New episode of A Good Story Well Told about The Brave Little Toaster, featuring Betsy Bird!
Jonathan Auxier and I welcome my legendary wife Betsy to discuss one of the weirdest movies ever made, Disney's direct-to-video epic The Brave Little Toaster. Is it oddly great, or just greatly odd?
Being the gigantic geek that I am, I saw this movie in the theaters when it came out. I noticed that it was on the schedule of Cinema Village in NYC, an art house theater that was more prone to showing Bergman and cutesy animated features, so I was intrigued. And not disappointed. My take has always been that if you can muscle past the first 10 minutes of the syrupy sweet exposition that falsely lures you in, you’re in for a wild survivalist tale.
I’ll agree that this movie would have definitely been more kid friendly if it had used toys instead of appliances, and I think it reveals a flaw in the producing because this movie was unclear about its target audience from the outset. But for me as an adult, it didn’t matter because the themes for me are about memories and rejection here. I remember watching this and being gripped by the notion throughout that while these appliances are clearly devoted to the boy, there is no evidence throughout their journey that the boy will even remember that the appliances existed. So for me, their being appliances works because of the underlying risk that their entire journey may be futile in the end even if they succeed.
In case you haven’t seen it, look for “Raggedy Ann and Andy: The Musical” for another film that inspired Toy Story. For me, it has some of the greatest music ever put to film. And it’s light years more peculiar than even “…Toaster”
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Fun and illuminating conversation.
ReplyDeleteBeing the gigantic geek that I am, I saw this movie in the theaters when it came out. I noticed that it was on the schedule of Cinema Village in NYC, an art house theater that was more prone to showing Bergman and cutesy animated features, so I was intrigued. And not disappointed. My take has always been that if you can muscle past the first 10 minutes of the syrupy sweet exposition that falsely lures you in, you’re in for a wild survivalist tale.
I’ll agree that this movie would have definitely been more kid friendly if it had used toys instead of appliances, and I think it reveals a flaw in the producing because this movie was unclear about its target audience from the outset. But for me as an adult, it didn’t matter because the themes for me are about memories and rejection here. I remember watching this and being gripped by the notion throughout that while these appliances are clearly devoted to the boy, there is no evidence throughout their journey that the boy will even remember that the appliances existed. So for me, their being appliances works because of the underlying risk that their entire journey may be futile in the end even if they succeed.
In case you haven’t seen it, look for “Raggedy Ann and Andy: The Musical” for another film that inspired Toy Story. For me, it has some of the greatest music ever put to film. And it’s light years more peculiar than even “…Toaster”
Never heard of it-- Light years more peculiar than this movie is a hard bar to clear! Glad you enjoyed this conversation.
ReplyDelete