40 Facts About Pixar (21-30)

See Parts 1 and 2 here.

And here we are, Week 3 of Facts About Pixar. Next week is the actual anniversary, but for this week I still have some interesting facts to share. Do enjoy!

21: A Bug's Life was Hayden Panettiere's first major acting role

This one's short, sweet and simple, not much else to say here.

If you're familiar with actress Hayden Panettiere, then you may recognize her from some of the recent Scream movies, some of her television roles and for games especially, you may recognize her as Samantha "Sam" Giddings in Until Dawn. But chances are you most likely know that name because of her role as Dot in A Bug's Life. And that wasn't all she did for Pixar for she also narrated, while in-character as Dot, this Read Along audio cassette you could get back in the day. While this wasn't her fast acting role in general, this was her first MAJOR acting role. Her acting career first began in 1994 when she played Sarah Roberts in the sitcom show One Life to Live, but A Bug's Life was when her acting career really took off. She was only nine years old at the time when she voiced Dot too, and like how she's grown since then. Quite a beautiful young lady I must say, and talented too. ^^

I wonder if she looks back on her time in A Bug's Life fondly. I know I'd love to ask her about that. :)

22: Boo from Monsters Inc. was voiced by an actual toddler

Probably not that surprising a fact to share, but here we go anyway.

In Monsters Inc., they got an actual toddler named Mary Gibbs to voice Boo. She was only three years old by the time the movie released and she's the daughter of one of Pixar's directors and story artists, Rob Gibbs. That's probably why they picked her in particular since getting a child of one of Pixar's staff members meant they had someone closer to home to work with, so to speak. Mary was even one of the production babies born during the production of Toy Story 2. Sadly, Rob passed away in 2020. Mary herself hasn't had much more acting credits to her name, the only thing she's done since being to voice the character of Charlotte in the English dub of The Last Guest and also voicing a character for the audio drama series Heroes of Extinction. Archive recordings of her as Boo have been used in other Monsters Inc. media and even as Baby Riley in Inside Out.

So what does Mary do nowadays then? Interestingly, she actually has her own YouTube channel called "Boo Grown Up" which you can see here. Some of her videos do talk about her time on the movie, so I recommend checking it out. It's always interesting to hear from the people who worked on the movie. She hasn't updated in quite some time, but still give it a look at. Due to being a toddler at the time, naturally they couldn't get her to just sit still and voice act, so the crew would follow her around with a microphone as she played and they or her mother would use other tactics to prompt the right responses from her like offering candy and such.

It's so admirable when movies like this go the extra mile for that added authenticity to their movies, don't you think?

23: Finding Nemo was the first Pixar movie NOT scored by Randy Newman

You ever noticed that? Randy Newman did the music for every Pixar movie at the beginning of the studio's history. Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc.? All scored by him. But the trend was broken when we got Finding Nemo, the first Pixar movie that Randy Newman did NOT score. But a member of Randy's family, that being his cousin Thomas Newman, did the music for the film so the Newman family was still involved in some way. As is, Thomas Newman was the first composer outside of Randy Newman to score a Pixar movie. Did Thomas do any other Pixar movies? Yes. He also did the music for WALL.E and he reprised his role as composer for the Nemo sequel Finding Dory. He's also had quite the career outside of Pixar with many big name movies under his belt such as The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, American Beauty, Erin Brockovich and Skyfall.

As is, us Pixar fans will forever remember him for his score for Finding Nemo. His work on that movie was simply beautiful. ^^ I wonder if Pixar will hire him again for another movie. You never know...

24: Up was the second animated film in history to receive a Best Picture nomination, and Toy Story 3 was the third, making Pixar the only animation studio in history to have more than one Best Picture nomination

Beauty and the Beast is well-remembered for making animation history for being the first EVER animated film to get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. But not a lot of people bring up the fact that there have been other times an animated movie has received a Best Picture nomination. Up in particular was the second time in cinema history an animated movie has received such a nomination. It lost out to The Hurt Locker, but the fact an animated movie other than Beauty and the Beast got a Best Picture nomination is still something worth mentioning. And let's face it, Up is one of Pixar's all time greatest movies ever, so it deserved that nomination. Oh and this wouldn't be the last time a Pixar movie got a Best Picture nomination for Toy Story 3 also got a nomination the next year, but lost to The King's Speech. Still, Pixar got a Best Picture nomination TWO YEARS IN A ROW?! That's insane! And not a feat that'll ever be repeated sadly since no animated film has ever received a Best Picture nomination since Toy Story 3, Pixar have long gone past their glory days and the Academy Awards still overlook animation to a disgusting degree.

Still, it is nice to acknowledge Beauty and the Beast isn't the only animated film to ever receive such a nomination and that two of Pixar's best movies have gotten it too. Now here's a good question...which Pixar movie would YOU say deserves a Best Picture win the most? I'd say either Inside Out or WALL.E.

25: Soul is the first Pixar movie without a John Ratzenberger voice cameo, but he does make a physical cameo

Starting from Toy Story, every Pixar film that was made at the studio had at least one character played by John Ratzenberger. The man was even viewed as their "good luck charm" and there's a mid-credits scene in Cars where they poke fun at themselves for reusing him. That trend was finally broken when Soul was released back in 2020. Yep, for the first time ever, a Pixar movie did NOT have a character voiced by John Ratzenberger. But he still made a cameo of some kind. In the picture above, you can see this random background character who is modelled after him.

But after Soul, we had Luca, Turning Red, Lightyear, Elemental and Elio, all of which did not have a Ratzenberger cameo. Not even a physical one. The most recent time he's done a role for Pixar was Inside Out 2 and I imagine he'll be back as Hamm in Toy Story 5. He has also reprised his role as the Yeti in Monsters At Work, a spin-off series from Monsters Inc., so he hasn't stopped doing roles for Pixar completely. It's just the films no longer always have a character he does a voice in. Apparently, he did explain why this is the case in this interview I found here. Not sure why John has a problem with "all the political messaging" being put into the films. Like John, you do know all art is political, right? Even the Pixar movies you've been in have some kind of political message in them, intentional or not, so why this is suddenly an issue now is a mystery to me. God, he sounds like one of those anti-woke grifters on YouTube speaking like that...

26: Brave is Pixar's first movie with a female lead, AND also their first movie not to be set in the present day

Yeah, not much else to say about this fact.

Up until 2012, every Pixar movie that came out had male leads with female characters mostly being in supporting roles. As I've said before, Pixar had this unfortunate reputation of being too much of a boy's club back then, so the fact it took us this long to finally get a Pixar movie with a female lead is hardly a surprise. Pity it had to be Brave of all movies to be the first female-led Pixar movie because Brave is one of Pixar's weakest movies out there. But that's a discussion for a review of the movie. Facts are facts and that's what I'm here to talk about.

You may have also noticed that up until Brave, we never had a Pixar movie set in ye olden days. It was always either the modern day or a completely fictional world. With Brave we had a medieval Scotland setting, which I believe also makes Brave the first Pixar movie not to be set in America, or at least be in an American inspired setting. This movie sure had a lot of firsts, didn't it?

27: Charles Muntz, the villain from Up, is named after the guy who stole Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

You all remember Charles Muntz, right? The main antagonist of Up and voiced by the late Christopher Plummer? The character has an interesting origin behind his name.

You see, the character was named after this guy here, Charles Mintz. I suspect they had to edit his last name a little so Charles Mintz's family wouldn't be able to sue for defamation. Anyway, Charles Mintz is an...infamous figure amongst Disney fans and historians. You see, this man is the reason why Oswald the Lucky Rabbit became an obscure figure for so much of Disney's history. Charles claimed Oswald was the property of Universal Studios and hired away all of Disney's animators, except for Ub Iwerks as he refused to leave. As such, Oswald was stolen away and Walt needed a new cartoon star, which of course was Mickey Mouse, and Mickey became a cartoon legend while Oswald faded into obscurity. So yeah, not much of a win for Charles Mintz in the end. Serves him right I say. =P

In 2006, Al Michaels' contract ran up with ABC, which Disney owns and Michaels wanted to return to NBC, which Universal owns. This gave Bob Iger the opening the company long sought and Iger basically made an offer with Michaels, he could return to NBC in exchange for the rights of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Michaels excepted and thus Oswald is back in Disney's possession after all these years. Iger has done some dumb things for Disney, but we can at least thank him for getting Oswald back and thus allowing him to be used in the Epic Mickey games.

Back on topic though, now you know where Charles Muntz's name came from. Fitting isn't it to name a Disney villain after a real life Disney villain? Now when are we getting a Disney villain named after Bob Chapek? XD

28: Woody's love interest was originally a Barbie doll

Yeah, let that sink in Toy Story fans. We all know that Woody's love interest is a porcelain Bo Peep lamp decoration. But originally, his love interest was going to be a Barbie doll. So yeah, all those scenes of him smooching with Bo Peep could've been done with a Barbie doll instead. So why didn't they go with that? Simple: Mattel didn't let them have the rights to use Barbie because they didn't think Toy Story would be successful. Boy did they get egg on their faces for that blunder! XD When Toy Story did actually become a hit, Mattel were all too happy to grab themselves a piece of the pie and since the second movie, they've allowed Barbie to be a character in the franchise. We see an entire aisle of Barbie dolls in Toy Story 2 and this Barbie doll in the pic above became part of the gang in Toy Story 3, and that movie also featured a Ken doll too. Yeah, Mattel clearly want to make up for missing out on the first Toy Story, don't they? XD

It does make for an interesting alternate history though. How would things have been if Barbie had been Woody's love interest instead of Bo Peep? Would Toy Story 4 have even happened in that regard? You have to wonder. And speaking of alternate history...

29: The original idea for Toy Story 3

This came about when Disney was developing a new studio called "Circle Seven Animation" and would've been a means to produce a lot of Pixar sequels, like how Disney Toon Studios made all those direct-to-video Disney sequels.

So how did THIS version of Toy Story 3 play out? From what we know, the plot would've been about Buzz malfunctioning and Andy's toys have to ship him off to Taiwan (where he was created) in the hopes of getting him repaired. However, when Woody realizes Buzz Lightyear units all around the world are being recalled, he and his rescue team (consisting of Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Slinky, Rex, Jessie, and Bullseye) set off on a journey to the factory to save their Buzz before he's replaced. Yeah, sounds a bit same-y as previous Toy Story movies, doesn't it?

What's really interesting about all this is that we can actually read the script for the cancelled movie! No really, you can! Here it is! I haven't read it myself yet, but I've seen comments from people who have and they seem to describe the movie as "Toy Story 2 with Woody and Buzz's roles switched". Good thing we didn't get that as the real Toy Story 3 then. When Circle 7 was shut down as quickly as it opened up, Pixar made their own Toy Story 3 as we know it, and I think it worked out for the best in the end. Still a shame for the writer of this script in how all his hard work was for nothing in the end. Such is the sad case when working in the entertainment industry, hard work for no reward...

30: The plot of Finding Dory is based on an earlier draft of Finding Nemo

Those who know their Pixar history are well aware that Pixar have a habit of using old concepts from old drafts for their sequels. Toy Story 2, 3 and 4 all feature concepts that were considered for the first movie in its original drafts for example. Finding Dory I find is the most notable example of that since this movie's entire plot is based on an unused concept from the original movie.

You see, Finding Nemo's original draft had Marlin's backstory told through flashbacks and we would slowly but surely piece everything together as the movie went on. This was changed since Marlin seemed unlikeable for most of the movie and that the audience might've taken a while to warm up to him, so his backstory was told in the movie's opening prologue instead and the flashbacks idea was dropped. Come Finding Dory, the idea was picked up again and thus an old idea from Finding Nemo got its use after all. Let's be real here, the flashbacks idea just worked so much better for a Dory focused movie given her forgetful nature and all, so good thing it was saved for this one instead of the original movie I say.

And that's it for this batch of facts. Hope you found them interesting and I invite you all to come back for the finale next week as I cover facts 31-40. See you then media fans!

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