Pixar's unprecedented string of hit animated features was built on the short
films in this collection. John Lasseter and Ed Catmull used these cartoons the
way Walt Disney used the "Silly Symphonies" during the 1930s: as a training
ground for artists and a way to explore the potential of a new medium. Although
it's only 90 seconds long, "Luxo, Jr." (1986) ranks as the "Steamboat Willie" of
computer animation: For the first time, audiences believed CG characters could
think and feel. (It was also the first CG film to make audiences laugh.) When
the artists began work on Toy Story, they had learned so much from the
shorts, they were ready to undertake that landmark creation. In the later
shorts, the viewer can see the artists continuing to experiment: with a more
realistic human figure in "Geri's Game" and with new ways of suggesting
atmospheric effects in "Boundin'."
