Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
Pixar, John Lasseter, and The Brave Little Toaster?

John Lasseter, recounting in a 2006 interview about his first introduction to Thomas M. Disch’s story of The Brave Little Toaster: A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances:

“A friend of mine had told me about a 40-page novella called The Brave Little Toaster, by Thomas Disch. I’ve always loved animating inanimate objects, and this story had a lot of that. Tom Willhite liked the idea, too, and got us the rights to the story so we could pitch it to the animation studio along with our test clip.”

John Lasseter, as you may know, began his career as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation in the 1980s. The above quote recounts Lasseter’s efforts setting up The Brave Little Toaster as an adaptation at Disney, proposing a 2D/3D hybrid blend of animation for it – a technique which they first decided to try out in 1983 on Where the Wild Things Are (another project Disney was working on).

The “Brave Little Toaster in hybrid 2d/3d” idea was not a hit, and Lasseter got booted from Disney specifically for suggesting it – at which time he headed to a then-fledgling company called Pixar. The Brave Little Toaster was produced – as a traditionally animated film – by Hyperion Pictures and then distributed on home video by Disney in 1987.

Of course the game has changed since then, with Lasseter now effectively in charge (as Chief Creative Officer) of all of Pixar’s as well as Disney’s animated films. And one interesting idea floating around out there – based upon an interview with Pete Docter, the director of Pixar’s “Up”, where he mentions a new Pixar project called “Brave” – is that Lasseter might just be digging “The Brave Little Toaster” back out of the archives for a revamp.

At this point it’s rumor-mongering, put out there for consideration by the folks at the the film blog /Film, but this much I can say: for a rumor, I like it much. It probably will never happen, but if it did I’d be happy.

“The Brave Little Toaster” was a favorite of mine as a kid, and while the original film will always remain a favorite, I’m all for talented companies like Pixar exploring the story in different ways.

May 25, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , , , , , :: #