The sort-of intersection of Bay Area late '80s/early-to-mid '90s weirdness and mainstream animation...
In the world of computer graphics and stop-motion!
I've been on a little TOY STORY kick since the fifth film came out, and I have been enjoying those excerpts of that 35mm film print of the first TOY STORY that are online. I've often written about how TOY STORY 1 & 2, from 1995 and 1999 respectively, differ from their successors in that they feel more in line with this sort-of thing than the more "mature" middle-aged reflective vibe of 3, 4 & 5... Though 5 interestingly does attempt to re-kindle some of the more fun tone and overall vibe of the first two - particularly 2, but without that distinct edge. Helps that the movie's co-director, Kenna Harris, is a millennial who grew up on the first two films. They, in their 30s, bring back some of that energy in a way. At the very least, it balances out the sauteed-in-cry-juice sentimentality that ruled 3 & 4 with a lot of wacky stuff. (Particularly that third act chase.)
But, there's something unique about TOY STORY, and some of the other productions that were happening around this time. Pixar used to be based in Marin County, which is right across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. In 1989, they'd relocate to Point Richmond, which... Take the Richmond Bridge from Marin County, and you're there. Or if you're coming from Frisco, take the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, cross Treasure Island, pass... Funnily enough, Emeryville, and you'll get there.
Skellington Productions' work was done out of a warehouse in San Francisco. So, geographically, there are plenty of connections here, and some shared artistic sensibilities I think.
Pixar had John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, et al., while Skellington's key people were obviously Henry Selick and Tim Burton, but you also had someone like Jorgen Klubien working at both and Disney Feature Animation as well. All Cal-Arts/former Disney animators, people who felt stifled by the Disney management circa 1980, and left to go pursue cool things that spoke to their talents, their hunger to do new things... More so than, say, THE FOX AND THE HOUND and MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL did.
I had written about it before, but there's a certain sort-of artsiness to the early Pixar shorts. Particularly after being spun off as Pixar after Steve Jobs entered the picture, the four shorts they did from 1986-1989: LUXO JR., RED'S DREAM, TIN TOY, and KNICK KNACK. They experimented with what could be done with 3D animation, but they are also some of Pixar's more outre efforts - albeit still working off of familiar themes that someone watching could get: Desk lamps interact like a parent and child, a unicycle dreams to be used, a toy soldier sees a baby as a kaiju, a desk ornament trying to escape his confines. But it's the way these were told, and how the young John Lasseter opted for weirder choices than usual. GERI'S GAME, directed by the Czechoslovakian Jan Pinkava and released in 1997, fits in beautifully with these as well.
LUXO, JR. has this delicious jazz soundtrack, all of which was taken from a Bruton library album called COUNTERPOINT IN RHYTHM, all of its selections composed by Brian Bennett and Carlton Hall. LUXO JR. used 'Chateau Latour', 'Finesse', and 'Quicksilver':
Combine that with the only thing we see being a wooden floor in this black void, there's a particular kind of surrealism there, which matches up with a lot of other early CGI and how downright bizarre a lot of it is. Similarly, KNICK KNACK brought in Bobby McFerrin for its accappella soundtrack... Because why not? Get the singer of 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' for this short that, at the time, will only be shown to people in the field. Namely SIGGRAPH. These shorts saw a commercial release in 1996 on a VHS and LaserDisc called TINY TOY STORIES, which Walt Disney Home Video released after TOY STORY was such a big hit. A fun video volume where the stars of the movie introduce the kids at home to what Pixar was making in the before-times. That's how I myself saw those shorts as a kid.
Pixar, interestingly, would fish some of those old shorts back up afterwards. LUXO, JR. ran before TOY STORY 2 in theaters in 1999, while a slightly revised (heh) KNICK KNACK played before FINDING NEMO in 2003. Their home video releases had them included as well. They're also used in TOY STORY 2 - alongside commercials Pixar made from 1989-93ish, when Hamm is flipping through the channels to find an Al's Toy Barn commercial.
The shorts being silent, very much in old cartoon tradition, also helps... And the commercials? That's a whole other story right there. Animated TV commercials IN GENERAL are high-key some of the most important things to happen in animation history.
TOY STORY having Randy Newman be its musical force was also a very offbeat choice for the time. Disney's then-new animated musicals were all Broadway-style, and if they did incorporate some pop elements, they'd get someone like Elton John. Newman is more in the league of, say, Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks (who did the music for THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER), more eccentric and poetic in both their music and lyrics, plus his vocals aren't for everyone. Newman has written some songs that were hits for other acts, such as Three Dog Night ('Mama Told Me Not to Come'), but rarely did any of his albums or singles do all that well. 'Short People' from 1977 was an exception... So, picture: It's the early 1990s, and this Bay Area studio is making an all-computer animated feature for Disney... Who do you get? Randy Newman, that's who! To this day it's still such an eccentric choice for an animated family movie, even though his work on the film - and his stuff in general - has been kinda mocked to the moon and back. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot-
NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS turned to Oingo Boingo's Danny Elfman for the music and for Jack Skellington's singing voice, very much of the underground weirdo '80s/early '90s pool. A perfect match... However, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, in production alongside TOY STORY, had Newman doing double-duty. Still, having him involved fits the weirdness of the film.
Newman, of course, would go on to score multiple Pixars up to this decade: A BUG'S LIFE, TOY STORY 2, MONSTERS INC., CARS, TOY STORY 3, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, CARS 3, TOY STORY 4, and now TOY STORY 5. In addition to those, he did all the music for Disney Animation's THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG. He's in his 80s now, still doing this kind of great work... But let's rewind, there was a time when Newman was an odd choice for this kind of film, and here we had two films of two unique mediums opening months apart from one another with Newman as composer. TOY STORY opened Thanksgiving 1995, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH was an April 1996 release. They were on video in time for Halloween of 1996. Stop-motion films certainly existed prior to Skellington's efforts, but this was a level unseen and unheard of in mainstream feature animation, ditto what TOY STORY was achieving.
And Disney embraced it, during what would be a heated period, where film chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg clashed with CEO Michael Eisner, which eventually lead to the former's exit in fall 1994. All the while Disney Animation was enjoying a new rebirth, their "Renaissance". These movies were in production while BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ALADDIN were breaking records and delighting critics/audiences alike. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS opened in October 1993, filling in for THE LION KING, which had to miss its planned Thanksgiving 1993 frame due to story problems. Much like 1988's WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, it was like an alternative Disney (literally, both were released as Touchstone films), the sort-of cool edgier brother to your mermaid, beast, and street rat. They all formed up a diverse offering, alongside A GOOFY MOVIE. 1992-1995ish must've been so fun to live through as an animation fan. I was only a baby, lol.
("Not you" to Miramax's animated releases, though. TOM & JERRY: THE MOVIE? The bastardized THIEF AND THE COBBLER edit? Nah.)
TOY STORY would be released under the Walt Disney Pictures name, but it too is a bit on the weirder side, much like NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Again, Newman doing the music, the more buddy movie-informed storyline and tone, some of the humor. The CG of the era gives it a kind of surrealism, which isn't much of a thing as the technology is refined for sequels and Pixar's next features. TOY STORY 2 by contrast is a lot of warm summer hues and clean environments, more outdoor settings (thanks to A BUG'S LIFE!), a little more spacious. In TOY STORY, some of those scenes in, say, the Dinoco gas station, Pizza Planet, and Sid's house especially? They evoke a different, unique feeling that you don't see in many subsequent Pixar films, period. I grew up in the '90s, so in my head, I link that sort-of stuff up with other surrealistic pop culture of the era: Commercials, idents, bumpers, picture books, early 3D video games...
Not to mention, a lot of the concept art...
Like, that's got early '90s scrunkly gnarly kids' book written all over it. That's more Jon Scieszka to me than, say, traditional Disney. And funnily enough, children's book author William Joyce - who was very very active in this era - did some concept art for the film when he was at Pixar for a bit. The studio even considered adapting his book DINOSAUR BOB into a feature, how 'bout that?
Much is written about that "Black Friday" version of the production that nearly derailed everything, and how remnants of it remain in the finished film, but I feel like the edge would've always been there. What tanked "Black Friday TOY STORY" was not so much "make it edgy", which is a brief summation of what happened, a seconds-long passage from a documentary. But if you ask me it's not really the full scope of what Katzenberg asked Pixar's filmmakers to do w/ the movie, it was "make everybody in it UNLIKABLE AF" that was the problem. These were young guys at the top of this film, so there was going to be some kind of edge and bite to it - with or without Katzenberg's influence, I feel. This wasn't being made w/ the same rules as a contemporary Disney Feature Animation endeavor.
The TOY STORY crew that went on to direct movies of their own, like Andrew Stanton, like Pete Docter, show a different side the older they get. I think there's a subtle change after MONSTERS, INC. - in production while Pixar moved from Point Richmond to Emeryville, 2000-01. MONSTERS, INC. still has the Randy Newman soundtrack, it still has some of the eerier parts and early CG funkiness of TOY STORY, the majority of it is set in a factory at that. Metal and clinking-clanking machinery and lots of pipes and such. Sometimes the characters are completely alone, and there's some kind of threat lurking... Some of it in rather, dare I say "liminal" hallways and spaces?
MONSTERS, INC. was followed by FINDING NEMO, a straight-up colorful underwater spectacle populated with extras galore. Very BUG'S LIFE that way, big wide open environments, though you still had some confined spaces here and there. The deep, the trenches, the fact that we barely see anything outside of P. Sherman's office other than the road... THE INCREDIBLES is set in a city and an island jungle. CARS opens and closes with pulse-pounding races in jam-packed stadiums, the rest is in the desert. You get the idea, the tech becomes more advanced, but those directors from "Team TOY STORY" kinda leave the old '80s/'90s Bay Area sensibilities and move onto other things as they age, have families, etc. A sort-of "house style" took hold by the end of the 2000s and into the early 2010s, especially as Lasseter became leader and didn't quite let others outside of his circle direct films as they saw fit. Brenda Chapman and BRAVE, for starters...
Henry Selick and Tim Burton didn't leave the weirdness of their younger days, though. Burton's CORPSE BRIDE and FRANKENWEENIE, Selick's CORALINE and WENDELL & WILD (did anyone besides me actually watch that film?), they still have that distinct weirdo spirit in them, but they never felt like tired retreads of decades long-gone. Those were stories they told, true to themselves.
This is all part of how I view Pixar, and any animation studio really. Not so much as a brand, or even a collective, but as a studio where filmmakers make movies. Looking at a studio as a singular author, a "Mr. Pixar" if you wall, making all the movies, I think contributes to the sort-of genre-ification of animation... And that whatever Pixar morphed into or whatever, is more informed by what's going on more so than "their filmmakers one day decided to stop making PEAK movies".
It's more fun to look at it all this way.
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