Pinocchio Unstrung: An Interview with Robert Englund - Last Interview on the Left
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
All right. That's our goal, Mr. Englund. Our goal is to choke them all out. Choke them all out. And your help today, that's what's going to push us over the edge. We're going to literally attack other podcasts in their dreams. We're going to kill them one by one at a time. I like that kind of talk.
Yes!
Very few times are the sacred audio hallways of Last Podcast and Left Grace by true legends. But this time, one is here. I mean, on Zoom. Yeah. One's on Zoom. And we have truly, this is obviously a pillar of our world. The ultimate man of nightmares. The star of arguably the peak of his career, Pinocchio Unstrung.
Yeah.
is Robert England. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Well, I don't think I've ever been called sacred before. I kind of like it. I think we have to give a little cred here to the great Richard Brake, who plays Geppetto in Pinocchio and Strung, because Richard's an old friend of mine and a previous co-star of mine in a little film with Robert Patrick and Hal Holbrook that we did together a couple of years ago. And I've just been, you know, such a fan of Richard's ever since, you know, following him, including his incredible turn on Mayor of Kingstown with Jeremy Renner. Right. Where he plays the white supremacist, you know, in jail. He's terrifying in that. And, spoiler alert, the best death scene in a long time. Just amazing. The guy knows how to die.
Yeah. He's real. He is legitimately. We saw Pinocchio Unstrung. Honestly, I was surprised at the level of art and care that went into this movie, into this independent production with the puppets and the visual effects. How'd you get involved in this? How they rope you in besides massive piles of cash? I think they... I wish they were massive.
I hope they're not the piles. Anyway, getting old, piles means something different. No, you know, I knew about the Winnie the Pooh. Yes. And... My generation, and this isn't horror, but in a kind of Mad Magazine, Mad TV, SNL kind of way, we had a sort of beloved experience with a show called Fractured Fairy Tales. which back in the 50s and early 60s was part of the Jay Ward, you know, Rocky and Bullwinkle, all of that stuff with great voice work. Hans Conrad, lots of people were working for those teams back then. So I've always loved the idea of that. And then in college and also during the many years of my sort of, I'm going to say, intellectual interviews regarding horror, especially in Europe, I was reminded of all of the stuff we talked about in school and later on with Bruno Bettelheim and Carl Jung and all of the really source darkness.
and Freudian sexuality and everything else that's in the actual fairy tales. I mean, my God, Hansel and Gretel is a cautionary tale by the terrible parents to their children. If you don't, if you do not behave, if you do not behave, you must go into the forest, into the black, dark forest. It's actually called the black forest.
And
What happens when you're starving? There's a famine going on in Germany. What happens when you're starving? What's the first symptom? You hallucinate. Pie. Oh, a great chocolate cake or perhaps a house with cookie shingles, you know, and made of food. So, I mean, this is all dark shit. I mean, also, I mean, Rumpelstiltskin. That's a nasty, nasty story. What's going on there? And so... I think that the fairy tales, after having been—and I don't say this as a criticism, just as a fact—but after having been Disney-fied for many years and cleaned up, you know, so we don't hurt our children, I think what happened is it's almost—
incumbent upon us to sort of return some of them to their source their dark dark source why are we literally so afraid to scare kids now i know when i was a little boy a lot of my favorite media also scared me yeah
Well, I think it was sort of a reaction to other aspects of the culture that perhaps, you know, put the cart in front of the horse a little too much. I know a couple of blocks from me, and this has saved me from being pranked on Halloween where I live, but a couple blocks north of me, Oak Street, but all the dads,
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–8:56
2
How did Robert Englund get involved with Pinocchio: Unstrung and what attracted him to the project?
8:56–12:50
3
Why does Englund believe darker, original fairy tales deserve a modern, uncensored retelling?
12:50–37:30
4
What behind-the-scenes details explain the film's Northern Italian setting and Pinocchio puppetry choices?
37:30–42:05
5
How does horror get more respect in Europe and how did that shape Englund's international career?
42:05–47:57
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Last Podcast On The Left
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