40 Facts About Pixar (11-20)

See Part 1 here.

Welcome to the second week of "Facts About Pixar"! As we draw closer to Pixar's anniversary day, let's cover ten more facts about the studio and its movies...

11: Peter Sohn's work at Pixar

This is a name I'm sure many Pixar fans will be familiar with, especially the really die-hard ones.

Peter Sohn has worked at Pixar since 2003, his first job being working in the art and story department of Finding Nemo. Talk about humble beginnings, eh? But that's just to start. What else has he done at Pixar? Quite a few voice roles actually. He's voiced a few minor characters here and there such as Forrest Woodbush in The Good Dinosaur, but his most notable voice roles include Remy's brother Emile in Ratatouille, Squishy in Monster's University and Sox in Lightyear. His first job as a director was when he directed the 2009 Pixar short Partly Cloudy and he went on to take over from Bob Peterson to direct The Good Dinosaur.

But by far his most notorious work for Pixar was when he directed the 2023 film Elemental. It was his first time directing a feature length Pixar movie by himself and the movie was inspired by his own life experiences growing up as an immigrant in New York City. And he's far from done at Pixar. He was chosen to direct the upcoming Incredibles 3 since Brad Bird is currently too busy working on Skydance Animation's Ray Gunn.

And if that wasn't enough, he's done a lot of work outside of Pixar too. He worked as an animator on films such as The Iron Giant and Osmosis Jones and he co-directed the English dub of Studio Ghibli's 2008 movie Ponyo alongside John Lasseter and Brad Lewis. So yeah, the guy's had quite the career, hasn't he?

Oh and fun fact, the character of Russell from Up was actually modelled after him. It's SO easy to see too, I mean look at that striking resemblance! Needless to say, Peter Sohn's a man who has left his mark on Pixar and who knows what else he'll do at the studio in the future...

12: Totoro appears as a toy in Toy Story 3

Yes people, this is a real thing that happened in a Pixar movie. Totoro, the mascot of Studio Ghibli and the star of My Neighbour Totoro actually made an appearance in Toy Story 3, albeit as a toy. He doesn't say or do anything, he's just a glorified cameo at best, but it's still worth bringing up. Now I'm beginning to wonder if Bonnie's a big Studio Ghibli fan. XD

Now this cameo may be a surprise to you and you may be wondering why Pixar did it. Well, John Lasseter and Hayao Miyazaki are good friends with one another, so I imagine that played a big part in Totoro's cameo in the film. John was also an executive producer on the English dubs for some of Studio Ghibli's films such as Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and Tales From The Earthsea, so maybe Totoro's cameo was put there because of Pixar's connection with Studio Ghibli and how the two studios have worked together. In any case, it's such a lovely Easter Egg and a nice symbol of the bond between Pixar and Studio Ghibli. It's also funny when you consider how many animation fans love to compare the two studios and argue over which one makes the better movies. XD

13: Brad Bird was the first "outsider" to direct a Pixar movie

This one might seem strange to list as a fact since Brad Bird is so heavily associated with Pixar nowadays thanks to directing The Incredibles, Incredibles 2 and Ratatouille and while he won't be directing, he is still writing and producing the upcoming Incredibles 3. But keep in mind, Brad Bird was already a filmmaker and director in his own right. He didn't originally work for Pixar. Back in the day, the only people directing Pixar movies were ones actually working at the studio such as John Lasseter (Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2), Pete Docter (Monsters Inc.) and Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo). Brad Bird's turn in the director's chair for The Incredibles was the first time in the studio's history that Pixar had hired anyone outside of the studio to direct a movie for them. And needless to say with the glowing reception The Incredibles received, the large amount of money they made at the box office and the fact The Incredibles is largely considered to be among Pixar's best movies of all time, it really paid off! It just proved how you didn't have to be a staff member at Pixar in order to make a great Pixar movie. Even those outside the studio can make something amazing...

14: Brad Bird's children have voiced characters for Pixar

Since I brought up Brad Bird, I thought now would be a good time to bring up this fact. Two of Brad's children have voiced characters in a Pixar movie. The one pictured above is Michael Bird, who is the voice of Tony Rydinger in both Incredibles movies. I wonder if that felt a little awkward for Brad with his eldest son voice a character that another character has a crush on in a movie he wrote and directed? His younger son, Nicholas Bird, voiced Squirt in Finding Nemo and Rusty the bike boy in The Incredibles. The only child of his, Jack Bird, hasn't done any voices for Pixar as far as I know. As is, it's still always interesting when filmmakers bring their children in to play a role in films, especially ones they're making, isn't it? ^^

15: Turning Red was the first Pixar movie to be solo-directed by a woman

Pixar is rather infamous for being too much of a "boy's club" back in the day, so very few of their films have been directed by women. We were SO close to having our first ever female directed Pixar movie with Brave in 2012 when Brenda Chapman was originally hired to direct that feature. But during production, the executives kept wanting changes to be made that Brenda didn't want and so they kicked her out of the director's chair and replaced her with Mark Andrews. However, Brenda IS still credited as a director, first technically meaning that if we go by Pixar films directed by women in general, Brave was the first.

But if you want the first Pixar movie directed ONLY by a woman, then that honour goes to the 2022 film Turning Red in where newcomer Domee Shi took the helm for that film. Domee had originally directed the short film Bao in 2018, thus she'd already proven she had the skills to direct at Pixar, which was probably why she was hired in the first place. Still, it's frankly rather sad that it took us until 2022 to have a Pixar movie directed solely by a woman. It shouldn't have taken that long if you ask me. Still, with any luck we can have more Pixar movies directed by women in the future and let the studio grow out of its "boy's club" mentality it once had...

16: Jack Black turned down the role of Syndrome

This fact was only revealed VERY recently, so some of you may have already heard about it.

So yeah, how about that readers? Jack Black, THE Jack Black, was offered the role of Syndrome in The Incredibles! Now I kinda want to hear what his version of the character would've sounded like. But as we know, the role ultimately went to Jason Lee. So why did Jack Black turn the role down? He revealed the reason in an interview on the radio station Capital FM. He stated:

“I was offered, and I do regret it, saying no… I was offered Syndrome in that fantastic movie ‘The Incredibles’ — one of my favorites of all time, by the way, And I said no because I was like, ‘Uhhh, Brad Bird? Never heard of him!’ I said to him, ‘This character that you’re offering me is like a villain, but he’s kinda one-dimensional. I’m interested but I’d like to see a rewrite. Will you add some dimensions to this character?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, you’re done.'

I learned a valuable lesson because when that movie came out, it was one of the best movies ever made. I was like "Why was I being so difficult?"”

That's life for you Jack. You don't know how these movies will turn out unless you have hindsight or something. In any case, Jack got to immortalize himself in the animation industry for his role as Po in the Kung Fu Panda series, so don't feel too bad for him missing out on The Incredibles. Still, maybe Jack Black could do a voice for Pixar in the future...

17: Billy Crystal turned down the role of Buzz Lightyear...his regret over that got him the role of Mike Wazowski

Similar to Jack Black above, Billy Crystal was another actor who turned down a Pixar role and came to regret doing so. In this case, it was Billy Crystal turning down the role of Buzz Lightyear. Like Jack Black, he came to regret this decision when Toy Story became a huge hit. Unlike Jack Black however, Billy Crystal DID get to be in a Pixar movie in the end, this being when he was cast as Mike Wazowski in Monsters Inc. I believe his regret over turning down the role of Buzz was what led to him accepting the role of Mike, a decision he most certainly did NOT regret in this case! He's even gone on to say Mike Wazowski is his favourite character he's ever played. That's so nice to hear, isn't it? ^^

18: Ben Burtt, the sound designer for Star Wars, did the sounds and robot voices for WALL.E

Movie fans should at least be familiar with the name "Ben Burtt" at this point. He's a well-known sound designer, film director, film editor, screenwriter and voice actor who's most well-known works include creating the sound effects for the Star Wars franchise, Indiana Jones, E.T. and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's also because of him that we pretty much have the infamous "Wilhelm scream" sound effect being used in movies as he popularized that sound effect due to using it in Star Wars: A New Hope. Just to clarify, he didn't record or create the Wilhelm scream, he only made it popular.

But one of Ben Burtt's most notable works is of course the subject of this entry. He also did the sound effects and many of the robot voices for Pixar's WALL.E. Ironically, he once said he would "Never work on a movie with robots again" after he completed Revenge of the Sith. But Andrew Stanton wanted him to work on this movie and so he ended up working on a movie with robots again. Haven't you heard the phrase "never say never" Ben? XD But he did have a good reason for changing his mind. He thought Pixar's ideas for the film sounded fresh an exciting, so he took the job. He would go on to record over 2500 different sounds for the movie, which is twice the average amount of sounds he did for a Star Wars movie and it's also the most amount of sounds he's EVER recorded for a single feature length film. That's pretty crazy, yet awesome wouldn't you agree? Oh and this bit amuses me: apparently, when Andrew Stanton pitched the idea of Ben working on the movie, he said "I want you to be 80% of my cast!" If someone pitched the movie to me like that, I'd have been amused and also flattered to be given such a task.

Needless to say, Ben's work on WALL.E paid off for he gave us some really iconic voices and sounds in this film, especially when WALL.E says his name to EVE for the first time.

19: The origin of Pixar's A113 in-joke

Only the really die-hard fans of Pixar may be aware of this little in-joke in many of Pixar's movies. In just about every movie Pixar has made, the code A113 is inserted in some way or another with the most notable examples being the number on the licence plate of Andy's mum's car in Toy Story, being where Mr. Incredible is imprisoned in The Incredibles (he's on Level A1 in Cell 13), being the number on Mater's license plate in Cars and most notable of all, it's the code number of AUTO's directive that he follows in WALL.E.

So where did it come from? Where did this seemingly random letter and three numbers originate? Well, here's your answer. It's a number on this door in a classroom used by graphic design and character animation students at the California Institute of the Arts, or CalArts for short. Seems fitting don't you think that a number on a classroom door at an art school should appear in a lot of animated films by people who were educated there? I wonder if the school gets a lot of Pixar fans wanting to visit Room A113 because of its Pixar appearances...

20: Win or Lose is the first time Pixar has created a TV series

Pixar has made numerous upon numerous of films, both feature length and shorts. But have they ever made anything else in the field of animation, like their own TV series for example? For a very long time, they didn't. They stuck only to movies and shorts. But that all changed in 2025 when on the Disney+ streaming service, they released Win or Lose, an animated series about the lives of the people in a school softball team called "The Pickles". This is a noteworthy milestone in Pixar's history for it's the first time they've EVER created their own TV series. It took them a long time, but they finally did it. Now I wonder if they'll ever do any more or if Win or Lose will be just a one-trick pony for Pixar in terms of animated TV shows...

And that's it for this week. Come back again for the third week as I have ten more Pixar facts to share for the penultimate week before Pixar's 40th Anniversary. See you then media fans!

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