From:
        ALLISON A WHITE <[log in to unmask]>

Sat 5:56 PM

Even though I insist that the reaction to the circus
performers as reported in the initial query, and
the discussion of response to objects need to be kept
separate, I am interested in this fork of the topic too.
    I did not see the movie of Pinocchio until I was an
adult, but the original children's tale terrified me.
That little moving puppet gave me nightmares, and
the adults around me thought it was funny.
I used to lie in bed, listening to the dark, and  I could
hear his little wooden feet, tapping across
the floor to my room.  The only way to be safe was to not
look, and I screwed my eyes shut  tight, so I only
felt him standing next to my bed.
    When I got older, I realized that the sound was the expan-
sion of the floor register when the heat came on.  I suppose
that someone could have told me what it was, and eased
my fears, but by then, I knew better than to tell adults, who
would humiliate me, that I was afraid.
                        Allison White Ohlinger

On Thu, 21 Oct 1999,
 Kathy Agar wrote:
My own daughter was obsessed with Pinocchio after
>seeing the
>Disney movie at age three.  She acted out episodes from the film and
>coerced her
>dad into playing Pinocchio with her every day.  This lasted for a
>long
>time
>until suddenly, she wanted nothing whatever to do with the critter.
>Just
>recently, she confided to me that at the time, she had habitually
>beaten
>the
>crap out of her stuffed Pinocchio doll. Imagine my surprise at seeing
>Dan Ross's
>Pinocchio reference!
>