| “ | How would you blokes like to make some REAL money? | „ |
| ~ The Coachman |
The Coachman is one of main antagonists (along with Honest John and Monstro) in Disney's Pinocchio. The owner of Pleasure Island, he takes naughty boys to his amusement park where they would do many bad things such as smoking, drinking, and fighting. This would cause them to become donkeys, allowing the Coachman to ship them away so he could get rich.
To this end, The Coachman hires Honest John and Gideon (who both are deeply frightened by him) to lure such boys (such as Lampwick and Pinocchio) into his sinister trap. He is also served by silent ape-like creatures. Although still a totally violent and cruel man he is not quite as abusive as The Coachman (or Little Man) from the original book as he did not mutilate any of the boys (though he was abusive in many other ways) - also unlike the book's "Little Man" The Coachman from Disney was large and intimidating.
Personality
The Coachman is among the most sinister and despicable Disney villains with wholly no redeeming qualities, part by his actions and his pleasure in torturing children for wealth. However, he could also be considered to be moralistic in his own dark and twisted way, as he teaches the boys a pricey lesson for prolonged misbehavior.
Like most Disney villains, the Coachman is highly manipulative and greatly sadistic, enjoying other people's pain, and is also very cruel, heartless and unsympathetic, whipping his minions and also selling young boys that come to his island into slavery so that he can make money off of them. He enjoys their pain and justifies his action by claiming their slavery as (according to him) payment for their bad behavior displayed on Pleasure Island.
Trivia
- The Coachman does get his punishment in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game version of Pinocchio. by getting kicked off a cliff by Pinocchio (aka the player). Whether he survives or not after that is left to be determined by the player (Pinocchio).
- The Coachman's real name is Giles Barker.
- The Coachman was the first Disney Villain to use bad words the second Maleficent, the third Ratcliffe and the fourth Claude Frollo.
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