Before Pixar started making feature films, most animated kids’ movies, though beloved by children, were insufferable for adults. Parents sat through snooze-fest cartoons, enduring them solely for their kids’ sake.
Pre-Pixar kids’ movies told simple stories often based on fairytales, featuring cartoonishly evil villains, flawless heroes, and plenty of agonizing musical numbers.
When Toy Story was released in 1995, a new era of children’s entertainment was born, more aptly called “family entertainment.” Now, to the delight of parents, here was a movie they could not only sit through but enjoy—some even watched it without kids.
Toy Story broke all the Disney rules for an animated movie. It featured complex and conflicted characters, it took place in the modern day instead of a fairytale reality, and it had no musical numbers.
There was something else Pixar movies offered, starting with Toy Story and continuing with almost every project since: layers.
Pixar movies feature character relationships, situations, and humor that work on different layers for different audiences. The depth of the storytelling goes beyond what children need. It’s there for the adults. An easy way to spot Pixar’s layers is in the jokes:
• “Laser envy” in Toy Story. Kids think it’s funny that Woody is jealous of Buzz’s laser. Adults appreciate the Freudian wordplay and subtext.
• Harryhausen’s restaurant in Monster’s Inc. Kids think it’s a funny name for a restaurant in Monstropolis, a wordplay joke about a “hairy house.” Adults remember pioneering animator Ray Harryhausen’s thrilling monster movies from their youth.
• The sharks’ Fishaholics meeting in Finding Nemo. Kids get the character irony of sharks trying not to eat fish. Adults get the AA-meeting analogy.
Creating layers in entertainment is extremely difficult to do, which is why most movies for kids still don’t do it, despite Pixar’s meteoric success.
Could your work benefit from layers? Try some!
Both my screenplay and my pilot aim to do both!
Always a great goal in adding layers in stories and humor. As far as current animation for kids goes, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish knocks it out of the park on all levels of storytelling and humor.
And prior to Pixar, one of the greatest "kids" movies was Time Bandits - hard to beat Monty Python for kids. Gilliam and Palin had the credo for the movie - "Exciting enough for adults and intelligent enough for children". I strived to do that in the kids stuff I created, but alas "Hollywood" didn't want that, so I'm done with it.