big fan of the Disney's version of Pinocchio.

It was like, it was a little too scary. It was kind of all over the place. It was just bad things

happening to this kid. Yeah. Yeah. Also, like, it just didn't have as many songs that were bangers as the rest

of the Disney movies available to us as children. Yeah, I think this is one that I watched once and thought,

sad, don't need that, and then never really revisited. So I wonder what that wily old puppet is up to

and if a cricket exists in the folklore. Ooh, that's a great question,

Amanda. So besides that watching it once, like what are your memories of the story? Like,

what are the plot points that you can barely remember? Yeah, there's an old man. There is a puppet

that wants to be a real boy. There is a cricket providing a frame narrative and breaking the

fourth wall. And at the end, he may or may not become real. That's really all I'm working with

right now. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. So obviously, we think of Pinocchio kind of in the same vein

that we think of our other classic fairy tales.

And for good reason, because as we go through the story, you'll notice that there are a lot of

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