The Coachman

The Coachman (also known as Barker) is one the five main antagonists in Pinocchio. He enlists Honest John and Gideon (who are both terrified by him) to aid him in "collecting" stupid little boys; he then takes them in a stagecoach to Pleasure Island, where the boys are free to "tear the place apart", though "they never come back... as boys!" He is perhaps the most sinister Disney villain by actions and his pleasure in torturing children next to Lotso. 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. He was voiced by Charles Judels (who also voiced Stromboli).

Personality
Like most Disney villains the Coachman is sadistic, enjoying other people's pain and is also very cruel whipping his minions and also selling Little Boys that come to his island into slavery so that he can make money off of them. He enjoys their pain and sells children to slavery just for fun.

The Deal
The Coachman is first seen sitting at a table in the bar of The Red Lobster with Foulfellow and Gideon. He puffs quietly on his pipe, listening quietly and intently as Honest John proudly recalls selling Pinocchio to Stromboli. The fox then produces a small bag of gold coins - Stromboli's payment - as proof of his success, and inquires about the Coachman's business. The Coachman gets the attention of the two when he places a huge bag of gold coins, promising them "some real money" if they help him. He tells the fox and cat that he is collecting "stupid little boys" to take to Pleasure Island. Foulfellow is frightened at the mention of Pleasure Island, and he and Gideon jump in terror when the Coachman gleefully laughs about his wicked business. He tells the two crooks to meet him with any "good prospects" they find at the crossroads of the village, where he will be waiting with his stagecoach, which is pulled by six donkeys; he promises to pay them well. Foulfellow and Gideon end up taking to the Coachman Pinocchio (who has just escaped Stromboli. Jiminy Cricket, fearing for Pinocchio's safety, stows away aboard the coach, unnoticed either by the Coachman or his passengers.

Pleasure Island
The Coachman takes the coachload of boys, including Pinocchio and Lampwick, to a ferry bound for Pleasure Island, a naughty boys' paradise, where the boys are free to run riot without fear of reprimand from adults or mature teenagers until they make such "jacka**es" of themselves that they turn into donkeys for the Coachman to sell into slavery. The Coachman whips his minions, ordering them to shut the gates, trapping the boys on the island. Later that night, Jiminy Cricket finds the Coachman's minions loading crates of donkeys onto boats. The Coachman examines every donkey, first checking that it can no longer talk by asking its name, then, if the response is a hee-haw, ripping off the creature's clothes, if it has any on, before his minions throw the animals into crates. One donkey, Alexander, can still talk, and cries to be allowed to go home. The Coachman throws Alexander into a pen of donkeys that likewise can still talk. These donkeys are presumably kept by the Coachman until they finally lose their voices.

At this point, Jiminy realizes the fate of Pleasure Island's visitors and rushes to warn Pinocchio. Though Lampwick is transformed into a donkey, Pinocchio, despite growing donkey ears and a tail, manages to escape the island, with Jiminy's help. After that, the Coachman is not seen again in the film.

Disney Parks
The Coachman appears in Pinocchio's Daring Journey and its Pleasure Island sequences and tries to cage the riders at one point to keep them from escaping.

He was also once a walk-around character but stopped appearing due to being too scary for children.

Trivia

 * Charles Judels, the voice of the Coachman, also did the voice of Stromboli.
 * The Coachman did get his comeuppance in the SNES Pinocchio video game; he gets kicked down a cliff by Pinocchio.
 * The Coachman might not be human. Some possible hints at this being the demonic face he makes when revealing his Pleasure Island plan, his shadowy minions who may not be human either, and the fact that he has four fingers on each hand while every other human character has five, though this could be a technical fault since four fingered gloves were easier to draw.
 * This said, the Coachman could very well be a demon in disguise, or at least he has access to magic, since he clearly is responsible for the transformation of all the boys who come to Pleasure Island.
 * Also in one concept art of him he reveals his true face removing a mask of a fake face. This "true face" of his strongly resembled Stromboli. Coincidentally, both antagonized Pinochio, shared the same voice actor and they lost Pinochio.
 * In an annotated English edition of the original novel PINOCCHIO, the Coachman has been compared to Mephistopheles, the demon prince in the classic tale of Dr. Faustus. His boy victims, like Faustus, in effect sell their souls to the Coachman for a life of unlicensed pleasure, and like the devil, the Coachman is there at the end to foreclose the deal.
 * Curiously, despite being one of the most vicious of all the Disney Villains, the Coachman appears in little to no material centering the villains.
 * The Coachman may be the only English character on Pinocchio speaking in a mid cockney accent.
 * The Coachman is the first British Disney villian. The other two who are British are Edgar and Clayton.
 * In the film  An American Tail, the main antagonist Warren T. Rat uses a costume very similar to that of the Coachman and also his companion is a cockroach; this could be a reference to the film Pinocchio. (Actually, Rat was really more similar to Honest John.)
 * In the original Italian story of Pinocchio, the Coachman was usually referred to as "The Little Buttery Man" ("L'Omino del Burro"), and he actually drove a large wagon instead of a coach. He was also described as a fat little man who resembled a walking butterball (hence his name), with a small round face like an orange, a red cherry-like nose, and a mouth that was always smiling sweetly. He spoke in a soft, purring voice "like a cat trying to ingratiate itself into its' owner's good graces." He also was rather effeminate in manner, clucking like a mother hen and addressing his prospective young passengers as "my dears" and "my darlings". Yet for all that he was even more sadistic than his Disney counterpart, as displayed when he bites one of his boy-turned-donkeys' ears off while pretending to kiss him.
 * When the coachman says, "They never come back as BOYS!, critics considered this pedophilia.

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