FACT: Almost all live-action children’s entertainment with puppets eventually looks like an acid trip a generation or two later. Sesame Street avoids this due to some combination of skilled puppet work and a “realistic” setting, but low-budget candyland tripe like Pinocchio’s Birthday Party doesn’t.
Lucy is in the sky eight miles high in a purple haze in this story of what happens when Gepetto, the local wand-waving magic lady and all of the little children of the papier mache village get together to throw a party for the only boy in town who moves around on strings and needs regular check-ups for termites. An evil wizard shows up to ruin everyone’s fun, but he’s defeated by the power of how the screenwriters forget that he exists after one scene.
Meanwhile, Pinocchio’s birthday gifts, along with songs and games and a giant cake that probably fed the crew that day, include magic crystals that tell classic fairy tales, some new clothes, roller skates and a machine that inexplicably creates an aerial fireworks display.
Along the way, Pinocchio whispers a secret birthday wish into the ear of Glinda the Good Witch and we never find out what he said (Did David Lynch rip off this movie for season 3 of Twin Peaks?). My guess: He wanted a more competent puppeteer who doesn’t just throw him around like a sack of dirty laundry in almost every scene. This is a movie made for kids, but not many can get through it today without a strong adult beverage.