Luke wrote:wdwleesa wrote:Does anyone know if The Brave Little Toaster series are true Disney animation or some other studios animation and put out under the Disney banner? You know, like the Japanese anime that came out this year?
I think the first one was made by a production company other than Disney, and had only limited theatrical engagements. Disney picked it up and premiered it on the Disney Channel and took over video distribution rights.
They might have some creative impact over the sequels, as they distributed them to home video from the get-go, but again, animation (and most of the story) would have come from elsewhere.
I believe it was done by Hyperion/Kushner Pictures and Disney only picked up the video distribution rights after the producers failed to strike a deal with distributors and eventually it aired on the Disney Channel in 1987 before it's initial theatrical release. Several of the animators who worked on this film actually ended up at pixar in later years. The animators had pushed it at Disney, as did Tom Wilhite, who eventually ended up leaving Disney and producing the film himself. Wilhite is the unsung hero who actually STARTED the Disney animation renaissance, BEFORE Katzenberg and Eisner and Wells arrived. He recruited new talent and oiled up the mentoring program again. He also embraced and encouraged a young Tim Burton, giving him extra studio money to do special projects. Wilhite founded Hyperion Films, an homage to Walt in the name... The original idea with Toaster, based on the book, was that everything would have these shiny, metallic surfaces, perfect for the computer's capabilities at that time. Disney was afraid of the price tag, new territory, and the story, frankly, wasn't quite there. Plus, when it was pushed at Disney, they were still terribly understaffed and were being very selective about what went into development for animation. Wilhite loved the book enough that he was able to grab the film rights (a process called "Turnaround" where a studio gives up rights to a project) and because of limited budget and the fact that a computer-driven movie would be scary territory (it had only been a few years since TRON was completed) the film was animated, mostly overseas, but with lead animators who were ex-Disney. Many, like Randy Cartwright, went back, and a few, as mentioned earlier, went to Pixar.
I wanted to get some but never had any money and still don't... I plan on getting the Donald one hopefully.
