(Revenge of the Blue Fairy t-shirt now on sale at the NeatoShop)
We may have gotten used to the Disney versions of classic fairy tales when we were children. It's a good thing because the original sources for those movies were horrifying. An authentic Pinocchio movie would go from a G rating straight to an R. Carlo Collodi, the author of The Adventures of Pinocchio, composed his work in 1881 and 1882. It features Pinocchio beating Jiminy Cricket to death with a hammer:
At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a fury, took a hammer from the bench, and threw it with all his strength at the Talking Cricket.
Perhaps he did not think he would strike it. But, sad to relate, my dear children, he did hit the Cricket, straight on its head.
With a last weak “cri-cri-cri” the poor Cricket fell from the wall, dead!
Pinocchio suffered a lot, too. Did the Disney movie show him getting his feet burned off? Collodi's original did:
As he no longer had any strength left with which to stand, he sat down on a little stool and put his two feet on the stove to dry them. There he fell asleep, and while he slept, his wooden feet began to burn. Slowly, very slowly, they blackened and turned to ashes.
You can read more about the terrifying adventures of the wooden puppet at Today I Found Out.
-via VA Viper