![]() The acting is terrible, the script is soggy, but it has a ridiculous earnestness that's earned Banks a legion of younger fans. Let's stick with the Disney theme and look at another generation-defining Disney hit that hasn't landed on its streaming platform: Life-Size.įor millennials around Lindsay Lohan's age (35) and younger, this story-about a motherless child (Lohan) who successfully performs reincarnation magic but on the wrong target, accidentally bringing her doll (Tyra Banks) to life-is a legit Camp classic. I think it's well past time to expose and traumatize a whole new generation to this freaky movie. Both are on Disney+, but the original film-now heavily associated with Pixar-didn't get the streaming treatment. Disney then released two follow-ups: The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars and The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue. Lasseter took the concept to Hyperion Pictures, which later released it as an independent production to positive reception. Maybe some of that has to do with its history: Lead animator John Lasseter originally pitched Brave Little Toaster as a computer-animated feature to Disney, which upset a studio executive so much that he fired Lasseter within minutes. Still, it's one of the most successful Disney-owned films not to appear on the corporation's streaming platform, Disney+. ![]() Things picks up with the introduction of the computer Wittgenstein who has a good song Chomp and Munch, while the middle of the film has a modestly sweet plot about the search to retrieve the radio valve for Wittgenstein, along with Radio’s saddening sacrifice.What about The Brave Little Toaster creeped me out so much as a child that I avoided it for years before rewatching it this week? Is it because it's about inanimate objects and their perilous journey from a countryside cabin to a big brutal city? Or maybe that strange clown sequence? That MURDEROUS junkyard scene that has Toaster throwing his body into the gears of another machine? The fact that these cuties experience extreme existential crises? There's so much in this kid's movie that seems too grave for kids. Although this tends to lead to a rather bizarre view of anthropomorphic appliances – computers and fax machines that act like dancing dogs, the apparent inter-connectedness of all electrical systems, and the notion that a computer virus is something that infects a computer with old age. Now in has come the idea of updating The Brave Little Toaster to incorporate the changes wrought by the internet era. As such, these early scenes prove somewhat banal. There is a hissable villain, songs, a contrived rescue plot and a host of talking animals that have to be saved from being sent to their fate in experimentation labs. The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue conforms a good deal more to the standard children’s animation formula than The Brave Little Toaster did. ![]() Toaster (voiced by Denna Oliver) and Ratso the Rat (voiced by Andy Milder) Both were filmed back-to-back, employing several of the voice talents from the original in the same continuing parts. The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue was the first of the Brave Little Toaster sequels produced by Kushner-Locke and was followed by The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (1997). Although it was not a financial success, it clearly gained enough popularity in subsequent video release to spawn a series of direct-to-video sequels nearly a decade later, a la the likes of other animated films such as An American Tail (1986), The Land Before Time (1988) and almost all of Disney’s back product during this period. The Brave Little Toaster (1987), an animated picaresque concerning a group of talking appliances, was a delightful and charming children’s adventure.
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