The Fall of Pixar
I guess the title of this entry is a little misleading. So let me explain.
I don’t mean that Pixar’s latest movie is a flop or that the fact that now it’s in the fold of Disney, it will seize to be the greatest animation studio that ever was…
Oh… wait, I did mean the second half of what I just said…
Here’s how I figured Pixar is going to be Pixar no more. Shortly before the Pixar “merge up” to Disney, I started noticing something that Pixar has never done before, advertising partnership with Yahoo! SBC (now Yahoo! AT&T). While I was shopping for deals for my DSL renewal, Pixar’s Cars characters were all over the Yahoo! SBC DSL site. I didn’t think much of it then.
But then just last week I started seeing even more Cars characters showing up on TV commercials, most noticeably promoting State Farm for auto insurance. Well, sure, Cars promoting auto insurance — very cute and fitting. This is very uncharacteristic of Pixar since I have never once seen Woody or Space Ranger selling anything else but Toy Story movies and merchandizes.
And of course, it’s only business, right? It never occurred to me that when Pixar was independent, it never really “prostituted” its characters until Disney took over. And now millions of adults and kids will be bombarded with Pixar’s creations until its pristine brand becomes moldy and Disney’s corporate types weasel into dictating how stories should be told — hence the end of Pixar.
Now truly, everything is a commodity, even cartoon characters that once were just part of a well-told and superbly-animated story.
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June 27th, 2006 at 10:34 am
umm, they were prostituting their toy story characters in burger happy meals waaaaay back in the day - does that not count?
as for the corporate types I think, with lasseter as the chief creative director of all things disney should prevent that from happening - after all, i think thats why lasseter left disney in the first place, the suits started dictating the stories -
anyway, my $0.02
June 27th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Disney + MacDonalds go back a long way. And i think that’s the only time Pixar ever “sold out” (or so to speak) to any third party business. Do you recall Buzz Light Year selling insurance, furniture or anything else though?