Disney and Pixar Animation Studios literally changed my life. Some of the most important films from my youth were made by the marriage of these two companies and for that, I’ll always be grateful .
One of the things I love most is that these movies are positively packed with Easter Eggs. You could spend a lifetime trying to find them all. To aid the cause, I’ve come up with 10+ little details in Pixar movies that fans didn’t notice!
There’s a reason why Manny the Mantis is married to a butterfly in *A Bug’s Life*.
Praying Mantises are an interesting group of insects. When they finish mating , the female will often decapitate the male and devour its body for nourishment.
Which would have totally blown the G-rating.
There’s a *Monsters Inc.* Easter Egg hidden in plain sight in *Monsters University*.
Early on in Monsters Inc. , Randall tells Mike and Sully that he feels the “Winds of change” upon them. A subtle way of threatening that he was going to take the top scaring spot.
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If you look at the poster over Randall’s bed, you’ll see that it’s a Winds of Change poster.
Squares and circles represent Carl and Ellie’s differing personalities.
If you look at Carl’s side of the bed, everything is either square or rectangular; from his bedside table to his glasses. This is meant to represent his rigid style.
Ellie’s, on the other hand, is rounded. Which reflects her more laid back and easy going traits. Her lamp, table, and picture frames are all round.
Bruce’s line about his father leaving him is technically accurate in *Finding Nemo*.
In Finding Nemo Bruce hilariously laments on how he never knew who his father was.
In nature, male sharks do not stick around to raise their young.
The next launch in *Toy Story* is significant.
If you take a look at the timer on the clock and sync it up with the exact moment that Woody and Buzz blast off with Sid’s rocket, it will come to thirty-nine minutes and sixteen seconds.
Do the batteries in Buzz Lightyear look familiar to you?
That’s the Buy n Large logo you see displayed on the two AA batteries in Buzz’s back.
Buy n Large, if you’ve forgotten, was the mega-corporation from the movie Wall-E .
Those aren’t jet streams, they’re tire tracks in *Cars*.
There are no humans in the Cars universe. So it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have jets streaking across the sky.
I haven’t quite figured out how are why there’d be tire streaks in the sky but I love it.
There’s a clever allusion to *Home Improvement* in *Toy Story*.
Allen portrayed Tim ‘The Tool Man’ Taylor on Home Improvement . The company he works for on the show was called Binford .
If you look at the logo emblazoned on the red toolbox, you’ll see that it’s one and the same.
Sully’s chair in *Monsters Inc.* is built specially for him.
By that, I mean it’s designed for monsters with a tail. See the hole in Sully’s purple lounger? It’d be pretty uncomfortable if that weren’t there.
It’s an incredibly subtle but smart detail.
Carl wears a bow-tie to Ellie’s funeral for a reason in *Up*.
It’s simple — Ellie was the one who always tied Carl’s ties. He wasn’t about to lose that memory.
He dons the bow-tie and keeps it on for the rest of the movie.
At the beginning of *Toy Story 2*, a cluster of stars forms the Luxo Lamp.
It’s a little difficult to see at first, but the easiest way is to form the base which begins just above the letters ‘T’ and ‘E’.
Once you get that, the rest is easy.
Humans live for a seriously long time in *Wall-E*.
Clearly, the average lifespan for human beings has shot up by about 50 years in Wall-E .
If you look at the years served for each of the Captains, they average a minimum of 100 years.
Familiar looking piñatas in *Coco*.
Take a look at the piñatas hanging by the wooden pole. you should easily be able to spot both Woody and Buzz.
If you look out at the very edge, you’ll also see a little Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. !
Joy is the only character in *Inside Out* that doesn’t cast a shadow.
Can you guess why not? It’s because she is a constant source of light! Therefore metaphorically, and literally speaking, you’ll never see Joy cast a shadow at any moment in the film.
Riley’s clothes in *Inside Out* are an expression of her mental state.
For example, the color red expresses her rage. Blue is worn whenever she’s feeling sad. If you notice Riley wearing a shirt with all the colors represented, it’s meant to signify that she’s in an emotionally balanced state.