This is reflected in composer David Newman’s extraordinary score which is unlike the score for any other animated film I’ve ever seen and a perfect fit for the atmosphere director and screenwriter Jerry Rees has gone for. It sounds like a fairly standard, kiddy film concept but The Brave Little Toaster actually turns out to have dark, melancholy atmosphere constantly bristling beneath its brightly rendered surface. Sick of waiting in false hope for his return, the appliances decide to set out on a journey to the city to track their master down. Disch, The Brave Little Toaster follows the adventures of five outdated appliances who have been abandoned by their “master” in his family’s former home, a country cabin.
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Consequently, the animation has a cheap TV look to it but this is rendered entirely superfluous by the ample charm, energy and wit that characterises everything about The Brave Little Toaster.īased on the novel of the same name by Thomas M. Disney backed the film by purchasing the television and video rights and Hyperion managed to gain further backing from a couple of other investors but the film went into production with a budget of only $2.3 million, compared to an average of $24 for Disney animated features of the time and about $12 million for Don Bluth films. The Brave Little Toaster is an indie film in the truest sense, produced against the odds but with a creative freedom that would doubtless have been reduced by studio interference. But given the so-so drear that constitutes most of Disney’s 80s output, I am forever grateful that the cult classic The Brave Little Toaster was taken out of their hands. Not until 1989 would Disney pull itself out of this rut, with a renaissance that began with The Little Mermaid and peaked with the realease of one of the studios most beloved classics, the breathtaking The Lion King. However, during the 80s Disney was going through something of a creative slump, producing lacklustre efforts like The Black Cauldron and Oliver and Company, and they were being significantly outperformed commercially and critically by independent productions, chiefly the early work of Don Bluth ( The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail). I should say at this point that I am a HUGE Disney fan. Their rejection of The Brave Little Toaster also meant that it was taken instead to the independent Hyperion Pictures and made into an infinitely more charming, energetic and original production than would have been produced under Disney. Their termination of Lasseter allowed him to pursue his interest in computer animation by setting up Pixar, a company who would eventually go on to make some of the greatest animated films of all time and put Disney’s contemporary output completely in the shade.
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That man was John Lasseter and that movie was The Brave Little Toaster.Īlthough this story immediately provokes a feeling of outrage, animation fans like myself have a lot to thank Disney for. The executives felt so strongly about this that a few minutes after the meeting they informed one of the employees that his job had been terminated. They took their idea to two high-level Disney executives who dismissed it on the grounds that it would be too costly. Once upon a time, two Disney animation employees had the idea of making an animated film using computer generated 3D backgrounds. Starring: Deanna Oliver, Jon Lovitz, Thurl Ravenscroft, Phil Hartman