Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night is a 1987 American animated fantasy adventure film that was released on December 25, 1987, by New World Pictures. Created by Filmation, the film was conceived as a sequel to the 1883 Italian classic novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, being set a year after Pinocchio became a real boy. It was also described by some as a "thinly-veiled" sequel to Disney's 1940 classic Pinocchio. Disney sued Filmation for copyright infringement, but Filmation won the lawsuit on the grounds that Collodi's work is in the public domain.