Movie Theories ~ The Coachman vs Pennywise

This is something really cool that I had been thinking about for a while. The classic Disney Film Pinocchio has been a tender favorite of mine, with the level of uncanny ideas played off from the original children’s story by Collodi. This story has a major fear factor in it, a lot of it being really vague. Which makes it twice as spooky. One idea in the cartoon was the reason for the dark Coachman. A truly twisted individual making profit basically off of the labor of unwitting young boys turned jackasses, with the help of some kind of dark magic to help him along with his evildoing. The same thing goes on in the original fairy tale (like all tales are actually truly twisted, weird and uncanny, unlike our Disney watered down counterpart). Everyone loves to have a good theory and I am not sure if I am the only one who wondered about this. I had a connecting idea. What if the Coachman is the same creature as Pennywise the Clown in Stephen King’s novel IT? Or even linked to or related to the terribly feared child feasting entity?

It is entirely possible since Pinocchio was animated long before Stephen King wrote and published IT. The film released in 1940 and IT was published in 1986. With this forty-six year gap between the film and this book’s publication, we can very easily assume that the creature of IT could have been inspired by the character of the Coachman and his very shady operation on Pleasure Island or even from the original tale. In the time period Pinocchio was set in (the 1800’s) this could be entirely possible that the entity known by the Losers in Derry as Pennywise could have been very active on earth back then. Or there was another similar entity with the same desire. IT is from someplace beyond our Universe called the Multiverse. His true form is called the Deadlights. When someone looks directly into these lights, they become driven to insanity or they instantly die. No one has ever seen IT in its true form. Not one living person. IT has multiple abilities and powers, ranging from mind control, corruption, manipulating nature to serve his own purpose, able to transfigure and even transform objects and creatures into other things, perform illusions and visions and cannot be killed. IT can make sure it remains seen or unseen by other human beings (IT torturing Beverly with a vision of blood spewing out of her bathroom sink, completely covering the floors, ceilings, and walls. The blood could only be seen by her and the Losers. Her abusive father could not see the blood at all). IT made itself seen and experienced by a guard when it helped Henry Bowers escape a mental facility, killing the guard in the process so that Henry could get back at the Losers. So, to have this link to the Coachman is his reason of the Island of his choosing for his secret, illegal practice, having the children partake in fun and rule-breaking as he watches with glee, knowing the awful truth. IT loved to take the form of a clown. Why? So that he could appeal its prey of choice: Children. So if you remember the scene in Pinocchio where Honest John and Gideon are at a pub with this very jovial appearing man smoking a pipe, with a very odd, dark smirk on his face. We do not know much about this character… only that he has this get rich quick scheme. By collecting stupid little boys who play hooky from school and bringing them to this place called Pleasure Island. The fox ultimately reacts in fear at the mention of the Island. IT appears as a playful kind clown to bring children closer to it. The Coachman does the same thing, acting all warm and kind to children, bringing them to a place that’s water bound and out of reach. IT’s homestead under the town of Derry is pretty unreachable as well being near water, covered in old circus tent trappings, toys and an old cart too dated for even for the 19th century. Both stay in one place; IT: Derry, Maine Coachman: An Island somewhere off of Italy. Or did it even exist? It could have been an illusion as well. * Those ape looking creatures were probably only illusions as well or some kind of manipulated animal to do the Coachman’s bidding. No one but the kids of the Loser’s club can see IT or even acknowledgment of its existence. Pinocchio’s small Italian town doesn’t seem to know the existence or danger of Pleasure Island and children go free about the town when only two individuals were in on it (The Fox and the Cat). IT literally taunts the Losers that ‘They Float. You’ll float too, we all float down there…’ as if promising fun and a worry-free and happy time if they go with them. Promises of circus shows, cotton candy, popcorn, etc. In the end, corpses of killed children literally float in the air in the sewers. The Coachman offers a life free from labor, rules, and school, giving them all the fun they want if they come ride with him in his carriage. Using the phrase ‘make Jackasses out of themselves’ when he changed them physically into donkeys and then sold for profit to farms and salt mines to live a tortured labored life. The type of life most of these kids were afraid of at the time. When they took notice of the changed, their fear put him at ease while making money to keep the Park he created paid for. IT personally chooses to devour children. IT doesn’t survive on eating them, but IT loves fear because it salts the meat as IT puts it. This entity doesn’t survive on fear and only chooses to kill because of the thrill of it. IT is immortal. It doesn’t need any kind of nourishment. It is only the fear of its victims is what IT really enjoys and IT’s addicted to it. A similar thing seems to go on with Coachman who promises his victims to avoid what they fear only to have to come true in the end, thus feeding his lust for fear while making a profit off them. Unlike Pennywise, the Coachman doesn’t feed on flesh, only fear itself. If Pennywise and this estranged Coachman were the same entity (by chance, I mean, I’m sure you have your own opinion and interpretation as well), it would make sense that he changed his ways to get his fix of delicious fear when his secret got out at one time and was pursued by the families he hurt and the authorities, thanks to a certain Puppet Maker perhaps? Later on, he may have come back to earth with a new method, choosing to kill and devour his victims instead of changing them into other things to get rid of them. This planet would be the only place to feed this entity’s addiction, since he was butting heads with another entity in the Multiverse, the Turtle, who was an all wise and all loving being, a polar opposite of what he was. This time, instead of a safe looking human to lure the youth, he took the form of a clown and kept a much lower profile in this one city in Maine. A lonely town of Derry with a small community with good, easy access to human families more likely to raise children. Indeed, he was right… Many children lived in Derry for many generations and he was able to hunt for a time, in private.

Just think of it. Could these two come from the same Multiverse, or could they be the same being?