YMMV / Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night

• Awesome Art: Watch some parts of the Blue Fairy singing "Love is a Light Inside Your Heart", if you want to be amazed by the power of the animation at its best.
  • Pretty much any time the titular Emperor Of the Night is on screen.
• Awesome Music: "Dreamers and Dancers" and "You're a Star" are surprisingly catchy songs.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The show-stopping dance number "You're a Star" could qualify as this, since even with the justification of Pinocchio being in a magical pleasure world where dreams come true, it seems to come out of nowhere, and while clearly relevant to the plot (for there to be a Deal with the Devil some reward has to be given first) and characterization (it ties into Pinocchio's desire to be famous), it is never mentioned again either.
• Complete Monster:
  • The titular Emperor of the Night is the cruel ruler of a nightmarish dimension, who gains power by trapping souls in his domain, while weakening the Blue Fairy enough so that he can destroy her. Working through his human henchman, Puppetino, the Emperor lures and tempt numerous victims into signing away their freedoms, and turn them into lifeless puppets for all eternity; one of the countless puppets trapped in the empire of the night includes a woman holding her baby. The Emperor soon targets Pinocchio as his next victim, and has Puppetino lure Pinocchio with a little girl they captured and turned into a puppet. When Pinocchio is freed by the Blue Fairy, the Emperor manipulates Pinocchio and his friends into entering his domain. The Emperor uses Geppetto as his hostage, in order to coerce Pinocchio into signing away his freedom willingly, so that the Blue Fairy cannot save him. Pinocchio submits as long as his friends and father go free, until the Emperor orders Puppetino to take them all into the dungeon anyway. Once Pinocchio fights back, the Emperor smites Puppetino for his cowardice, and threatens to harm Geppetto if Pinocchio does not obey.
  • Puppetino is the Emperor's servant tasked with luring people into his domain. Leading a carnival, Puppetino uses people who sign away their freedom as puppets in his show, including a little girl named Twinkle. Puppetino meets Pinocchio and tricks him into performing for him before using his magic to turn Pinocchio back into a puppet. After Pinocchio is saved, Puppetino takes his jewel box and uses it to lure the boy into the Emperor's domain, where he assists the Emperor in manipulating Pinocchio into signing away his freedom.
• Cult Classic: The film made only $3.3 million at the box office, but has maintained a loyal cult following through home video sales and YouTube reuploads..
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Despite the movie having its fair share of original content, one of the main issues people have with it is that it’s basically a retread of the Disney movie but with different characters as it features Pinocchio getting swindled by two animal con-artists, he’s trapped by an evil puppeteer until the Fairy saves him one more time because of his carelessness, goes to a forbidden place where kids are allowed to do whatever they want (including drinking alcohol) and has to be constantly reminded about what not to do by his small insect sidekick.
• Moment of Awesome: The film's climax, where the power of choice is enough to destroy evil incarnate and tear the empire apart
• Narm/Narm Charm: Which side different parts of this movie fall on really depends on point of view. (Example: the Emperor of the Night's lines as he is overcome by the light of Pinocchio's heart could qualify as wonderfully karmic and awesome or...not.) There's also some of the faces made by the characters, which can get so ugly/creepy that they're hilariously endearing.
• Retroactive Recognition: Lana Beeson, the voice of Twinkle, would later provide the singing voice of Anne-Marie in All Dogs Go to Heaven.
• Signature Scene: The scene where Pinocchio watches a puppet show, and is then lured and subsequentially turned back into a puppet against his will by the puppeteer, due to its surprising amount of Nightmare Fuel in comparison to the rest of the film.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite Filmation’s claims that they were inspired by the original Carlo Collodi story and not the Disney movie, the movie makes no mention of characters like Mangiafuoco, the Talking Cricket, the Fox and the Cat and others... probably because since those characters were renamed for the Disney version, they would’ve interfered with their goal of making this an unofficial Disney sequel, something that would happen again with the Seven Dwarfs in their next movie, Happily Ever After and by then, Disney had gotten wiser.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Pinocchio as a real boy, often gets the odd and unnecessary Extreme Close-Up that unflatteringly makes him look creepy. The decision to have detailed Four-Fingered Hands on all the characters (except the Blue Fairy and Emperor of the Night) only exemplifies this trope.

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