Disney gives you more – 30 Pixar Facts

1. Pixar’s full name is Pixar Animation Studios, but was originally founded as Graphics Group in 1979.

2. The Pixar moniker was born on February 3rd, 1986 when the company was incorporated by Ed Catmull, Alvy Ray Smith and Steve Jobs (of Apple fame).

3. The Graphics Group was actually started under the umbrella of Lucasfilm, before Steve Jobs bought the company in 1986, which subsequently got taken over by The Walt Disney Company 20 years later for $7.4 billion.

4. Pixar’s 12 feature films and numerous shorts have won the company 26 Oscars, seven Golden Globes and three Grammys!

5. Toy Story, released in 1995 was Pixar’s first feature, and won director John Lasseter a Special Achievement Academy Award. This was not the company’s first Oscar, however, that went to Tin Toy for Best Animated Short in 1989.

6. Since AMPAS started awarding Best Animated Feature in 2001, all eight eligible Pixar films have been nominated, and six have won the Oscar.

7. Only three films have ever been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and Pixar’s Up and Toy Story 3.

8. Andr and Wally B., Lasseter’s first 3-D short, while not under the name ‘Pixar’ is considered the spiritual first step of the now world famous studio.

9. Pixar was set up to develop and market computer hardware for graphics and animation generation. Andr and Wally B. were made by Lasseter to show off their systems’ capabilities, and were welcomed with high acclaim.

10. Steve Jobs considered selling the ailing Pixar to Microsoft in 1994, and only decided to keep it when Disney agreed to distribute Toy Story.

11. Toy Story was the first feature film to have been made using 100% CGI. CGI had only been used before to embellish VFX in live action and some normal animation films.

12. The $361 million+ worldwide that Toy Story took placed it firmly within the top 50 highest grossing animated films of all time. In fact, all of Pixar’s feature productions are on that list, with Up, Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 making it onto the top 50 highest grossing films of all time. The latter in a staggering 7th place!

13. On the technical side, Pixar’s PhotoRealistic RenderMan rendering software is used by all of the major studios to generate digital visual effects. It has been used in films from Titanic to The Lord of The Rings.

14. In 2001 RenderMan became the first software package to earn a technical Oscar for its outstanding contributions to the field of CGI.

15. A relatively mysterious suite of software called Marionette is used exclusively by PIxar, and is said to aid animation by artists with traditional cel experience.

16. Toy Story, although animated by an unproven method for a feature film, attracted a very impressive voice cast. Tom Hanks, Tom Allen, John Ratzenberger and Laurie Metcalf all signed up.

17. A Bug’s Life was released in 1998, and was Pixar’s second feature. The story is based on Akira Kurosawa’s epic Seven Samurai and Aesop’s The Ant and the Grasshopper.

18. Toy Story 2 was initially slated as a straight to home video release by Disney, but upon seeing the quality of the early animation upgraded the film to a theatrical release which subsequently pulled in $485,015,179 worldwide!

19. There are a number of things that appear in all or most of Pixar’s feature films. One is the Pizza Planet delivery truck, in every film except The Incredibles. Another is John Ratzenburger who has leant his voice to every one!

20. Toy Story 2 introduced the female lead character of Jessie, a sprightly cowgirl from Woody’s Roundup, the fictional TV show from which Sheriff Woody also comes.

21. Monstropolis is the name of the city inhabited entirely by monsters, and one cheeky little girl the monster’s christen ‘Boo’, in Pixar’s fourth feature: Monsters, Inc.

22. Laughter really is the best medicine in Monsters, Inc., as Boo’s laughter is found to generate more energy than the screams the monsters had been harvesting.

23. Just Keep Swimming... was the catchphrase on everyone’s lips with the 2003 release of Finding Nemo. But did you know Nemo was the second highest grossing film of that year? Losing out only to The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King?

24. The undersea adventure Finding Nemo uses real marine biology for all of its underwater characters. Nemo and his father are clownfish, Dory is regal tang, and Crush is a sea turtle.

25. The Incredibles was the first Pixar film to feature humans as the primary characters. Up is the only other. In the Incredibles the Parr family are ‘Supers’, humans with special gifts once seen as heroes. In a Watchman style crackdown on heroes, they are forced to hide their powers until needs must.

26. The Incredibles was the last Pixar film to have a VHS release. All subsequent films were only released on DVD and Blu-ray, and to stream online.

27. Pixar’s ninth feature, WALL-E, was released in 2008 with important messages on the environment and consumerism. Did you know that WALL-E himself can actually be seen sitting on a shelf four years earlier in The Incredibles?

28. Up was Pixar’s first film to be released in 3-D, and the first animated and the first 3-D film to open the Cannes Film Festival. All Pixar films following Up have been released in 3-D, including some older films re-released.

29. The most recent Pixar feature, Cars 2, continues the high calibre of animation and voice acting – enlisting Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Jason Isaacs, Emily Mortimer and John Turturro among a host of cameo voices such as Lewis Hamilton and Jeff Gordon!

30. Pixar’s future looks very bright, with upcoming titles including the mysterious Brave, set in the Scottish Highlands, the much anticipated sequel to Monsters, Inc.: Monsters University, and untitled projects; one about dinosaurs, and another that will take you inside the mind! We can’t wait!