Toy Story blew me away as a kid and cemented my fandom with Pixar ever since. Sure they’ve stumbled here and there, but who hasn’t? Their parent company, Disney, sure as heck has. They’ve also existed longer and in doing so cannot create gold. In fact that’s part of the reason why Disney acquired Pixar. They saw their animated movies were outranking their own so they needed some of that magic. Is that why Pixar’s output has fallen, or why they’ve so sequel crazy now? Perhaps. It’s hard to say and I’m not really a business broker, or whatever. You can tell I have no idea what I’m talking about when I didn’t even know what to call the money people. There’s an offensive joke somewhere in there, but I’m not Mel Gibson.
The point is for all of their flops, Pixar will remain special to me and I will continue seeing their movies until I leave this mortal coil. Eh, well maybe not. If there is some weird scandal, or they go like a decade of producing garbage, well, there’s only so much I can take. Hopefully that won’t be the case. Regardless of which it’s time to air out some dirty laundry. These twenty-five memes will help you cope with some of their more ridiculous decisions. They’re not all targeted at harming Pixar though. There’s a lot in here that is just plain funny and make fun of other movies too. Get ready for a thrill ride of laughs.
25 A Big Dynamo
Remember when we thought it was funny when the remnants of humanity lived in space and were also fat? Now it seems like we’re closer to that future than ever before. Wait. Living life out on a giant spaceship without the ability to walk, with a screen practically glued to you might be a better a solution than our current trajectory. The Earth is going to get messed up. There’s going to be an apocalypse of some magnitude and all life on this planet is going to become desolate. The sad thing is we’re going to be right here living through it. Living fat lives in space is a pipe dream. If I have to choose living in a Fallout wasteland being rail thin, or being a fat blob, well I choose a fat blob.
24 Bravely Defying Popularity
I, alongside Pixar, was pretty blown away that Disney green lit them to create a movie about a future Disney princess. That’s the biggest welcome a company like that could ever reward. Unfortunately they botched it. Brave is illogical beyond belief. It’s not that the movie doesn’t make sense it’s just, hmm; I honestly am still trying to cope with my feelings toward it. For one it was the first time I was shocked that Pixar copied DreamWorks and not the other way around. Pixar just so happened to be eager to make a Viking movie after How To Train Your Dragon? Please. Now I know both movies are vastly different. It’s only the setting they took, but still it feels wrong to me somehow. Even without the mimicry, it’s just another boring movie.
23 A Family Affair
Did you know that the Fantastic Four was Marvel’s answer to DC’s Justice League? They were Marvel’s first team up comic way before the Avengers and they were a family. Unfortunately they haven’t been well represented in Hollywood especially when compared to the Avengers.
Please don’t make the baby an important character in The Incredible 2.
The first movie, don’t ask me how, I saw three times in the theater. It’s not terrible, but it came out during a time when I ate up any super hero thing that came out. In my opinion this meme is right though. The Incredibles, for a long time, was not only the best representation of what the Fantastic Four stood for, but also one of the best super hero films at the time. I hope the sequel is just as good if not better.
22 Day Of The Plagiarism?
Pixar isn’t done copying other bodies of work. Oh no. It’s hard to say who mimics whom though since scripts get leaked everyday and sometimes the copier can rush their work out the door just to say they were first. Is that what happened between The Book of Life and Coco? Can’t say. What I will comment on is that unlike my earlier example of How to Train Your Dragon and Brave, Pixar’s film is the better of the two. Both plots revolve around the same topic of the Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead, but with altered subject matters. They’re both topics I have no history with except when I took Spanish class in high school. Even without that connection I found Coco better even if it seems like they plagiarized Fox.
21 Up Up Down Down
Despite some hiccups in their record, no matter what, I always look forward to Pixar’s new movie. Even if I didn’t get to theater I know I’m going to see it eventually just like I’m going to see every Disney film from here until eternity. What I’m getting it was Up looked fun. What doesn’t seem awesome about an old man taking a boy scout and a dog on a wild adventure aboard his floating house?
It was a magical time amidst a tragic introduction.
Pixar is always great at tugging at your heartstrings throughout their movies, but this was the most unsettling opening I had ever seen. It’s beautiful, but darkly depressing right off the bat. It kind of made my date super awkward though.
20 My Chemical Nemo
This joke works on so many levels. First of all it’s funny because emo is just one letter short of Nemo’s name. It’s like he’s destined to be some brooding teen in his later years. Finding Emo could be like the third movie wherein Nemo changes his name in an attempt truly find himself.
I hope it’s not one of those Tim Burton emo phases.
If that plot sounds like some high dude’s dream, well get ready for this. He’s going to be accompanied by those turtles. You know the ones that always sound baked. What other fish look depressed? Oh, I know that one that looks like a blob, which is aptly named the Blobfish. Blowfish also kind of look punk rock. Not my worst idea.
19 Honk If You’re Illogical
Cars is good, I admitted it already. That still doesn’t mean I don’t have a laundry list of complaints. Part of the reason why I never wanted to watch it was because it looked too illogical. I can swallow the idea of toys coming to life and monsters existing. I can even buy talking cars. That is if there are humans around too. Who makes cars in Cars? Do cars make cars in Cars? For that matter why do buildings exist with doors they can’t get through? Is Cars a prequel to WALL -E right before the big apocalypse wherein humans build not robots that wipe them out, but cars? There’s actually a pretty good theory on that possibility, which alleviates all my questions. It is just a theory though and not canon.
18 Exterminate!
Speaking of WALL-E it’s high time we talk about this lovable robot. Now as I mentioned in my Star Wars meme article, animation can be just as good without words. One of the best storytellers of this style is Genndy Tartakovsky. Yes there are speaking parts in the film, but it’s mostly told through cute mimicry between WALL-E and EVE.
Never mess with an armed lady.
On the subject of EVE just what the heck were those scientists thinking giving her a gun? She’s supposed to be looking for organic life on Earth so that she can report back to humankind to let them know if it’s safe to come home. You could say it’s there to take care of mutants, or in case she gets trapped behind rubble, but it seems unnecessary to me.
17 Banana?
It’s time for a controversial statement. I like the minions, or that is to say I don’t mind them. Are they overhyped and broadcast way too much in advertising? Absolutely one thousand percent yes. Bad marketing shouldn’t be held accountable for a movie though and the other way around. I can’t think of too many examples of an advertising campaign I liked more than a movie though.
Goombas are basically minions already.
The studio behind Despicable Me, Illumination, at the very least has stellar animation akin to Pixar. That said if I had to choose between Illumination and Pixar I’d pick Pixar even with their faulty record. It’s not that I think the move would be better. It’s because I’m terrified of the ad campaign. Is that silly?
16 Up Rolled
First of all because this is TheGamer and thus predominantly a website dedicated to video games, I wanted to share this little nugget of information. Robo’s theme from Chrono Trigger is just a rip-off of Rick Astley’s classic, Never Gonna Give You Up. Mind blown? Okay let’s proceed with some more revelations. That song, as meme-tastic as it is, is actually good. The video is the only dumb thing that makes the meme funny. It’s catchy as heck though. Admit it. It also makes for a good pun when concerning this other meme. I’ve seen plenty of examples just like this one, but for my money this is the superior iteration of the joke. I wonder if Rick Astley has even seen Up and if this meme would make him laugh.
15 Pixar’s Deepest Question
For the longest time, Pixar’s production was pretty simple. They took everyday objects, or concepts and asked us all to question what we know about that particular thing. Toy Story, for example, is a question about what if toys came to life and had feelings. A Bug’s Life is about what if bugs had more complex feelings. And so on down the line.
We are the Phantom Thieves of Pixar.
Inside Out I feel is their penultimate movie. What if feelings had feelings? That’s pretty much the idea when you get right down to it. The only way Pixar could go deeper is if they asked what if feelings had feelings had feelings? Better yet ask what if feelings could manifest outside your body Persona style. Hey Pixar, make that movie!
14 Toy Story Go
I gave up on Pokémon Go about a month after it released. It just didn’t feel like a true Pokémon game to me, which I detailed in article about terrible spinoffs. I did have a good time taking pictures of Pokémon during inappropriate moments in my life. Seeing a weird digital critter next to something serious, or mundane is pretty funny. Now combine that with the classic line from Toy Story “there’s a snake in my boot” and you’ve got yourself a meme. In this case I changed snake to Ekans since that’s the name of the Pokémon. Oh and if you didn’t know Ekans is just snake spelled backwards. If you read that whole meme backwards it says “Toob ym ni snake na s’ereht” which makes no sense whatsoever.
13 Trouser Snake
This Toy Story meme involving Woody needs a bit more explaining than the previous. In Japan a toy company by the name of Revoltech makes amazing figures based on games and anime, but every once in awhile they’ll put a toy from a Western property like Toy Story.
Time to reach for the skies and open up for a Woody surprise.
This figure in particular launched in 2010 and since then has become a meme empire. The thing that makes the Revoltech Woody so special is his interchangeable faceplates. That’s why he can look so creepy. Just Google Japanese Woody for a real treat. There were just too many examples to chose from, but I thought this meme was a nice complement to the Ekans one.
12 The Times They Are A Changin'
As I’ve already stated, The Incredibles is an awesome Pixar movie let alone super hero tale. It’s part Fantastic Four, part James Bond. A more obscure inspiration seems to come from the Watchmen. What if the Watchmen were cuter and made by Pixar? That’s what The Incredibles is. For those unaware Watchmen is a comic that takes place in an alternate reality where super heroes emerged around the 1940s. After tension starting rising toward World War III in the 1980s, the world made masked vigilantism a crime. Sound familiar? Now with The Incredibles it was marked as a crime because of people suing Mr. Incredible and other heroes for various scandals. How they got there may be different, but the sentiment is the same.
11 Down Down Up Up
Get it? It’s the opposite title from before. Ah, yes well anyway isn’t this a grave sight? Ha, and the jokes keep on coming. Seriously though how much longer is Mr. Fredricksen going to be around post Up?
Is that the cheat code to avoid the Grim Reaper?
For that matter, the dog, Dug, is probably next. He’s already pretty old in the movie. Now while this meme is poking fun at an old man’s demise, I think there could actually be success in a movie called Down. Imagine it in the future where Russell is now a young adult and trying to go on adventures. Maybe someplace Mr. Fredricksen and him talked about going, but couldn’t like underground. Then he meets his love along the way. Could be cute.
10 Day Of The Toys
Did anyone cobble together toys onto other toys Dr. Frankenstein style? I did not. The closest thing I could think of was using LEGO bricks to make other sets, but that’s hardly a crime against humanity, unlike these creepy figures. While they mean Woody no harm, they always freaked me out as a kid. I’m still unnerved as an adult. The baby is definitely the worst of the bunch though. My God. That thing is an abomination. Quick side story. I had a nightmare, long after I saw this movie, where one of my stuffed animals came to life and started crawling toward me on my bad like a zombie. I’ve never had a toy dream since, or ever before that. Somehow I want to blame Toy Story for that one off nightmare.
9 Call The General And Save Some Time
Pixar was a pioneer of 3D animation. That’s a fact and they’ve only gotten better with time. However, like video games, early 3D animated movies have some glaring holes in terms of quality. In particular, it took Pixar a long time to master human animation that didn’t look creepy. I didn’t think they really nailed it until The Incredibles and even then there’s some weird disconnection like when characters got wet.
Shaq is even in these ads now.
Sid and the rest of the humans in Toy Story just look awful and if you compare that to 3D animated commercials of today, like those terrible insurance commercials, then it’s a bit sad. Now to be fair it took like two decades for The General Insurance to catch up to the first Toy Story so it’s not exactly the deepest burn.
8 Aruh?
Home Improvement may not hold up, but when I was a kid I loved that show. Not sure why though. Without a lot of channels dedicated to cartoons, I had to settle for a lot of sitcoms. Now I don’t know why any kid would settle for a sitcom starring adults when they could watch cartoons on almost any channel and or online. Growing pains aside, let’s get to the meme. One thing I didn’t discover until literally writing this article is the Binford logo on the toolbox inside Sid’s room. For those unaware Binford is the name of the company Tim Allen works for in Home Improvement. It’s probably just a cute Easter egg, but what if Tim The Tool Man Taylor is the voice of Buzz?
7 Retcon Inc.
I didn’t want this piece to focus on the negatives of Pixar, but it’s too hard not to call them out. Monster’s University is also bad in that it’s not inventive plus it messes with the timeline. This is why they shouldn’t make sequels. Their strength lies in original ideas. Well anyway in the original Monsters Inc., it’s revealed that Mike and Sully met in the fourth grade. How could they meet for the first time in the prequel then? Sure you could say they knew each other in elementary school, but never really talked. Of all the retcons out there this one is pretty mild. It was a throwaway line in Monsters Inc. anyway wherein Mike says, “You’ve been jealous of my good looks since the fourth grade pal.” And that is it.
6 Day Of The Toys 2
Despite what I said about sequels, Toy Story seems to defy this Pixar curse. Maybe it’s because the cast and writers are so good, or maybe it’s the fact that this series was their first. No idea, but what I do know is Toy Story 3 is great. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a logical problem with it though.
It’s all fun and games until your toys rebel on you.
In the Sunnyside Daycare, there is an observation room where seemingly a security guard is supposed to be stationed. It’s more of a precaution to make sure the kids are okay so I can buy why a guard wouldn’t be posted at night. However, doesn’t anyone check these cameras? For that matter how have toys not been captured in a world where everything has a camera on it?
