In “Pinocchio,” the bad boys on Pleasure Island are changed into donkeys. The Coachman lures unruly boys to the island by promising unlimited freedom, games, food, alcohol and other forbidden pleasures, but the island hides a terrible curse.
As the boys behave like “jackasses,” they gradually transform into actual donkeys. Pinocchio witnesses his friend Lampwick changing during a pool game, developing donkey ears, a tail and other animal features. Pinocchio escapes before the transformation is complete, although he briefly grows donkey ears and a tail himself.
The episode comes from Carlo Collodi’s 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio and was adapted in Disney’s 1940 animated film. In the story, the transformation is not a scientific process or a punishment explained by ordinary machinery; it is a magical curse connected to Pleasure Island. The Coachman then sells the transformed donkeys for hard labor, giving the episode a darker moral about exploitation and the consequences of reckless behavior.