The Adventures of Pinocchio LIVE! (Classic)

The hosts of How Did This Get Made? present a live, unfiltered, and deeply unhinged review of The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996), a live-action fantasy film starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Martin Landau. What begins as a lighthearted introduction to a beloved classic quickly spirals into a night of existential horror, with the hosts dissecting the film’s disturbing tone, surreal visuals, and bizarre narrative choices. They express shock at the movie’s overtly sexual imagery, including a disturbing bath scene and a phallic nose-growth sequence, while questioning the logic of a wooden puppet becoming a real boy without any coherent moral arc. The discussion dives into the film’s strange world-building: puppeteers as unionized laborers, children turned into donkeys for skin, and a protagonist who seems to exist in a reality where no one questions his existence. Despite the film’s $25 million budget and 67 five-star Amazon reviews, the hosts unanimously reject it as a traumatic, poorly executed mess. Yet, they paradoxically admit to being oddly attached to the film’s weirdness, even jokingly preferring it over their own show’s infamous Drop Dead Fred. The episode culminates in a meta-commentary on audience perception, with the hosts acknowledging the film’s cult status and the strange allure of its unapologetic absurdity.