Mangiafuoco
Mangiafuoco ( ; , literally "Fire-Eater") is a fictional character who appears in Carlo Collodi's 1883 book "The Adventures of Pinocchio" ("Le avventure di Pinocchio"). He is the theatre director and puppet-master of the Great Marionette Theatre. In the novel. Mangiafuoco is described as...a large man so ugly, he evoked fear by simply being looked at. He had a beard as black as a smudge of ink and so long that it fell from his chin down to the ground: enough so that when he walked, he stepped on it. His mouth was as wide as an oven , his eyes were like two red tinted lanterns with the light turned on at the back, and with his hands, he sported a large whip made of snakes and fox tails knotted together.Though imposing, Mangiafuoco is portrayed as easily moved to compassion, which he expresses by sneezing. He is first encountered in Chapter X, after Pinocchio ruins one of his puppet shows by distracting the other puppets, and demands that Pinocchio be burned as firewood for his roasting mutton. Moved by Pinocchio's lamentations, Mangiafuoco decides to burn one of his own puppets, Harlequin ("Arlecchino"), instead. When Pinocchio begs  for Harlequin's life and offers to sacrifice himself in Harlequin's stead, he is refused by Mangiafuoco, who upon hearing that he is poor, gives Pinocchio five gold coins which are later seized by The Fox and the Cat ("Il Gatto e la Volpe"). In other media. Stromboli (Disney). In the 1940 animated Disney film "Pinocchio", Mangiafuoco is renamed Stromboli (in the Italian dub of the film, "Mangiafuoco" is Stromboli's epithet). The character is voiced by Charles Judels (who also voiced the Coachman in the same film), and animated by Bill Tytla. Unlike Mangiafuoco, who meets Pinocchio by  chance, Stromboli buys Pinocchio from Honest John and Gideon and earns a great deal of money by showing Pinocchio on stage. Stromboli (whom Honest John refers to as an "old Gypsy") is at first portrayed as gruff and rude but kind-hearted, but he angrily locks Pinocchio in a cage, stating that once he is too old to work, he will be used as firewood, revealing his true nature as brutal, cruel, vicious, and arrogant. Pinocchio escapes with the help of the Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket, but is berated for lying to her and ignoring Jiminy's advice. Like  all the villains in the film, the ultimate fate of Stromboli is never stated, revealed or clarified, only implied and left to the viewers to theorize and deduce it, a characteristic typical of other classic and older Disney animated films (like "Bambi", "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad", "Cinderella", and "One Hundred and One Dalmatians"). It's implied that he reacted to Pinocchio's absence in a typical emotional outburst and desperation upon discovering he has lost his "gold mine" too late. He is the first Disney villain whose wickedness is not immediately apparent to the audience, a characteristic  that would become increasingly common in Disney movies of the 21st century (like King Candy/Turbo, Prince Hans, and Dawn Bellwether). Reception and analysis. Despite his limited screen time, Stromboli is one of Disney's most (in)famous and acclaimed villains. The character has been praised by critics for possessing the ability to instill in audiences both laughter and fear. Art critic Pierre Lambert has stated that "Tytla's innate sense of force is revealed in all its magnitude in the creation of the character of Stromboli," and animation historian Charles Solomon refers to the puppet master as "the grandest of  all Disney heavies," while John Canemaker describes Stromboli as "an overweight monster of mercurial moods, capable of wine-soaked, garlic-breathed Old World charm one second, and knife-wielding, chop-you-up-for-firewood threats the next." William Paul drew some parallelism:It is not too difficult to regard Stromboli as burlesque of a Hollywood studio boss, complete with foreign accent. Disney's own relationship to the Hollywood power structure was always a difficult one, and his distrust of the moguls was well justified by his earliest experiences in the industry.During the premiere of "Pinocchio", Frank Thomas sat in  front of W.C. Fields, who, upon Stromboli's entrance, muttered to whoever was with him that the puppet master "moves too much." Michael Barrier agrees with Fields' criticism, considering Stromboli a "poorly conceived character" whose "passion has no roots... there is nothing in Stromboli of what could have made him truly terrifying." Leonard Maltin disagrees, considering Pinocchio's encounter with the showman to be the wooden boy's "first taste of the seamy side of life... (Stromboli) tosses his hatchet into the remnants of another ragged marionette, now a pile of splinters and sawdust, a meekly smiling face the only  reminder of its former 'life'." Though the character is Italian, characteristics such as Stromboli's facial expressions, obsession with wealth, and long black 'goat's beard' (though the latter is present also in several Italian/European versions and transpositions of the original novel and almost all the villains in the film are looking for money or wealth) have led some to make comparisons with Jewish stereotypes (particularly Hollywood moguls). Bibliography. Collodi, "Le Avventure di Pinocchio" 1883, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli