The Ringer-Verse - ‘Turning Red’ and the Pixar Hall of Fame | House of R

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

Mal and Jo are here and ready to dive into the latest Pixar animated film, ‘Turning Red’ (05:53). They discuss the heartwarming story in this coming-of-age Pixar hit and what they loved best about it. They also induct some of their favorite Pixar characters and moments into the Pixar Hall of Fame (44:28). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Let's go. The hustle. Am I right? And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to the Skydome, but also to join us on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today for a special Pixar extravaganza,

now that she's snagged four-town tickets for the entire Ringiverse family. it's my house of our working title co-host Joanna Robinson oh hi thrilled to be here so excited

I got us front row tickets to Fortown I know that Jomey was like listen I need to be front front and center for Fortown I cannot be in upper tier

get me down on the floor I got to feel the sweat dropping off those boy banders exactly it's gonna be it's gonna be a memorable, a memorable outing.

We think that our cinematic screening, Johnster, or ones worthy of IG, but just wait until we're right there in front of the four down stage. Joe, we have a slate as full today as Andy's toy chest. First, we're going to be chatting about the latest Pixar release

Turning Red, which is up on Disney Plus now and which we both, spoiler alert, loved. And then, to Mark the occasion of Pixar's 25th film, which Turning Red is, unbelievably, 25 Pixar movies. We will be introducing our Pixar Hall of Fame, where we will be celebrating the best of Pixar

by handing out 25 awards for our favorite films, characters, moments, and more. If you listen to the former Best of Batman pod way back in the day, that's what we're going for here, with the Pixar Hall of Fame. But before we board the spirit of adventure, a few quick programming reminders,

as always, we have so many Batman pods up for you. We have so many Obi-1 trailer breakdowns up for you. The feed is robust, so check it all out. The Midnight Boys, we'll be back with you on Wednesday to dive into Netflix's Marvel Canon,

which is hit in Disney Plus. There's a lot happening here on Ring Reverse. And we've got another exciting pod programming reminder for you. Joe has a new pod. Joe, tell people where else they can find you. Oh, yes. Well, if you want to hear me arguing about things, which, why wouldn't you? There's a new podcast called Childlike Content that I'm doing with Dave Gonzalez and Neil Miller,

who I used to podcast about Game of Thrones and also the TV series Lost. We've been together for years and years and years and years. And we're coming back together for this new show where every week we're going to argue about a pop culture, you know, topic. This week, of course, we're still on the Batman. But soon we will be debating other things as well. So if you want to hear us argue about who was the best Batman villain, and then you get to vote about which one of us is right. You can listen to trial by content every Tuesday. It's very interactive.

You can submit answers, you can vote for answers. Your submitted answer might even win the whole debate at the end of it. So it's going to be really fun. I'm really excited. Those guys are the best. So it's a delight. Yeah. A absolute delight, super fun, so informative, really engaging.

Everybody, please, please check that out. It is really wonderful. It's going to be a weekly highlight. Where can you follow that? Well, you can follow that. You can follow Ringiverse, all of it. following on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And for our Ring Reverse purposes here today,

don't forget to follow the Ring ofverse on social. We're everywhere. We're everywhere. And of course, as always, bear in mind. Our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, today's podcast will feature plot points from turning red and also from the entire Pixar Cannon to date. Okay, so this is a spoiler warning that applies to 25 films and some shorts as well.

Really, to all of them. All of Pixar, okay? So, proceed with caution, proceed with more caution than Luca and Alberto did their first time around raindrops. Oh, boys. Love them. All right, before we get into our Hall of Fame, we're going to talk about turning red. This film written by Domit Xi and Julie Chow is the first Pixar film to be directed solo by a woman, Brenda Chapman, famously co-directed Brave. and that movie was kind of taken away from her.

We might talk about some of the Pixar environment that has led up to this being the first solo film directed by a woman, why that is important. Domi, she came up the ranks at Pixar as a storyboard artist. She was on Inside Out, Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4. As we discussed in our spring hype podcast, Domi won the Oscar for her short film, BOW,

which is an incredible short, if you haven't seen it. It'll make you drool for days and then also feel weirdly about your mom. Both things at once. Great stuff. What can be better? And she's written a very autobiographical story here. We're going to get into some of the details of the plot, but I need to start actually with the music.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, a lot of bangers. As Mallory alluded to in the intro here, a lot of the plot turns on this four-town concert, Fort Town, a boy band. This film's set in the early odds, so very much in the mold of Instinct, Backstreet Boys, and or Oatown, if you prefer. And oftentimes in films, Mallory Rubin,

yes. Filmmakers try to convince us that a fictional band and their fictional music is worthy of freaking out over. And I would say, not since that thing you do, has a fictional band, not since the Oneaters, has a fictional band, produced music that I actually believe is fantastic. Since Fortown, the music is by, you might have heard of them, Billy Elish and her brother, Phineas O'Connell.

Ever heard of them? And they just went all the way in on creating some actual catchy boy band Bangers. Mallory, how did you feel about the four-town catalog that we heard? Boy, Joe, loved it, and probably would have loved it at any time in my life, but I got to say, been thinking about boy bands recently because, and I promise I will try to stay focused and on task here. I won't, I won't go into too long of a tangent right up top, but recently had the just sincere, sincere pleasure of potting about the love is blind reunion with our colleagues, Amelia and Juliet. Nick Lachet and Vanessa Lachet are the host of Love is Blind.

And so it was an opportunity to really reflect on what for me was the formative boy band. 98 degrees experience of my youth. 98 degrees. You're a degree. My childhood bedroom was a paper. with Jeff Timmons cutouts, papered. Like, there was no inch of wall not covered by a Jeff Timmons peck. The third-tier boy band.

I love this. Frankly, how dare you? Now, I also loved in sync. Loved, I loved all of the boy bands. I loved the whole craze. You know, Juliet is, I think, the biggest Backstreet Boys fan that I know. So I don't even know if on the Ringer podcast network, I can claim to be a fan in reach of her hearing. But, you know, O-Town, sure. Liquid Dreams, why not? I watched making

the band. Who did? Yes, I love it. So this was really fun just to kind of think back to the boy band craze of a certain period of our youths. But what was the defining boy band experience for you? I wasn't like a boy band or like fan in the moment. But I so I appreciated much later. I was too cool for boy bands when boy bands were hot. And it was just like a really good moment in my adult life to be like, hey, Joanna, guess what? Things can just be fun. And that's what boy bands are.

So that's, you know, it's like a real turning point for me when I was finally like, oh, maybe you could just enjoy, relax and enjoy the Backstreet Boys and in sync, etc. I did tell you, when you brought up Oetown to me off pod, I did tell you that in my college, my guy friends who played intramural sports, I think, specifically soccer, used to use Liquid Dreams as their warm-up, like their hype warm-up music that they would like get pumped to before a soccer game. It was pretty fantastic. Just a wild choice. Fantastic. So I do know all the worst of Liquid Dream.

Oh my God. So yeah. So we're going to talk more specifically about other things, but I just really needed to talk about the music for a second. Yeah. It's a through line, a through line of this coming of age tale. One thing that's interesting, we're going to, we're going to, we're to zoom out a little bit and talk more generally about Pixar and our feelings in a second. But I just want to say in terms of Domi She and her ability to make this film, she has cited Pete Doctor, who's the current head of Pixar as like really encouraging her. He encouraged her and her pitch for Bao, which is kind of like a dark little short. And he was just sort of like, I remember she talked to me when she released that film and she was like, Pete Doctor, I pitched it. And he was like, you know, I think you'd go darker.

She's like, I wanted to go darker. I just wasn't sure if I could. And he's like, you can do it. And he's the one who really, really encouraged her, which stands in direct contrast. We're going to talk about John Lasseter a little bit. But John Lasseter, who ran Pixar for a long time, was ousted, you know, in disgrace, you know, in the height of the Me Too movement, given his behavior around certain people at Pixar, not to start out with a bummer. But that is just like a part of the whole Pixar legacy. The way in which women have and have not been able to tell stories at Pixar is part of the whole legacy.

It's why Turning Red feels like such a big moment here in this sort of new era of Pixar under Pete Doctor's leadership. So let's start. Let's zoom out and talk about our relationship with Pixar, as we like to do with these deep dives, just sort of like get real macro. So Mallory Rubin, how do you think about your relationship with Pixar? You know, I just want to mention on the heels of that very important point. in addition to watching Turning Red, I would really encourage everybody to also watch Embrace the Panda,

which is the doc on the making of Turning Red that's also available right now on Disney Plus. And it's, I mean, it's wonderful to watch in general and the story of how Domi brought this film to life is incredible. But one of the things that is really highlighted and at the four of that dock is the women, the team of women who brought this movie to life.

And that was a really, really, really too long time. and important, important to highlight and see. My relationship to Pixar is that I love Pixar movies, and they're a huge part of my life. I'm sure that shocks you to hear, Joanna. I would, I find, and I think this is a, you know, certainly not a unique in, and in fact, a widely shared experience, and that's part of what makes it so special, because Pixar movies are some. a shared, you know, community-oriented experience is that you grow with the stories, you know, and those are some of my favorite stories across film, across TV, across novels, across comics,

whatever form it may take. When I first saw Toy Story, for example, I was quite literally a child. Toy Story came out when I was nine years old, right? Toy Story came out in 95. I was born in 86. And I did a Toy Story rewatchables last year. and rewatched all of the Toy Story movies to prepare for that and was like pretty blown away

thinking about how much of my life had passed over the time the time period that those four movies span, which is two and a half decades, nearly 25 years. That's an amazing thing. And so whether it's across a franchise and the evolution of the sequels

or just returning to a movie that you watched when you were young and you bring different experience a different perspective to it as you've aged and you've lived through different phases of your own life. Or whether you're just at a different point in your life when you go to something for the first time than you were when you saw an earlier Pixar movie,

like any number of scenarios, I find that Pixar movies are pretty consistently, movie to movie, incredibly entertaining and well-made and deft as stories, but also unbelievably affecting. like so touching, so moving. They tap into something immensely thematically resonant about connection, coming of age, the way that we grow up, the way that we change and evolve.

And sometimes that's explored through the way we evolve with other people, the way we grow apart from them, how can we find our way back to them or to someone else, and then how that informs the way that we think about our own lives and our own growth. And I just find them really wonderful. ever tire of revisiting them. And I think that basically the floor for a Pixar movie, the ceiling is, you can't see it. It's so high for the best Pixar movies. And the floor for a Pixar movie is, I would argue, as high as it is for any other IP machine out there. I mean, yeah, if you think about, you know, Pixar is now owned by Disney. It didn't start that

way. But when you think about, you know, original Disney animation, like in the 30s, 40s, etc., Like, they start out mining fairy tales and, like, folklore. That's, that's what, that's what Disney builds his brand on. And it expanded a bit from there, but that was sort of like, you know, the core Disney princess through line. What Pixar did, and, you know, again, with the good with the bad, I think a lot of this credit does go to John Lasseter. But, like, the tapping into this sort of elemental kid wonder, like, what if your toys were alive? what if the monsters under your bed were cute? What if the cars were allowed?

You know, like all that sort of stuff that's just like really, really drills into the way that kids look at the world, tapping into that idea of wonderment and imagination and creativity. I think is a key part of, along with the technology in the way that it developed, a key part of the Pixar brand. And it actually, I mean, we're going to talk about this when we get into our, you know, Hall of Famers here, but like, that idea of Pixar emotionality actually wasn't really baked into the brand from the start, I would say. But that obviously becomes part of the Pixar brand is this idea of like you're going to cry at a Pixar movie. Is it true of every Pixar movie? No.

But the best ones, yes. You will sob. Yeah. So it's like you're going to cry. I don't know. As an adult, as a child, someone's going to cry. And you will get to see the work. world. And like, I think also enough can't be said about the visual, digital possibilities of,

like, giving us a fully rendered under the sea narrative or fully rendered what it's like to be the size of a bug narrative, all of that stuff. I think is just really, yeah, I mean, Pixar. Guess what? It's good. I love all that, Joe. And I, I'm so glad that you just said the word aloud imagination because that is so central to the magic at the heart of Pixar. And one of the things I love about Pixar movies is, you know, we talk often in fantasy stories or sci-fi stories about this idea of escape, right, and how sometimes the power of the story is that it ports you out of your life, right, into a totally different realm, a totally different world. And one of the things that is so neat and really so ingenious about Pixar stories, some of them are drastically

different from the world around us, right? Like, if you watch, onward, for example. It's like, oh, elves who could do magic, right? That's different than what you see around the corner. Regrettably, that's different from what you see around the corner when you walk outside your house. But so much of Pixar is told through the lens of the thing that is just right there, as you said, right, in your toy chest or under your bed or just a one fathom below what the naked I can see in the ocean. And I absolutely love that. Like thinking about your own life and your own reality with just that one degree shift in perspective. That can just unlock and animate so much creativity and the spirit of such possibility for young people and for people

of any age. And I think that that is really a great gift that these movies have given us for so long and continue to. Something that is interesting about Pixar when it comes to, when you talk to Pixar fans, is the idea that like Pixar, which is based right down the street for me in Emoryville, California, not down in LA. It's a Silicon Valley company more than it is a Hollywood company. And in that way, they have a lot of the Silicon Valley branding sort of around the studio. I mean, Lucasfilm, Marvel, etc., like these have brandings. But there's just a way in which Pixar, the Pixar culture, the way that people get to know

the Pixar filmmakers, they have got like a small stable of filmmakers, all this sort of stuff. I don't know. There's just something about the way that they have crafted their own origin story narrative and their identity that just reminds me a lot of the Silicon Valley companies. And I think makes it stick out a little differently in people's minds. I don't know if that's true of people who are more casual fans of Pixar. But I think for the people who go really deep, that's an interesting part of it. Let's talk about this film in particular.

This film centers on a young girl. in Toronto in the early odds, May Lee, 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl. She's got a, she's a very obedient young girl. She's got a complicated relationship with her mom, Ming Lee, voiced by Sandra O, mainly voiced by Rose Lee Chang. And she discovers one day as she becomes a young woman

that when she feels extreme emotions, she turns into a giant red panda. And furthermore, she discovers that this is, something that her entire family line is blessed or cursed with, you decide. And what is at the core of this, we talked about the boy band of it all. But what's really at the core of here is A, a mother-daughter relationship, and B, a core four-girl friendship pack. And something that is true of Pixar, though we've had fish and bugs and cars and toys,

we've had very few girls at the center of these stories. There's Rylian Inside Out, there's Merida and Brave. I talked about Brenda Chapman and how she went about making Brave that had a lot to do with her relationship with her daughter. And then that film was taken away from her and changed it to something else in a way that is kind of upsetting for people who are fans of Brenda Chapman and her intent. And so the core femininity of the core femininity of this film, the way that it is interested in girlish things, things that have historically been dismissed as frivolous and unimportant. And as frivolous and unimportant.

One being, of course, the boy band of it all, right? Which is slowly changing as like the Harry Styleses of the world, of the BTSs of the world. Like we're slowly moving it out of the girls' only niche. But also this idea of emotionality that girls are told that they're too emotional to hysterical, too excitable. When we meet Maylee, she is a lot right at the beginning of this film. And even for, like, even for me who's excited to watch this narrative about this young girl, when the film started, I was like, do I want to hang with this protagonist this whole time? I was worried she was too much for me. And then I completely fell in love with her.

But what does it mean for you, Mallory, as an adult woman, or thinking of yourself as a young woman who might have seen this younger for a film that is so unabashedly embracing, uplifting and making important these girlish things, quote unquote, girlish thing. Yeah, I mean, Tyler, you know, crushing it in the general admission section of Fortown. Like, Joe, I was I was in the audience, too. No, I mean, it's, it's wonderful, it's important, and it's a really meaningful thing to people. when we haven't seen, we haven't seen enough of it. And I hope that we see more moving forward. Obviously, representation inside of stories is an essential thing for the people who are viewing them.

And that can manifest in numerous different respects, right? And it does inside of turning red as well, because part of this is about having a, showcasing the girls and the women and the bonds between them. obviously a huge part of it as well is the Chinese Canadian family and the Chinese culture and traditions that are at the heart of the family dynamics. There are so many young girls, but also just so many people who are going to see this movie and feel grateful to have seen something about their experience or something that is not their experience, but that allows them to better understand somebody else's experience, right? And that is like ultimately part of the responsibility of the stories and the aspects of the platforms inside of pop culture that reach so many people. And so I think that it is wonderful that we got this. I think that it's probably worth mentioning that there are people who are upset that this is only on streaming, right? That this did not go to the theaters.

What are, you know, you're an expert of the movie industry in a way that I candidly am not. What is your read on that and how much of that was driven by COVID and the necessities of the moment and a decision that was made in at a certain point locked? I think absolutely it's definitely COVID-driven. I think what's unfortunate and what feels very glaring is that three films, Mulan, Ryan and The Last Dragon and Turning Red were all not given the in-theater in-theater pomp. in Starkham stance treatment that people who have been waiting for more Asian-fronted narratives would want to see. So I think that's disappointing. I think what's also true, and this might, I mean, maybe people who weren't on Twitter didn't

know about this at all, but there was, you know, there was like a significant kerfuffle over a certain film critic who talked about how this film didn't feel relatable to him because it wasn't sort of directly in his lane. And I'm not here to bury him because he is certainly, like, the internet took care of that. But, and I don't think even someone deserves to be buried for one bad opinion. But I think that that idea has existed in Hollywood for so long. I mean, this is a true story. This is a true fact of Hollywood filmmaking.

That studio, there's a thing called four quadrant storytelling, right? It's like male, female, young, old. And if you make a four quadrant story, that's a story that you hope will appeal to all four demographics there, right? But what Hollywood studios know, the prevailing theory, is that women have been trained their whole lives to, go to male-friendly narratives, but men won't go to female-fronted narratives. And so if you're going to choose between hitting the female quadrant or the male quadrant, you err towards the male quadrant because you know you're going to get the women anyway. And that's something that I've heard filmmakers, frustrated filmmakers talk about year after year after year, when it talks about getting

films made. And so when someone says that a movie like this isn't relatable, but they can't relate to cars or fish or whatever. Like that is a very frustrating, I think, thing to hear. And I think there is also a significant, I love Inside Out. It's one of my favorite Pixar's. We're going to talk about it. And it's a great film that's also about a young girl and emotionality. But that is a film that is made by, that's a girl dad film because it's made by a girl dad

who observed his daughter and wanted to like make a film about her and her emotion. This is a For Us Bias film, you know, like this is told it's very autobiographical from Domitchi. And there's just something different in that. I think especially in this girlfriend group, again, when you talk about what feels like authentic representation, what I find I see over and over again is a full spectrum of what a girl is allowed to be. So I feel like in Millie's friend group, you see different flavors of girl in that friend group. And that's just true of any friend group. You know what I mean? Like if it's not just one girl, if it's multiple girls, then you get the full spectrum.

And in her family, who her mom is, who her aunties are, who her grandmother is, like, that's generational. But it's also just the full flavor pack. And that's just exciting. I don't know. I'm a big fan of it. Yeah, it's important, too, I think, that both inside of the friend's group, the school setting, the party, right, the concert, everything, but also the home life, that things are not like purely good or purely bad. There are these seesaws and these ebbs and flows of not even just things going well or things going poorly, but like a grappling with assessing how you feel about something. how you feel about the people in your life. And May, that is part of not only her,

the way that she processes how to control the panda and ultimately, crucially, comes to embrace the panda, right? Mm-hmm. But the moment, like one, I'll just say one of my favorite, one of my absolute favorite parts of the film is what is the thing ultimately that allows May to gain this control? It's thinking about the people she loves the most in the world. And when she's telling this to her family,

like her parents assume that it's them. And she says, you guys, because she's still sort of wrestling with how to explain to her mother that she has these other things that make her life full. But what is it really? It's her friends. Right. And that's just such, like, a wonderful thing because it's also not true

inside of the story that May is the character who's like, my mother doesn't understand me or just doesn't get. She has a genuine life-affirming bond and relationship with her parents. She loves them. She does want to share experiences with them. She does want to connect with them. But there has to be nuance inside of any relationship and any evolution inside of a relationship. And so saying this is also a huge part of my life.

Actually, I am the person you think I am and know and the person you helped me become. I want you to be proud of me. that really, like, really touching moment later in the film where they, where May and Ming talk about the fear that this will take them apart from each other, move May away from her mother, all that they have shared and really valued sharing. But the friend group, the Tomogacchi's, the concerts, slinging that fur baby merch at school, lust in after the boys, whether it's at the Daisy Mart or the lockers, whatever the case may be. all of those parts have an equal bearing on shaping who May is becoming.

And the film does such a beautiful job of exploring that, of having the characters explore that so that we can explore it with them. And you get like an anguish-inducing moment like when May can't quite find the courage to side with her friends over her parents, over her mom at the party. And they are just so crestfallen. Like, they cannot believe it, but does Miriam say, well, I'm done with you forever? No, she's caring for the little tomagogy. Because that's what you do for your friends, right?

You wait for them to make their way back to you. And I just thought it was just so lovely in that respect. I think also we're going to talk about Pixar villains in a little bit when we get to our Hall of Fame, but it's fun to look at the Pixar films and what films actually have a villain and what films don't. And I actually think this film, it's impossible to say that there is a villain other than like, I like when the villain is a concept. So it's like pressure, right, to be a certain way, could be a villain of this.

Because it's not accurate to say that Mae Mae's mom Ming is the villain. It's not even accurate to say that the school bully Tyler is the villain. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, as you say, there's good and bad in all of this. And that's my favorite. I think there's been an increasing trend in. specifically high school, you know, because if you look back at like 80s comedies, like, you know, it was like the jock or the evil rich guy was like always the villain.

And I think increasingly in high school comedies we're seeing, I think about like 21 Jump Street or Book Smart. You see this thing where it's just like, hey, we're all just like kids trying to make it through. No one's a cartoon villain. Like we're all just kids trying to make it. And so I think taking that attitude into this teenage storytelling is is a really beautiful thing. And I think that specificity, you mentioned, this idea of like, this is a Chinese community in Toronto, which is, you know, the environment that, hold on a second. Yeah, yeah, okay, sorry. Let me keep going.

Which is the environment that Domishi grew up in. I think those themes of pressures and perfectionism, which are universal, but also very specific to this culture, I think that's a really interesting thing to see. part of Disney's current interest in exploring specific cultures, like Pixar had, Luca and Cocoa are two really great recent examples. I know more about the making of Coco than I do about Luca, but they did such tremendous amount of research in putting together the world of Coco. And then similarly, you know, in a wider way, Disney with like Moana and Conto, Raya, like this idea of all these beautiful cultures and their traditions being put out there in a way that is not boring and dry and educational in that way, but just sort of lived in and exciting.

And for us to learn about those worlds, the same way that we would learn about any sort of fairy tale world and any other kind of animated story, I think is, I'm really jealous, envious of the kids growing up with all of these great stories. So, yeah. It is just lovely to think about that, actually. The whole generation of kids who will grow up with this like immersive storytelling where there so many different films and shows and books and tales and many forms are steeped in a ingrained, fully realized exploration of other ways of life. And it's interesting, too, inside of turning red, because that's actually really baked into the plot and structure of the film because of the family temple, right?

that's part of the way that the family operates inside of Toronto is trying to help other people understand their family history, their way of life, what the red panda means to their family, et cetera. And so that is really embedded into the fabric of the tail, but it functions in this, in this broader and really impactful way as well. You mentioned the Tomogachi. One thing that I think is really interesting about this is, it's said in the recent past. Right. Oh, too, right?

2002. Yeah, despite the fact that there is a fantastical giant panda element, it feels like maybe, I mean, maybe, well, inside out mostly takes place inside, not in the outside world. Does this feel like the most grounded in our reality modern Pixar story? What a great question. Right? Because like, you know, Incredibles is in the world of superheroes. Onward's isn't like this D&D world. Luca is unclear to me actually when Luca takes place.

I think it sort of takes place slightly out of time. But partially, yeah, we're with sea monsters who are living in the deep and cocoa in the afterlife. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I think that's a good.

How do that feel to you? Because I've heard from some people who watched it where they felt like it didn't feel as escapist and wonder filled because of, you know, they're talking about doing karaoke or whatever the case may be. I didn't feel that way. Did you have any feelings about that? If anything, the opposite. Like, I loved that because while it fills me with a level of sweat-inducing anxiety and dread

that I can barely articulate to think of my mother showing up at my classroom window to hand me the pads, it fills me with just as much joy to think about. being the kids who open the door to the bathroom and see the red panda there, right? And the fact that May can bring the panda to Tyler's birthday and, you know, they're hustling. I mean, those four town tickets are not cheap. Can I, by the way, this is the, there's a lot of love and adoration here, as there should be. This was a great movie that I really, really, really, really liked. One nitpick. Yeah, pick away. If the, if the. So if Fortown is that popular, that in the beginning of the 2000s, the tickets would be that expensive, they should not be available to purchase at the last moment. Last minute, four tickets. Are you kidding? That's my only note. Ridiculous.

Absolutely. You mentioned May's mom showing up to school in the Abraised the Panda documentary. One of the producers alluded to the fact that most of the cringiest mom moments were. deeply autobiographical to Domi. I have a very complicated relationship with my mom. I really like complicated mom, daughter, relationship, storytelling. This felt like what I just can't.

I need to talk to Domi or someone needs to talk to Domi and say like, did your mom really ever show up outside of your classroom window with a security guard trying to like tackle to the ground waving period products in the air? I can't. I would also like to know that. But I guess I guess like at least it was just the. the one package, whereas we know back home, there was a box full of offerings, you know? Scented, unsented, overnight, winged.

I do, I mean, like, all the, all the voice performances here are great, but I do, I think Sandra O, this is like a, this is a top tier picks our voice performance from Zandra O for me. I thought she was incredible as Ming Lee. And like the way that her, yeah, of course, obviously, legend. But the way that her most toxic tendencies were wrapped up in this fear and protectiveness and shame and guilt and all this sort of stuff, all these really human aspects. I just, I thought was really good stuff. And then like, Jin Lee, the dad gets much less screened time, but he gets a really beautiful sequence, right?

When he talks about watching the footage of May and her friends and how it made him laugh. And he's able to tell her about her mom when she was younger and what she was like, which is a beautiful. thing that, you know, parents can do. They can humanize each other. So O'Reilly is as the dad, Jin Lee, I thought that was also a really beautiful, understated performance in the film. Both in the general arc

for Ming, but also like in specifically that moment that you just highlighted that great little sequence with Jin and Mei and the camcorder, one of the things that I loved about the story is when you realize that the thing that you think is a difference, the thing that feels like a chasm between you and another person, it's actually

because you're exactly the same and you just haven't found like a way to either acknowledge that to yourself or to each other. And so like the moment earlier where Ming is sitting on the couch and and lamenting like, how can our daughter behave this way and do these things and treat her mother this way? And then her mother calls. She's like, I'm not here. You know? And it's like, oh, right, so many of these things are cyclical. And again, to find that, to strike that balance and pair those, those dual lanes of interest and examination where so much of this is about who each of these characters are as individuals and what is specific to them, but also the ties that bind, the traits and instincts and tendencies that they share. I loved that. And then that just

really just lovely scene with Jim, because the moment where he's like, it was because of me, right? And the idea for May, I mean, obviously she sees her parents together. She's thought about her parents as a unit at a couple before, but like, it's possible at least that she had never until that moment thought about them as being like magnetically drawn to each other in the way that she is currently experiencing for the first time in her life, right? And that is just, that's just a lot to be able to achieve in the span of like an hour and a half, you know? It's really impressive. I think one of the most instructive things for me in terms of understanding my mom, who's a person I still struggle to understand, is watching her interact with her mom when our grandma would

come for Thanksgiving. And I was like, oh, it's all the same. It's all just like, Like, loops upon loops upon loops upon loops. So, yeah, when, when May's grandmother shows up and all the aunties, like, that's all, it's all. And you watch, you watch Ming turn into, back into a child to a certain degree when talking to our own mom. All of that is really great. Speaking of Jen, sort of the last thing that I want to make sure that we hit is something that, you know, as you can tell from watching Bao, something dummy she is really interested in is delicious. food and how it's depicted in animated form. She had a great animated blog titled My Food Fantasy, sort of as she was getting her start

in animation. She cited Miyazaki's films as an influence there in terms of depicting food and specifically, you know, like Chinese food in animated form for her. This food looks so delicious that Jin prepares and such a beautiful. It does, you know, it's a subtle little, like, gender flip in the family that he's, like, the main food provider and her mom seems to be the one mainly in charge of the business, which is the temple. And, you know, it's not too, it doesn't hit you over the head with that, but just like, just the celebration of food or like when the friends are talking about being invited over and they're like, oh, for some of her dad's food, yes, please, yes, please invite us over. On a scale of 1 to 10, how hungry were you when you were watching Turning Red? Well, I'm always hungry, as you know, including right now hearing you talk about this.

But yeah, I was like salivating. I mean, that one montage of gin preparing the ingredients, you know, he's chopping the veggies. He's sauteing. I mean, everything just looked absolutely delicious. But then again, like even the just elegance of the way that the food sequences tie into the family dynamic because you have that one stretch where gin is in the kitchen preparing food and then in the foreground ahead of him, Mei and Ming are next to each other on the couch preparing the dumplings, right? Watching their stories. Watching their stories.

And little moments like that really help clarify what the flow and rhythm of their life is. And it was just, it was just lovely. So I really hope, you know, at the end of this, at the end of it all, I really hope that despite the fact that this is a, a, you know, straight to Disney Plus endeavor that it will catch. I mean, it's not straight to Disney Plus is not the sort of insult that it might have been once upon a time. I mean, certainly Enkanto. I mean, I think Luca and Onward felt a little muted compared to, I think this was

very specifically Onward felt a little muted in reception compared to some Pixar in years past. But I think that, and of course, Seoul as well. But I think that something like Enkanto catching on the way that it did, obviously not a Pixar, Disney animated film, but like it doesn't mean that just watching at home means that something can't have the same cultural impact. So I'm hoping that Turning Red is able to reach as wide an audience it deserves because it definitely deserves it. So there you go. And it's got like Encanto, it has catchy, catchy songs. One last person in the cast I want to shout out is Jordan Fisher, who's like one of my dear fondest favorites who plays the league.

member of Fortown and does a great job in the end of the film as Fortown gets sort of involved in the chaos of everything. Fortown. Fearless, man. Great stuff. Great design on the costumes. Just really pristine early odds vibes from all of that.

So that's turning around. Anything else we want to say about this specific Pixar before we look at all the Pixar together? A lovely movie. And as you said, I hope that legions upon legions discover it in the near term, and I hope that it's a movie that people are enjoying and sharing with each other for years to come. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Ripp are back in a new

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Get savings with yellow sales signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. All right, Joe. It is time to introduce the Ringerverse, House of Our Pixar Hall of Fame, 25 Hall of categories for 25 Pixar movies. Not every movie we'll make it in, to be clear, but on the occasion of the 25th Pixar film,

we are inducting our first class into the Pixar Hall. Just going to tease that we will be concluding, much as the Oscars do with Best Picture. So stay tuned until the end for that. Also, so everyone is aware, Joanna and I did not reveal our picks to each other. We are surprising each other in real time. And we had a list of categories.

We do not know what the other person has chosen. I suspect that we will obviously have some overlap, but I'm curious to see how much. There's real opportunity for completely different lists here potentially. Kicking things off. Again, best movie is coming later. But starting with Best Sequel, what do you got? I think the answer to this has to be in the Toy Story franchise.

I think there's no other option here. So the question is, is it two, three, or four? Right? So for me, and my dear, dear darling, darling friend, Griffin Newman will heartily disagree with me. But for me, it's Toy Story 3. Same! Great stuff. Yes!

Oh, wow! I know a lot of people stand for Toy Story 2, but for me is Toy Story 3, which just contains one of the best endings of any Pixar movie ever, where, you know, as we mentioned before, there's often a weepy moment. It's not always like the last five minutes straight, which is what Toy Story 3 is. But there's also like a great side plot, I think, in the daycare. But most importantly, it's this idea, especially like, you know, for those of us whose strong memories of where we were and who we were when we watched the first Toy Story. Some of you might not have been born yet, but that's okay um like when you get to toy story three 15 years later um you talk about these movies being

meeting you where you are and stuff like that you think about the passage of time uh you think about you know woody and the rest going to a new home i just it's very it's a beautiful beautiful beautiful film what do you want to say about toy story three oh i want to say that i agree it's also my pick for best sequel. This puppy came out in 2010. Pixar's 11th movie, 15 years after the first film. This is my favorite Toy Story movie, period, I'll just say. Not just my favorite Pixar sequel.

It is my favorite toy story movie. I think one of my five favorite Pixar movies overall, just a truly, truly special movie about growing up, growing apart, embracing change as hard as it might be to do so, accepting new realities. there's a top tier, you know, you mentioned villains earlier, top tier Pixar villain in here,

lotso, that fucker. There's some amazing closing of the loop across the franchise moments, even just something like Sid, you know, returning. And you mentioned the, the tearjerker, man, I mean, the,

I think the saddest scene in Toy Story history and a scene that is in the running for overall top tier Pixar, tier jerker, the gang, grabbing hands, huddling together as they move toward the trash incinerator, closing their eyes, not in resignation, Joanna, but in recognition that even if it is the end, they are together,

I have honestly rarely cried more in a movie, like seriously. And I think that in this also like meta and macro sense, Toy Story 3, really I think much more so than Toy Story 2 just illustrated Pixar's ability to move its characters and its franchises forward and for the stories to keep growing with the viewers. It's just sublime. Excellent. Next. I think we're going to have the same pick here too. We might have a lot of the same picks.

I don't know about this time. Best short. I don't know. I mean, we'll see. Mine is a real location, location, location bias. This is the 2016 short and won the Oscar. It's called Piper. And it's about a little sandpiper. hopping

hopping down the beach overcoming its fear of water and what I love about it is that the Pixar animators went to like the local NorCal beaches where I grew up

Stinson Beach etc to capture like all of their inspo and so it's just it's a very local NorCal beach feeling

to I recognize the beach that they used to inspire this film so I just it's a very simple one but I just really really love it

What's your short? My pick is something that we've already talked about today, actually. It's Bao. Oh, yeah. Bow was my second. I mean, which is just top-notch. The, as mentioned earlier,

but just in case you haven't seen Turning Red yet and came to this part of the pod first and are planning to watch Turning Red and catch up on it later, I'll quickly sum this up again. Bow is the 2018 Pixar short from Domi Shee, the director of Turning Red. This was a short that was paired with incredible Two, first Pixar short directed by a woman, inspired by Domi's own life as a Chinese

Canadian, won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. It is so gripping in so many respects. It is visually arresting. There is no dialogue, but it is completely immersive and you understand all of the emotional beats and cues and the dynamic as it reveals itself across the short between the characters when everything coalesces for you. It is just so, so, so impactful. And it really definitely taps into multiple perspectives, which is one of the things I really love about it. Like, this is how the little bow, this is how the child feels.

But how does the mother feel? And it's really interesting to read or listen to interviews with Domene and hear her talk about how trying to better understand her mother's perspective was a big part of the impetus here. I would say in particular there's a great L.A. Times interview with Tracy Brown. from 2018 that you can read. And again, we said, we said spoiler warning, but specific spoiler warning here for something that happens in Bao. This quote about the famous, shocking twist inside of Bao, she says, quote, I wanted to

tap into that feeling, that primal feeling of just wanting to love something so much that you're willing to destroy it so it won't go away. That is just amazing. Oh my God. Yeah. BOW is incredible. A great pick. Piper, I am completely biased by my own childhood.

That's a theme of Pixar. Bias by my own childhood. Absolutely. This is one where I'll be fascinated to see if we have the same pick. I love this category. So many contenders here. This is a loaded field. Loaded, loaded field for a third category.

Most iconic voice work. Okay. So I feel like, if you listen to the watch, Andy sometimes jokingly calls himself Industry Andy when he like talks about being in the industry or whatever. And I feel like occasionally I'd be turning into like Industry Joanna when I'm like, have you, have you, Mallory ever been to Pixar HQ? Have you ever been to Pixar? Oh my God.

Okay. Come up and we'll go. We'll go take a tour. But one of the fun things about the tour. We have a busy trip planned already because we're going to Skywalker Ranch. You're going to take me to the beach for Piper. One of them are going to go all over the place. One of the fun things about the deep tour at Pixar is they take you like back into the offices.

The offices in the in the like sort of backer recesses where the longer standing animators have been, they have this really cool thing where they're allowed to decorate their own offices. And because they're so creative, I'm sure these photos exist online. Because they're so creative, these offices are bananas. Like someone will decorate them in the style like an old English library and they'll be like love. And then like someone did like a teaky theme. they're just like, they're like little cabanas and they're elaborately decorated and it's a little like Fantasia in, in this like normal office setting. But then also one wall is just, is like a mugshot

wall and it's just full of polaroids of every single voice actor that they've ever had come in and record an audio. They have like, they snap a polaroid of them and they put them on the mugshot wall. Is it their full faces or is it just like their teeth like the wall in severance? It's the full face. It's not just the smile. And so it's really fun to walk along and be like, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Like so many amazing people. Long story short, I can't pick anyone else for this. Even though I initially thought I was going to pick someone else, it's got to be John Ratsenberger, who has a voice role, most famously is Ham and Toy Story. But he's also in every single Pixar film he has a voice cameo. He is the Alan Tudik of Pixar. It's John Rasson. Bazzenberger. Boy, great pick. That's well-reasoned and just expertly done. That was really good. I love that one. Okay. My pick is Amy Polar as joy and Inside Out. Inside Out, 2015, Pixar's 15th film, an incredible movie beloved by all. Stars five emotions, joy, sadness, fear, anger. discussed. Polar as joy is so animated, so vibrant, so fervent in her commitment as joy in her journey inside of Riley. But the reason that I love this performance so much and the real key to it and to the movie is that joy is not just joyful. Polar helps to unlock that emotional complexity,

the richness of the story by, you know, showing that a character who literally personifies one emotion can still contain multitudes that nothing in life, Joanna, has to be flat or straightforward or just exactly as it seems that it's always this mix, it's always an evolution and that joy really can't exist without sadness and fear and anger and disgust, standing not just alongside of it, but inside of a tomb mixed with it. And joy is compulsive, joy is stubborn, but what happens to that defining, unflinching drive when uncertainty creeps in?

Like you need a performer who can capture the magnitude of that question. Of course, there's plenty of happiness and fun and unbridled spirit and nurturing. that are guiding joy and guiding this performance too. But inside out, I think is so powerful and so effective because it reminds us that joy also comes from, you know, longing and need and want. And joy comes from purpose and conviction. And joy comes from gratitude and connection than this like ever evolving sense of self.

Joy is not just one thing. It's this constellation of experiences. And Amy Poehler just brings all of that so fully to life with her performance. I cherish it. Incredible pick. What a movie. Okay, from Incredible to Indelible. This was another, this was another doozy of a category. Most indelible lead character. This one was kind of easy for me. And actually what I originally had is I had the same thing as iconic voice work and the lead character. And that's, I kind of decided to mix it up a little bit, which is why John Ratzenberger, who's a legend, got in there. But what I really feel, probably in my heart of hearts is that iconic

voice work and lead character are the same. For me it is, Tom Hanks is Woody. This is the beginning of it all. Something that I rewatched Toy Story, which I hadn't seen forever, I rewatched Toy Story for this. And something that Andrew Stanton who co-wrote

Toy Story is sort of credited with making Toy Story actually great, that it was like a cool concept and then he came and made it great, is a good thing to be credited. it with. It's pretty cool. Right. He wanted to make his, interesting and he's talked about wanting to make all of his characters likable but not perfect. And something that is really interesting

about Woody when you first meet him is like, you know, he's got a lot of great qualities, but he's selfish. And he really wants to be like, he wants to be top toy, you know. And so, and something that I love about when this shows up in Tom Hanks' career is 95. We are still, we are not yet in the cemented Tom Hanks as America's dad era of who Tom Sanks is as like a figure. And being Woody, I think, becomes a big part of how Tom Hanks, but we are still like a few years out from him,

like doing all of his World War II stuff. You know, like Tom Hanks, for those who don't know, in the 80s and early 90s, was like a goofy comedian. And then he did Philadelphia. He does Forrest Gump. Like, you know, he starts winning Oscars,

all of that happens. But this is at the very early part of it. And I think Woody as, the leader of the toy group, the anchor of the entire franchise, the anchor of the Pixar universe. If Woody doesn't work, none of this works.

So yeah, there's, you know, there's a snake in my boot. I'm with you. I think maybe an obvious selection, but also a hard pick not to make, honestly.

Like, not the same as saying Woody is my or our favorite character, but I think for indelible, he has a pretty unimpeachable case. You know, we owe an entire era of Pixar and thus an entire era of our lives to Woody. And I think, you know, it's not just this like alpha origin character effect. It's the years that we've traveled with him, those four movies spanning the two and a half decades, the way that we've

gotten to see him grow. I'd love the point that you made about how actually really deeply flawed he is because that makes him as a toy feel so much more human to us, so much more relatable. And thus we are so much more invested in his journey from there. And like, what is that wide swath of time with what he entail? You know, what does it show us? What does it teach us? Only what it's like to live life itself, Joanna, you know? To grow up.

Are you arguing that toy stories are human stories? Indeed. Indeed. My favorite quote from our buddy, Dave. You know, to grow up, Joe. and to grow apart and then to find your way back together. This will be a recurring line of analysis in my Pixar picks today because it gets me every time.

To face revelations and resignation, to channel your purpose anew, to build new friendships, to fall in love, to suffer a great hurt, and then to learn that healing can happen in all sorts of new forms and in ways that you would never have once expected, to uncover the boundless determination to help the ones that we love and the deep hurt that can set in when you think even just for a moment that they might not want to do the same thing for you,

they might not be willing to do the same thing for you and how devastating that is. And then to unlock the capacity to evolve our thinking along with the days and years of our own journey for an entire generation, like for many generations. Woody is inextricable from childhood, but also I think from thinking about what it means to leave that childhood behind. And then, of course, just as crucially to recognizing that you don't have to leave it behind entirely to how you can hold on to pieces of it,

the pieces that you cherish the most, whether you're in Sidd's house or Al's Toybart or Sondy's Daycare or Second Chance antiques, whether you're with Buzz or Boe or... You had to your Bonnie. I mean, Woody just helped us learn how to all hold on, but then also, when you're finally ready, how to let go. That's an amazing gift that he gave us. Thank you, Woody. Oh, boy. From lead, there's only one place to go. Sidekick. Top sidekick. I'll just preview for you that this was, I thought, the single hardest category of all of our categories today.

I actually had a really fun time with this one, and you've already actually made a lot of my points for me in your earlier because my top sidekick pick is sadness as a voice by Philip Smith and Inside Out. Phil Smith is essentially playing her character from The Office, just a more downtrodden, less horny version. And something I love about this character is this is like, you know, she's like a middle-age office lady type character. But like the fact that that aspect of Riley's persona is at the end of Inside Out, considered so integral.

Like, as you mentioned, you can't have joy without all of the other ones, but you really can't have joy without sadness. And this idea, the story that that film tells about sadness being a part of life, not something to be afraid of, it's of a piece with what the story turning red is trying to tell us, or the film Frozen is trying to tell this idea of, like, don't be scared of your emotions that are darker or lonelier. or whatever it is. It's all part of you

and it's all part of making a memory. And I love that. I just think that's one of the most beautiful stories that Pixar has ever tried to tell. And so I just love

that sadness is like, it's a loan for the ride here. So sadness is my pick. That's a great one. And it was a strong, strong, strong contender for me. But I tried to mix it up a bit across the categories.

And so I felt like because I had picked joy and just talked about joy. I should switch it up. But I love that pick Joe. That's a great one. And beautifully, beautifully examined.

I, after a careful consideration, have gone with Dory from finding Nemo. Nemo, what a movie, of course. 2003. Fifth Pixar film. A JAMA classic to this day. Dory, you know, a sidekick who eventually becomes a lead

in finding Dory. But in finding Nemo, Dory is just the staunchest companion traveling across the sea to aid Marlin's efforts to find his sweet son Nemo. Dory's memory struggles lead to, you know, these moments of levity across the film. Her charm imbues the movie with so much soul

and her own longing. This is one of the real keys, fills the film with just even more heart than it already has because, yes, Dory is helping Marlon, but also Dory is helping herself, and I think the best sidekicks function in that way, they unlock something for our protagonist, but they also have their own stories,

their own arcs, their own journeys, And for Dory, that's learning to understand what she wants and needs. And so when she tells Marlon, I look at you and I'm home, please, I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget. It is so heart-wrenching. And then it is so moving when she doesn't have to. And thanks to Dory and Marlon and Nemo, the viewers alike start to believe, you know, with each fin stroke across that ocean, that they don't have to, they don't have to forget either.

They don't have to see that go away either, you know? Just keep swimming, pals. With each fin stroke, amazing. Amazing. Just keep swimming pals. Doria, I would argue better sidekick than lead character. Yes, agreed. Now, from support to foe, we move in to our next category.

Best villain slash antagonist. All right, this is really fun. There's a lot of great options here. But I had to go with one of my favorites. Okay, so film that we are drawing from, 2004. It's The Incredibles, obviously. Some people call The Incredibles. Some people call The Incredibles one of the best superhero movies of all time,

and I wouldn't disagree with them. And something that I love about our villain in this film, Syndrome as voiced by Jason Lee, is that it is engaging with... fanboy, like the weird quirks of fanboy toxicity. Quarks might be too gentle of a term. But like the fact that this film is interested in not only superheroes and how cool it is to watch them punch things, but also like the, the darker side of the culture that can crop up around superheroes, that brings the film into a much deeper, darker territory in a really interesting way. Jason Lee giving an incredible, incredible, incredible voice performance, I think.

You're a Syndrome. I just, I think this is one of their smarter villains in terms of what stands in counter to the Incredibles family. So that's my pick for villain. That's a great one. That is a great one. This is the opposite of, of any draft you and I have ever done. We're just like, great pick, bud.

Non-stop compliments and love. Wow, you're so brilliant. What did you do here? All right. What do you got? What do you got for a villain antagonist? My pick from a little movie that I fucking love Coco. 2017, Pixar's 19th film.

This is, Coco is one of my, just genuinely one of my favorite movies of all time. Top five Pixar movie for me. It's all inspiring. I adore it. And my pick is Ernesto Dela Cruz. He is such an iconic villain because,

you know, he's not only compelling in his own right, and he is downright magnet. his own right, but because he further unlocks the stories for our heroes and the themes at the core of this tale. You know, we, like Miguel, think at first that Ernesto was a hero, so it'd be idolized and adored. He's a musical star. He's handsome. He's charming. He's charismatic. He's charismatic. He's famous. He's beloved. And why wouldn't he be, right? Ah, ha! Ha! Ha! Oh! But what Wait. None of that matters, of course, because as we and Miguel learn in the land of the bed, it's all a lie. It's a facade built on betrayal and deception and stolen songs and stolen dreams and stolen legacy.

Because Hector is really Miguel's ancestor. Hector is really the musical genius behind the tunes that Miguel so adores. Hector is the one who lost everything so that Ernesto could build his fame. his glory on top of Hester's quite literal tomb. And Ernesto is just, he's not just a big bad, you know, he is this really effective conduit for examining connection and understanding, deception and greed, seeing each other and ourselves more clearly because of what Miguel ultimately learns not only about the truth of who Ernesto Dela Cruz is, but who Hector is and what the ties that bind inside of his family and their musical legacy are. It is just the...

Yeah, the dangers of of hero worship. You know, like, celebrity, celebrity hero worship. Very good. Incredible Benjamin Brad performance. Big fan.

Big fan. Almost picked that one. Absolutely. Speaking of things we love. Most memorable love story. Okay. I think there's only two options here. And I think really there's only one option,

but like I would allow for the second option. Okay. What are the two? And then what's your pick? Okay. Okay. Well, it's, either the heartbreaking story of the couple and up.

Carl and Ellie. Yes. Or it's my pick, Wally and Eva. Yva. Wally and Eva are also my pick. Eva. I mean, what else is there to say? I mean, like, the fact that the, I don't know, is it, like, the first 20 minutes of Wally

are just, like, beeps and boops, maybe 30 minutes. I don't know. It's just, like, is incredible, incredible story. telling the fact that we understand this story that it transcends language. It's just and then that it like and then they go against their program. I mean, it's just a beautiful, beautiful story between two hunks a junk, one hunk of junk and one beautiful streamlined designed by Apple piece of equipment. It's got to be Wally and Eva.

I'm glad you agree. Tell me why you picked them. I picked Wally and Eva. Eva. Because I believe, and I mean this as sincerely as I've ever meant anything I've said on this podcast, but this is not just the most memorable Pixar love story, but one of the greatest love stories ever told. This is so beautiful and captivating.

This is a testament to the restorative power of love and even more broadly, companionship, the Earth sequence, sweet little Wally, after eons alone, watching movies, Hello Dolly, holding his own hand, and then finally experiencing this spark for himself, finally getting the chance after all of this yearning to share his life with someone else, the Star Dance, the Fire Extinguisher, what a moment. moment, what a sequence, what a snapshot of not only visual splendor, but what it is like to explore those early moments and early days of feeling like that need to entwine in ways both literal and figurative with somebody else. The Wally remembers sequence at the end? Oh my God,

like the feel of Eve's hand, Eva, in his, the literal and again figurative spark between their farheads. It's the only thing that can unlock his actual sense of self. This is a love so powerful that it can restore civilization, a love so captivating, so tender and pure, that it allowed two robots to show us what it really means to be human. What a story. I love you. I love that you, have you, have you written out these, like, beautiful answers that you have locked and loaded? I have, no, I mean, I have a couple notes and reminders. You know, I've got some, I've got some notes in a reminder. But I will tell you this, Wally and Eva was the single first picket for all of our categories.

I know it's, I know, but it's the way he says it. Because of the way he says it. Eva. Okay. From most memorable love story to best duo. Best duo of any sort. This actually, this answer came to me pretty quickly. little surprise. I actually, I also rewatched this one. I spot. I agonized over the story.

I saw rewatched some films for this. And I, and I rewatch this one because I think I hadn't seen it since I saw it in the theaters. It's 2001's Monsters Inc. So it's Mike and Sully. Two friends from work. Great one. Philly Crystal and John Goodman just yucking it up. I love the way that their energies complement each other. I love the way that their designs compliment each other. other. Just a fantastic, fantastic creations voiced perfectly by two completely different energy actors. And I just love, you know, like, Mike has his girlfriend. Like, he has a thing going on. But like, the real story here is Mike and Sully, most obviously. I don't know how much more to say. I think it's, I think their work speaks for themselves.

And I'm glad to have Monsters Inc. represented in here. So, Mike is. Me too. I'm glad we have, I'm glad we have monsters in the hall. that's a great one. I'm going to make my second Nemo pick of the pod. I'm going with Marlon and Dory, you know? Hey, Mr. Grumpy Gills. Now, like, of course, we love our darling Nemo. But the surprising partnership

that Marlon and Dory form is one of the truest heartbeats of this film and really, like, one of the lasting heartbeats across Pixar, I think, You know, Marlin, dear Marlin, overprotective, but well-intentioned. He's guided so fervently by his fear, you know, that his love and his worry as a result of that can sometimes feel suffocating and over a bearing, but he just wants to make sure that Nemo is okay. And then you have, you have Dory, who helps Marlon despite just meeting him. Doesn't have to do this, but sticks by his side as outlined in best side,

kick through all of that oceanic peril. And together, they're able to achieve what neither could have alone. And I think that's part of why they stand out to me for best duo, because they really do help each other achieve a goal. And it's not just, Joe. It's not just finding an email. They find something else. You know what they find?

Friendship. Is he as a friendship? Friendship. Partnership. A sense. A consequence. clear a sense of themselves, you know, the fish that they would be thanks to the time that they spent together, thanks to their journey together. You know, Dory tells Marlin at one point,

no one's ever stuck with me for so long before. And it makes you think, well, what if more people did that for each other? You know, what a wonderful team? It's enough to make me want to cry, except there's something sadder that I want to talk about. I'm concerned about our ability collectively to get through this next one, which I have to assume is the same pick for us. Saddest sequence. Sponsored by CleaX. It might be different actually. I don't know.

We'll see. It's close. It's really close for me. And I have to pick this one only because this is the movie that I rewatch more. So it's the one that I've cried to most often. So I think you might have a different answer. Anyway, mine is Miguel singing to Mama Coco, singing and remember me. I'm going to cry thinking about it.

It is a truly, truly, truly, truly beautiful moment for multiple characters at once for so many characters are going through it in that moment. Miguel is just such like a precious hero to follow through his journey and coming back to his family and understanding like how much he thought music was everything to him, but family is everything to him in the end. The way that his abuela, which she learns from that, just the very frail mama transformed to her childhood, like transported back. to her childhood, like, remembering what that means for Hector for her to remember,

not just logistically in that moment, but, like, emotionally overall, it's just, uh, I, buckets of tears. Oh, my God. That is, that is my moment. I, it's not my pick for this category, but it is my, I will just say it is my pick for an upcoming category. And that's, that's, that's part of why I went with something else here, but it's a, it's a top.

I think we're flip flops. because I bet your pick here is going to be my pick later, so go for it. Okay, I'm going to see if I can get through this without crying, and I don't think I can, but I'm going to do my best. My pick for saddest sequence in Pixar and in the running for saddest sequence and recorded human history, the opening 10 minutes of up. Up is one of my absolute favorite Pixar movies, the 2009 gem, Pixar's 10th film.

You know, so much in Op and so much of what we love about Up is defined by vibrancy, you know, color and action, by like what you stand to gain when you take a step out your front door or when you move your front door around the world before stepping out of me, you know, the shine of the balloons or like the burst of color of Kevin. Kevin's feathers. My dear Kevin, you know, the rushing phobin spray of Paradise Falls.

But before we, with Russell and Carl, can board our balloon house for our journey and head to the spirit of adventure and new, we learn in this anguish-inducing, so deeply touching and. wrenching sequence that the bedrock of up and the aspirational story that is so central about op you know this is this examination of unexpected connection newfound purpose it's not just laughter and cheer there are a lot of tears mixed into that foundation as well so so many tears carl and ellie their friendship their love their marriage their adventure their loss their life together in all that it encompassed. It is 10-ish minutes that I would argue stick with you more fully than almost any complete movie does.

I mean, it's just unbelievably lasting the memories of watching this for the first time and then the way that it can still awe you every time you return to it. You know, there's just like such charm and heart in this sequence, such an ability to graft their story onto any moment in your own life when you feel that little spark with someone, when you meet them, and you realize you have things in common and you want to try to do something,

build something together. You know, they've got their adventure book, their club, their dreams. But then there is so much heartache and despair. There is so much pain. The sequence, the stretch, captures an entire life in mere moments. The loss of a child.

The tucking away. of their coin jar, which had to be knocked into time and time again when the demands and the necessities of life warranted. And then it's just tucked away and forgotten in this little nook of their bookshelf and the moment when Ellie, who had always been first ahead, like, can't make it up the hill. And then I think most memorably and lastingly, like, it captures the way that dreams change over time because that change can be a gift. You think it could be a source of sadness and regret, but it is really a gift and beauty, like more profound than whatever you initially saw it. You know, there's just something like so heart-wrenching, of course,

about knowing that they didn't go to Paradise Falls, like they didn't make it. They didn't do it together. But that's ultimately dwarfed by realizing that they filled their pages is another way. And that, yes, that revelation comes in another sequence, but I consider it of a piece and part of this, you know, when Carl, who has been so consumed by his grief and by missing Ellie, and thinking about what they didn't do, what they didn't get to, what they didn't manage, sees that she filled the pages and realizes that even though things didn't go exactly according to their original plan, they went to a place that was full of meaning of a different variety than they could have ever anticipated. You know, it's all right there in the corner

the page. Thanks for the adventure. Now go have a new one. And so in those opening 10 minutes, which allow for that later moment to hit so hard, like, it's not, it feels so unfair to see them ripped away from each other like that. And you can't help but feel about like any loss that you have experienced in your own life or a person you might be afraid to lose. But it sticks so fully because it's not just ultimately about that despair. It's about like figuring out a way ultimately to find a way to fulfill a promise, a promise that you made to someone else and how that love can stay with you

and guide you even if the person that you shared it with is gone. It's just exceptional. Oh, what a movie. A great pick. It's so good. I love it. The next category.

No, I'm emotional. The next category is most memorable musical moment. mine is the opening 10 minutes of up so I'm just going to yes and everything you just said. Okay. Oh, that's a great one. Chiquino entirely in his bag for that one. I just have to hear it and I start crying.

Which is how I feel about the same about certain themes from the TV show lost. Chiquino could just do that to me. So yeah. Just yes and you. What's your most memorable musical moment? So my most memorable musical moment, I'm going back to Toy Story. here. This one just this was also one of the

first picks I jotted down. I just knew this was going to be I pick here. When Buzz falls, when he falls, and we hear I will go sailing no more. Obviously, like, the whole Toy Story soundtrack from Randy Newman is just, like, iconic, and, you know, you've got a friend and me is certainly the most famous

toy story song and the most awarded. You know, best original song. But the Buzz fall to I Will Go Sailing No More, something about that specific moment from that film just hits me the hardest and sticks with me the most. Like, no matter how many times I see Toy Story, that sequence just fucking wrecks me.

There's this existential on mooring for Buzz as he sees the Buzz Light Your commercial, clearly sees himself and has to confront the fact despite everything, you know, ignoring Woody and everything he's been saying for all this time. That's a toy in a commercial. But then he refuses still to believe it. And so he jumps and he tries to soar and he tries to fly.

You know, no, it can't be true. I could fly What to do And then he falls, Joanna, and he breaks And it is fucking devastating Devastating The dream that ended too soon

It's just such a key moment For buzz and for Toy Story overall The perfect lyrics, the perfect musical accompaniment to this like really, really really crucial seismic pivot point in the story I love it I love it

Best quote Okay, this might be influenced by TikTok, and in that case, I apologize, but I still want to do it. It's a very, very viral quote on TikTok. It goes like this, girls, come on, leave the saving of the world to the men. I don't think so. I don't think so. That is, Holly Hunter is Elastic Girl of the Incredibles. Incredible, incredible quote.

Big fan. I love it. This is, I'm going turning red here. I'm going with the... Yeah, I was so touched by the closing words from Mayme and Turning Red. Nothing stays the same forever. We've all got an inner beast. We've all got a messy, loud, weird part of ourselves hidden away.

And a lot of us never let it out. But I did. How about you? You know, that's just like, it's the perfect summation not only of May's journey inside of Turning Red and the perfect closing note for that movie, but like feels so true to so much of. of Pixar's mission, learning to embrace who you are. You know?

Like, that quote tells us it's okay to be different. It's okay to be unsure. It's okay to change and learn and grow. In other words, it's okay to be ourselves and to celebrate who we are, not just despite our differences, but because of them. It's just a great message. I loved it. And I thought that that line was wonderful and one that will carry with me.

And a little call to arms at the end of the movie there. Yeah, I really like that. Indeed. from words to visuals. This was another loaded category here. Most stunning visual. Okay, the origin of this category was Steve, our producer, suggested, like,

best hair moment. And I was like, well, the answer to that is just Meredith's hair. So can we make it, like, most stunning visual? But, like, then I feel bad that I didn't pick Meredith's hair. But I just want to shout out Meredith's hair, which is incredible achievement in animation, just one of the most beautiful things of every. seen ever, ever.

But it's not my answer. My answer is a little bit of a cheat. It's the Marigold Bridge and the Land of the Dead in Coco, that entire, I mean, the Marigold Bridge is gorgeous, but like the land of the dead, the way that they, I got a chance to, and I'm sure that there are like making of videos about this online, but I got a chance to go to Pixar and talk to a bunch of the people who made this film and they showed me how they made the lin of it, how you pile element upon element

upon element to give you this just sort of ram shackle you know, and they're like, they'll just show you, they're like, this is it completely unlit, this is before we added this, you know, so you just watch all the dimensionality and how you know, they went down to Mexico, they went to Oaxaca, they were inspired by

things that they saw down there to put into this beautiful, just like completely realized, lived in amazing world of the dead. And just like, what an honor that they did to this idea of where all your loved ones go and the rules of it and the ideas behind it and all of that. So I think the visual, just of, if I could send you one picture, I would and I can, but it's just like the land of the dead. That's it for me. How about for you?

I love it. That's a fantastic pick. I am going with the Great Beyond from Seoul. Similar vibes. Yes. So we've been. We've been. We've been drawn to something here. Also, I'm cheating by lumping in like an ensuing visual, but Joe's fall from the bridge to the Great Beyond. It's just, oh, my God, so mesmerizing. You know, I honestly never thought I would pick anything here other than Wally and Eva's

star dance, because I've always found that, like, so visually on-inspiring. But there's just something about the way that the Great Beyond was rendered and sold. really like kind of floored me in the moment and really stuck with me. There's like something really amorphous and unknowable about this depiction, which feels right. This like haziness and fuzziness, but also this like this bright quality that that draws the eye, draws you in but also repels you all at once. And it's this then there's this literal bridge moving you toward something that Joe desperately wants to avoid. And, you know, it should feel unknowable, but then it starts to feel over the course of the film and the course of the journey less scary. Like something that when you are ready, you could feel able to move toward.

And, you know, so I just really like that because it's not just the visual majesty of it, though it is incredibly and impeccably designed. But that thematic impact from the visual is just really memorable and impressive. I loved it. All right. Next up, Joe. Best parent Or parental figure Listen I think coming off of our discussion of turning red

Where we were talking about like complicated mother daughter relationships Plus I wanted to have some representation For our our favorite Scottish family We are going to give it to Emma Thompson's character in Brave Queen Eleanor She's doing her best She's not doing a great job

But she learns a lot in the end Yeah. And she has to do it being a bear. She's just really trying, okay, at the end of it all. I love it. And we like to see a parent on a journey. This is an amazing pick. Okay. Here's my onward pick. Onward, which, as you know, Joe, from our texting is a film that I only just watched last week for the first time ever. I had just never seen Onward. Let me tell you something. I loved it. I am going with a group here. Barley Lightfoot, Laurel Lightfoot, Wilden Lightfoot. in large part, just because of the amazing Lightfoot family bond and the lessons about parenthood and just guardianship and nurturing guidance that manifests and develop in so many surprising ways across the story, that was one of the real reasons that I love the movie. So Ian's dad loves his kids so much that he works a magical spell to ensure that they can spend just one more day with him. And Ian's mom is so supportive that she moves very quickly from like the pursuit that is

driven by fear and wanting to make sure the kids are okay to doing whatever she can to help them in their quest to help see this mission through. And then most movingly of all, Barley, Ian's big brother, deeply flawed, but always there. You know, I think that the most beautiful moment of Onward for me was when Ian is initially like scratching, like crossing off all of the items that he had made for his dad to do list and he didn't think he got to and he sort of resigned not achieving them. And then he realizes, wait a minute, I'm going to go for. from striking through to check in those boxes because I've done all these things with Barley.

Like Barley was that person for him in so many ways. It's just really, really lovely. What a great little movie. Speaking of parents, brings us to our next category. Most impressive, this is a, this is a Pixar staple. Most impressive works for the kids,

but really for the parents, generational bridge. Yeah. So sometimes this could be like a joke, right? Like a joke that has like a mature ring to it, but kids respond to it too. But I decided to go less joking, more seriously and say,

and this relates to the last category, everything Marlon is going through and finding Nemo. You know what you mean? Like, finding Nemo is a really, like, delightful, glorious adventure. You're following Nemo and the tank and there's all this fun stuff going on.

You've got Dory as the comic relief and all this stuff is going on with Dory. But Marlin's fear, which is born out of deep trauma that opens the movie, where he loses his wife and his entire crop of kids, and it's just Nemo,

and his like special little Finn left and his anxiety. Albert Brooks is a perfect actor to voice a neurotic, anxious parent. And so I think finding Nemo is something that works really, really well for kids. They love it. But when parents watch it, it's like on a whole different level.

We were talking to our colleague, Sean, about turning red. I felt money loved. And I think he would have liked regardless, but I think this is his first Pixar as, dad, a girl dad, you know? So like, he got to experience Pixar on that, on that other level this time. And I thought that was really interesting. I love that. Great one. My pick is just everything in Inside Out, all of which we've already talked about today. And I think, you know, this is true for a lot of different for Pixar movies, but feels particularly, like, particularly keen with Inside Out. It's about growing up and being a kid and confronting change. But for the adults, you know, you can watch it. And as you just noted, like, you can think about if you're a parent, your own children and what's going on in their lives and what you do or don't understand about their hearts and minds, or you could watch it and think back to your own youth

and your own life and everything that you've discovered and experienced and shared. It's just like this really profound and lasting coming of age tale. And it's it's not just about one person, really. It's not just about Riley. It's about the very nature of becoming a person. So this is, this is my pick here. For the parents, we're going back to the music. Best song. I'm not sure how this song is quite distinctive from the out of category, but maybe it's just a casual way for us to jam things in. But that being said, I picked score before. This time I picked a true bop.

It works as a breakaway sort of pop hit and also as an emotional closer to a movie. It is obviously remember me from Coco. This is also my pick. Of course, this is the pick. It works every time it's played. It's fantastic. Yeah, remember me. Can I tell you about a really special memory?

I was at D23, which is Disney's big, like, you know, like sort of Comic Con just for Disney fans. And I was covering the year that Coco came out. And they do, like, on-stage presentations to go with their announcements. And they had Benjamin Brat come out and sing, remember me, with dancers, bylay folklorico dancers, like, with their, like, beautiful skirts. And at the end of it, they just dropped tons of marigold petals, but probably just like orange confetti from the ceiling, like at the end of it. And it was just like one of the most magical things I've ever seen in my life. And then it's used in the film just over and over again is just a, it's a fantastic song. Remember me.

I'm of the feeling my one ding on Pixar films is that I genuinely believe that all animated films are better if they're musicals and very few Pixar films, if any, none are musicals. Coco, it comes closest. They were very insistent that it not be called a musical, but, you know, it's got, there's Poco, um Poco Loco, there's like a couple good songs in there. It's very musically inclined. It's about the power of music. It's one of the many things it's about it.

And, yeah, I mean, you know, remember me is just an all-timer. Musical masterpiece captures the love between parent and child, this animating fear of being forgotten. Obviously, this one, the best original song at the Oscars, written by Robert Lopez, Christian Anderson Lopez. I love how often it's used across the movie

and the ways that it evolves and changes over the course of the film. It's like inextricable from the plot of the movie and multiple character arcs. The song is one of the main characters in the movie as this through line across the generations,

across the family members, across their different experiences. And like it comes from Hector's very specific fears, but it's so universal in the emotions and themes that it highlights. And it just is like, so gripping and sad. And it would be just as a musical number in a vacuum, but when you build

toward that culminating moment that you already talked about earlier with Miguel singing to Mama Coco in front of his just disbelieving family, and then hearing Coco talk about remembering her father and understanding how all of the threads of the story can act in that moment, it is just so sad and so, so beautiful. I love it. Love it. Okay. You can listen to music and all sorts of places, including a place that you want to live. Best Pixar destination to live in. This is the perfect transition because there's a lot of like, I almost picked, no, mind, I'm going to get to that movie in a second.

So there's a lot of fantastical locations or whatever, but when I was thinking about where I really, really, really, really want to be, it's the, it's in the Italian Riviera. That's what I picked. Fuck yeah. Something I want to say when I watched Luca when it came out, I was on a trip to Cape Cod, actually, with a pal of mine. We were staying right on a lake. So we watched Luca and then we just like listen to Italian music on Spotify. Spotify didn't pay me to say that, but listen to just like nonstop Italian, like 60s Italian pop on on Spotify and then like splash around the lake for a week.

And it was just like the most immersive Luca experience. It's fantastic. So yeah. I love it. Based on Genoa, a vague Italian Riviera seaside town. Yes. The sea, the village, the architecture, the views, the food. Yeah, wonderful for seafood, of course.

You have this scrumptious pasta, Massimo, whipping it up every night, the gelato. Just a delight. You got the Vespas. We're in the most Vespa moment of our Star Wars existence, you know. Just great cats. I love to see cats chilling Machiavelli. He always knows what's up. Local competitions and traditions, you know, and then, of course, evolving habits,

like going from hunting sea monsters to embracing them. Seems like a grand place to be. Okay. There's nothing underrated about Puerto Rosa as a potential dwelling. But there are a lot of underrated things. You know, there's so much to adore and cheer. But what hasn't gotten its do, Joe?

What is the most underrated blank? This can be anything. It can be a movie, a character, an idea, whatever you want. There are, like, certain distinct eras of Pixar, as far as I'm concerned. Oh, yeah. There's like, I think when Finding Nemo, I think 2003 is when Pixar jumped up significantly in quality of storytelling and quality of visuals. There's like the sequel era, which I wasn't really fond of when they were doing a lot of rehashes of stories that they've already done, et cetera.

But in that first stretch, Toy Story to Monsters Inc. Or Toy Story to Finding Nemo is eight years. And there's only four movies in there. So there were like eight years of Pixar where we only had like really four movies to deal with. And I was an insufferable person as a youth. And I decided to love the Pixar film that nobody else loved. And so this is where I get to declare my love for a bug's life. Yes.

I hope we get a bug's life in here. Oh my God. Wonderful. I love a bug's life. I loved going around telling people a bug's life is my favorite Pixar movie, like an insufferable little jerk. But it's a really, really, really, really, really lovely film. Obviously, riffing on The Magnific Sixth Seven or a Seven Samurai. Like, it's a story we've seen before, but it's just like a beautiful little world.

I actually almost picked this world as the one that I would want to live in, like, to be a little bug among the giant leaves. Wonderful. That's so delightful. Yeah. So, yeah, I think this movie is unfairly maligned. I love this pick. This is a great one. I'm going character.

You know, we've brought up. brave a couple times today and talked about the problems, the challenges, the missteps. And so I think as a result of some of those, we don't talk about our gal mare enough, you know? Just like lost a time a little bit in a way that I think is just a bummer and unfortunate. And I wish that she was more centrally a part of everybody's shared Pixar experience. That's my pick. What do you think? She deserves more. She deserves more. I completely agree with you. I, like, of all the, you know, as much as I said, I didn't like Pixar sequels, I would take a Brave 2 so I could get like another, a do-over. That would be great. I would love that. Adventure with Merida. Kelly McDonald's icon. Great, great. Great hair, great voice. Great time. Brave. I love it. Okay. Next. This is near a year of my heart. Okay. This is for you, obviously. So I had to like Google Pixar merch. because I'm not a merch person.

So I had to look around and see what was available to be like, what would I want maybe ever? Meanwhile, I have multiple pieces of merch visibly behind me on Zoom right now. Yeah, niftiest merch. What's your pick? Based on my Googling. Not based on what you have behind you. There is a, there's like an RC Wally that I would have like died for as a kid.

Like a little Wally. that I get to drive around and, like, make sounds? Yes. So, remote control Wally. I love that. And I think it might be, it was a real missed opportunity. So my understanding is that they got Johnny Ive, who is an Apple, like the Apple design king designer, to help design Eve. But I think it was a real miss for Apple to not do some sort of, like, branded Eve, something.

Something really cool that looks like Eve. There isn't anything really, really cool that looks like Eve. it's just like you can get an Eve. And I'm like, okay. But like, will she play music for me? Like, can she do something? Instead of saying like, you know, hey Alexa, can I say, hey, Eve? Like, play me Italian pop from the 1960s?

You're on to something here that connects a lot of these all-of-fame entries. Great one. Thanks. All right, what's your merch? Okay. So we're going to very quickly bring people behind the Ring ofverse House of Art Curtain here. Because I'm going to tell you what my original pick was. and then I'm going to tell you what I changed my pick to.

My original pick was just everything from Toy Story. I have multiple Toy Story figurines behind me. As you can see, they're quite large. Hysterically, my husband Adam got these for me a few years ago as a gift and thought they were tiny, like, tiny, like almost pop doll size and they are gigantic. So I just love to think about that, hysterical. I think that the reason I was so drawn to picking the Toy Story ones is obvious, right?

Like there's that meta level in addition to just to being cool merch of what if the Toy Story toys that you bought from Toy Story came to life and became the toys from Toy Story? Wonderful to contemplate. But, and here's where we bring people behind the curtain. We did not tell each other our picks show,

but we did both reveal to each other a concern about not having anything from cars. And Jomey was not happy. When it looked like there might not be anything from cars, Joby was dismayed. And so here it is. I'm going with cars for merch because there's a lot of really dope merch

from cars and I actually love cars and I love merch and I'm a big F1 head though that's a more recent development in my life after binging all of F1 drive to survive over the last month and a half and now I'm a huge McLaren fan and I just only care about F1 so that's a new development I just thought I'd mention it while we were talking about cars did you see the vanity oh I saw I don't miss anything with my guy Danny Rick in it all right so that's my pick so that you know is that is that is that a good pick satisfactory That works for me. Lightning McQueen model car?

What's not to love? I think Arjuna said that the cars are the most lucrative franchise for Pixar because they sell endless merch for them. Joe, merch is no laughing matter. But the funniest joke might be. What do you got? All right. We'll see how this goes. Are you ready?

Yeah. Meta Man, Express Elevator. Dina Guy. snag on takeoff, splash down, sucked into a vortex. No capes. Wow. Wow. And the mode. No capes. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. That is, uh, that's phenomenal. That's incredible. I'm impressed and I'm proud and I'm laughing. It's a great one. Mine is not a line. It is a cosmic explanation. I'm going with the Nick's curse joke in Seoul, which is iconic in a real, like, ringer, van diagram of sports and pop culture interests.

Correct. Kemp Powers, a writer of Soul, lifelong Nix fan. This was his genius doing, and he tweeted this when the film came out in December 2022, quote, for all those asking, yes, I'm responsible for that Nix joke in at Pixar Soul. I'm a diehard lifelong Nix fan, despite their enormous payroll. Last time they won a championship was in 1973 the year I was born. think I earned the right to make that joke.

I just love that. Like, the idea for Nix fans that they are cosmically doomed to fail because of 22's Tom Fullery and the Great Before, just delicious. Killed me. Speaking of delicious, that brings us to tastiest looking fictional food. We already mentioned it. I mean, there are some great options. Obviously, we haven't mentioned the foodiest Pixar film yet, but I'm not going to do it.

I am. I am. I am. So I'm going to go with Gin Lee's incredible. Meals and turning red. I mean, I'm sorry. Maybe it's recency bias, but it just looked so good. I could not possibly turn it down.

I love it. Are you going to take us to France, Mallory? I had to go with Remy's Rattitouy and Rattitoui. I mean, it's Remy's crowning achievement. This is a great place to just honor our guy Remy and honor Rattitoui. A great Pixar movie that I love. I just couldn't, I couldn't not pick it here. Not even Antoneigo can stand in the way of honoring this Rattatooie here.

Oh, Joe, when you're going out on the town to dine, you need to think about what you're wearing. And that brings us to best fit. Like, listen, Anton Ego's Black Turtileck is aspirational, aspirational, but I have to just skip back a couple answers to provide my answer here, which is, of course, anything Edna Mode wears. Everything, anything, end of mode. How can you beat it? This is my general pick, too, which is just everything. fashion-centric and fit-centric in The Incredibles. Like, of course.

Edna is an icon. Darling. Darling. Tough-to-top matching family superhero threads, and then also being a complete fashion plate yourself, just all-time stuff from Edna. You know, they look great. The suits that she makes for the supers.

They look great. They're functional, strong branding, unity. These fits do it all. Gotta be. Got to be. Got to be the Edna-centric pick here. Had to be.

Okay. Next. I feel like we might have the same one here, but maybe not. The figure from all of Pixar you'd most want to adopt. But like aren't... Okay. I figured that maybe Mallory would do an animal. Correct.

So I did a person. Okay. You figured correctly. But I have a backup animal. I have a backup animal. I have a animal. Yeah. My person is kind of...

It's kind of silly because he's already been adopted and adopted beautifully. But just in case, as a backup, I would also like to offer to adopt Elbert. and, you know, we can go fishing and make pasta and, uh, etc. and race vespas and do whatever. So yeah, Alberto from Luca. Great one. Great one. I love that pick.

I'm going with Doug from up. Oh, I was going to say Kevin from up. Sweet Bubba Doug, my darling little golden retriever who can talk and have full conversations thanks to his special caller. Now you know one of my staunch beliefs is that animals can talk even if they're not speaking English. But it would just be an honor to. spend this time with Doug, it would be an honor to rescue him from Charles Munce's hellscape.

You know, Doug is so sweet, he's so loving, he's just a very good boy. This was an easy one for me. Love him. He's someone I want to be with. But our next category is, who do you want to be? Who is the character you most want to be from all of Pixar? You are Elastical. Like, how can you beat?

Like, who else would you want to be but Elastogar? She's the best. Obviously. No count. No, no contest. How about you? So I think on the one hand, the great lesson of Pixar is, you know, finding comfort with and learning to embrace who you are. So I think maybe Pixar movies would want me to reject this question and pick myself. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to also make an incredible pick. I'm going Vi. Yeah. Superhero. You give strong vibes. Thank you. I think we've also unlocked something about our dynamic here. Expect of answers. No, you know, invisibility, force fields, part of a superhero family. This is just, this is great. You know what, though? I have to say this is hard because I also really want to be a sea monster from Luca. It's up there. And I, you know, I want to be able to live

both on the land and in the sea. This is really hard. You did an incredible spick, so maybe I'm going to switch in real time. I'm going to go with a sea monster from Luca. Love it. I love this for you. Okay, we are down to two. Most important filmmaker. Okay, so I just wanted to take a moment. I could do a whole podcast about this, but I want to shout out sort of like an underrated figure at Pixar. There's like only a few. There's not a ton.

You know, if you lay out all the directors, you see the same name as crop up over and over again. You get Brad Bird, you get Pete Doctor, you know, Leon Critch, blah, blah, but I want to shout out Andrew Stanton, who I believe is responsible for injecting. Joe, this is my pick too. Is your pick two? Yeah.

So just go ahead, yeah. injecting the emotionality into the Pixar films. Finding Nemo, which is the first film that he's credited as the director on, even though we had done a ton of script work on previous Pixar films, he wrote about his kid, about being a dad and the fears of being a dad. Toy Story 3, he wrote about his kid going to college. There's a great TED talk that he did called 2 Plus 2 Equal Storytelling, and it's about showing the audience half and having them fill in the other half

So I'm basically not underestimating your audience. And there's this great quote from him that I love that goes set out to invoke wonder. It's the secret sauce. So, like, Lasseter is the head of Pixar. Peter Dick, Dr. Pete Doctor, who's fantastic, took over for John Lasseter, blah, blah, but I think Anderson might be like the beating heart of Pixar. And since we talk so much about Pixar and emotionality, I just wanted to give him some love. Plus, I believe he's also the voice of crush.

One of my favorite picks our characters. So there you go. It's a wonderful pick, and you summed it up perfectly. And that brings us to our final category in the hall. Best picture. Best movie. Okay, can I guess yours really quickly? Really quickly.

Is it up? It's not, but that's number two on my list. Okay. Do you want to try to guess mine? Is it Coco? It is Coco. Amazing. Coco is also in my top five.

mine's Wally. Wally, of course. I wanted to put this one at the end because I didn't want people, anyway, I thought maybe hearing all the clues leading up, we might be able to figure it out. You pieced mine together. I missed all the clues for Wally. No, I mean, ups number two. You came pretty close.

So why Coco? Why does Coco take the top crown? I think it is the use of music, the, like, beautiful afterlife world, but also just like a beautiful culture of Mexico and Oaxaca. It was just like a place I lived for a little while and just the idea of family. And I love Miguel and I like, Gael is a huge love of mine. So Hector, I think is a great character. So yeah, it's got to be Coco for me. I love it. It's a great pick. Such a wonderful movie. Mine is Wally. My favorite Pixar movie. Just a classic and enduring story about the power of connection. My favorite thing to explore its

stories. You know, I think it's a, it's a harrowing film at times, a harrowing reminder of how we can really lose ourselves and lose our way. But it's also this like empowering and inspiring story of unwavering commitment and belief. And I find that so heartening. And as mentioned earlier, one of the greatest love stories ever told, visually stunning, just an incredible auditory achievement, Ben Burt, full of iconic characters and moments. We already talked about a lot of them today. You know, Wally watching Hello Dolly and like holding his own hand. Wally spending all of that time by Eve's side as she powers down. Wally and Eve at the Fire Extinguisher Star Dance. You know, it is just one of the most deeply human stories despite starring robots that Pixar

has ever gifted us with it is just about, I think, curiosity, which is another reason I'm really drawn to it and perseverance. And, you know, loneliness and longing, but how those things don't have to define your entire existence, how they can be fleeting if you, if you're fortunate enough to find that spark and that new hope and that new purpose, even in a literal trash heap of despair, Joanna, you know, you remember it is, it is just never too late. Twenty, twenty-two vibes, my friend. I know, it's never too late. It's never too late to try to rebuild and repair and remember that we're, you know, stronger together than we are, than we are alone. It's just, I think Wally is very much about the way that time changes us,

but because of that, it just feels like timeless to me. I just, I think it's like a modern masterpiece of classic. Wally, welcome to the hall. Oh my God, this was fun. I loved it. This was a joy. Now I want to go rewatch all 25 movies. Well, friends, we're going to make it, Bing Bong.

We did it. That's a wrap on today's episode. Thank you to our Mr. Incredible, Steve Allman, for producing this episode. Our Space Ranger, Arjuna Ram Gapal, offers additional production work on this episode, and our Lightning McQueen, Jomea Denneron,

for his devotion to cars and for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, The Midnight Boys will be back on Wednesday. Until then, take her to the moon for us, okay? Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label.

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