The Brave Little Toaster/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Executive Meddling: Minimal but meddling did make John Lasseter walk off the project.
    • To be more precise: The film was supposed to have a proper theatrical release, and was the first animated film ever at Sundance, where it received rave reviews. It was destined to be a box office film for the Summer of 1987. when Disney bought the film, and intended to use it for their newly created Disney Channel. It was buried by the channel, and made it ineligible for Oscar nominations such as Best Original Score or Best Song. It then hobbled around the festival circuit, unable to find a distributor (thanks, Disney!), but it never found an audience til it was released on VHS, uncut and un-Bowdlerised. Lasseter remembers being thoroughly angry at the film's lack of a theatrical release.
    • In the documentary 'The Pixar Story', Lasseter states that this movie was intended to use some early form of computer animation, but because executives at the time could not see the purpose(if it neither "made things faster or cheaper"), it was shelved. Furthermore, Lasseter was promptly let go afterwards, which let to his hiring later at Pixar.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Thurl Ravenscroft (Tony The Tiger and "Mr. Grinch" singer) as Kirby.
  • No Budget: This film was made on a budget of $2.3 million, which was modest even for animated films at the time.
  • Non-Singing Voice: Remember that song in 'Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars'? The song 'I See a New You' was supposed to have been sung by the Toaster. It wasn't.
  • The Other Darrin: Jon Lovitz didn't return for the sequels, so Roger Kabler became the voice for Radio.
  • Shrug of God: The gender of most of the appliances.
  • Vindicated by Cable
  • What Could Have Been: Imagine if John Lasseter had been able to make this film as the first(?) to combine hand-drawn elements and CGI? Sadly, the idea was deemed not cost-effective enough and the tech wasn't quite there yet.