The Shreksorcist is a story told by Shrek in the Halloween special, Scared Shrekless.
It is a parody of the 1973 film The Exorcist.
Plot[]
Shrek tells the final scary story about his experience babysitting Pinocchio, who appeared crazed and possessed. He payed a visit to Geppetto's house, having been told to arrive. Shrek soon takes a look at Pinocchio, and attempts to settle him down, and is unsuccessful. After repeatedly beating up Shrek, Pinocchio leapt from the window, despite Shrek's attempts to catch him. When Pinocchio lands on the streets, Jiminy Cricket pops out of Pinocchio's head, claiming to be his conscience and the voice in his head that made him go crazy. Pinocchio squashes the cricket under his foot for death.
Pinocchio denies that the story is true, but when Shrek shows him a normal cricket as his "conscience" to ask him, he screams and runs out.
Trivia[]
- The short contains various references to the Disney version of Pinocchio:
- Geppetto's cat from the film, Figaro, makes a cameo eating the fish from its bowl.
- The wall of clocks surrounding the living room is a nod to the ones found in the Disney film.
- One of Pinocchio's random utterances is "When you wish upon a star, you get lots of stuff!", a subversive parody of the popular Disney song "When You Wish Upon a Star".
- Jiminy Cricket is based on his Disney counterpart and has a similar voice and top hat, as well as a role as Pinocchio's conscience. However, unlike Disney's Jiminy, he is designed as a realistic insect similar to the talking cricket from the original story.
- If this story is to be believed, Geppetto takes parenting advice for raising Pinocchio from a parental self-help guide called "Once Upon A Time-Out by Dr. Goose", which is not only a pun on the phrases "once upon a time" and "time out", but is also a child-care spin-off of Mother Goose poetry. Shrek, being a more experienced parent (despite being a father for less time then Geppetto) thinks that the guide book is nonsense, though he follows through with it's advice anyway when Geppetto pointed out it's suggestion that singing songs calm children down.
- Geppetto's songbook is opened up to a song titled "Mary Had a Little Lambchop", a morbid parody of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Its lyrics read: "Mary had a little lamb who followed her around. She chopped (it) into little bits and swallowed it all down."
- All of the sequences with Pinocchio floating in the air, vomiting, and crawling up the walls are obvious callbacks to Regan MacNeil's actions from The Exorcist.