''Knick Knack'' is a 1989 American
computer-animated
Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes ( still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refe ...
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
produced by
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californi ...
that was written and directed by
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter (; born January 12, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, voice actor, and the head of animation at Skydance Animation. He was previously the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, ...
. The short is about a snow globe snowman who wants to join the other travel souvenirs in a summer-themed party. However, the glass dome that surrounds him prevents him from doing so, thus leading to his many attempts to break out of his
snow globe
A snow globe (also called a waterglobe, snowstorm, or snowdome) is a transparent sphere, traditionally made of glass, enclosing a miniaturized scene of some sort, often together with a model of a town, neighborhood, landscape or figure. The sphe ...
. ''Knick Knack'' is Pixar's fourth short and the final short produced during the company's tenure as a hardware company.
The short stands out from Lasseter's other early short films at Pixar in its reliance on pure comedy to drive the story. It was inspired by ''
Tom and Jerry
''Tom and Jerry'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series c ...
'', ''
Looney Tunes
''Looney Tunes'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series ''Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation. '', and the work of animators
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, director, and painter, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of shorts. He wrote, produ ...
and
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, animation director, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American a ...
. Lasseter and his wife, Nancy, collected snow globes and also enjoyed souvenirs from distant places and those elements made their way into the short as well. Singer
Bobby McFerrin
Robert Keith McFerrin Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is an American folk and jazz singer. He is known for his vocal techniques, such as singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in pitch—for example, sustaining a melody while also rap ...
improvised the
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
vocal jazz soundtrack to the film while watching a rough cut which was eventually left unchanged in its final edition.
''Knick Knack'' premiered at the 1989
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference on computer graphics (CG) organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH, starting in 1974. The main conference is held in North America; SIGGRAPH Asia ...
convention in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and was presented in
3D. The short has enjoyed positive reviews since its debut and has been screened as a part of numerous film festivals.
Plot
On a bookshelf filled with
vacation-themed souvenir
A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...
s, a lonely knick-knack named Knick the Snowman (who is
Frosty the Snowman
"Frosty the Snowman" is a popular Christmas song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950 and later recorded by Jimmy Durante. It was written after the success o ...
's cousin, according to the audio commentary), who resides in a
Nome, Alaska
Nome (; ik, Sitŋasuaq, ) is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of Alaska, United States. The city is located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. It had a population of 3,699 recorded ...
snow globe, wants to reach a female "Sunny
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
" knick-knack that shows an attractive blonde and tanned pool-lounger, wearing a blue two-piece swimsuit with sunglasses. Knick tries several unsuccessful methods to break out of the globe, which includes ramming the glass with the snow globe's igloo backdrop, using his carrot nose and a hammer on the glass, using a jackhammer (which causes his facial features to fall off), trying to cut the glass using a blowtorch and an igniter, and detonating
TNT
Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...
explosives. The latter causes the globe to fall over the edge. Knick notices an emergency exit in the base and frees himself just before he and the globe fall into a fishbowl. Here Knick sees an identical
mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaids are sometimes asso ...
souvenir from "Sunny
Atlantis
Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...
" and starts gawking at her, this only backfires when he attempts to run towards her, the globe settles to the bottom and traps him again, much to his annoyance.
Background
In 1988, Pixar's third short film, ''
Tin Toy
''Tin Toy'' is a 1988 American computer-animated short film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter. The short film, which runs five minutes, stars Tinny, a tin one-man band toy, attempting to escape from Billy, an infant. The third sho ...
'', won the
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
for
Best Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards (with different names), covering the year ...
, the first computer-animated film to claim the award. It was also the first win for the hardware company, which was still struggling to sell its main product: the Pixar Image Computer. The key animator and director behind ''Tin Toy'', John Lasseter, had once worked at
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
several years prior but was fired by unknowingly stepping on his superiors' toes with his support for computer animation. Now, Disney took notice of the Oscar win for ''Tin Toy'' and began a campaign to win Lasseter back.
[Price, p. 106]
Lasseter turned the studio's offer for a directorial position down, remarking to Pixar co-founder
Ed Catmull
Edwin Earl "Ed" Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist who is the co-founder of Pixar and was the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics (computer sci ...
, "I can go to Disney and be a director, or I can stay here and make history."
[Price, p. 107] Jeffrey Katzenberg
Jeffrey Katzenberg (; born December 21, 1950) is an American filmmaker, animator, and media proprietor. He became well known for his tenure as chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1994. After departing Disney, he was a co-founder and CE ...
, the then-head of
Walt Disney Studios, had a reputation for being difficult and controlling. In contrast, Lasseter received complete creative freedom at Pixar's small animation division and was highly respected by his colleagues.
In addition to capturing Disney's interest, Pixar owner
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
' interest in the animation group was invigorated, and he approved production of another short.
Production
After the headaches of animating Billy the baby in ''Tin Toy'', Lasseter backed away from depicting human characters. The team all agreed to do something simpler that would not "drive us all crazy," according to producer Ralph Guggenheim.
When watching ''
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' is a 1988 American live-action/animated comedy mystery film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts, and loosely adapted by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman from Gary K. Wolf's 1 ...
'' during the production of ''Tin Toy'', Lasseter became inspired to create a
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, director, and painter, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of shorts. He wrote, produ ...
-type of cartoon. Rather than challenge the limitations of the computer as they had done in the previous shorts, the animators wanted to make a short based on geometric shapes instead, which was a strength of the computer. In a discussion with the group, Lasseter brought up famed
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
and
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
director
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, animation director, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American a ...
, noting that his cartoons were wild and exuberant, yet not necessarily very complex. Lasseter collected snow globes and also enjoyed souvenirs from distant places; from those elements, ''Knick Knack''—the only pure comedy among Lasseter's early short films at Pixar—began to fall into place.
The rest of the team were also fans of ''
Tom and Jerry
''Tom and Jerry'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series c ...
'' cartoons and the work of Chuck Jones and found the idea of cartoonish violence appealing.
Animator Flip Phillips and production coordinator Deirdre Warin simultaneously hit on the idea of the snow globe falling into a fishbowl. Craig Good came up with the idea of an "iris out," a shrinking circle at the close, as a reference to ''
Looney Tunes
''Looney Tunes'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series ''Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation. ''.
[Price, p. 108] A skeleton on the shelf in the short was a 3D model from an
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
skeleton data set called George, though the Pixar team stretched George's arms for comic effect.
Also distorted were the two female characters—the bikini-attired woman and a mermaid—whose breasts were ultra-exaggerated thanks to a technical director who was a
pinup
A pin-up model (known as a pin-up girl for a female and less commonly male pin-up for a male) is a model whose mass-produced pictures see widespread appeal as part of popular culture. Pin-up models were variously glamour models, fashion models ...
enthusiast.
The singer
Bobby McFerrin
Robert Keith McFerrin Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is an American folk and jazz singer. He is known for his vocal techniques, such as singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in pitch—for example, sustaining a melody while also rap ...
created the musical soundtrack and
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
vocal jazz
Vocal jazz or jazz singing is an approach to jazz using the voice.
Vocal jazz emerged in the early twentieth century, with its roots in Blues. Popular blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey had a great deal of influence of jazz vocalis ...
track which he improvised while watching a rough cut of the film. As the rough cut ended, the placeholder credits read ''blah-blah-blah-blah'', so he sang those words and it remained in the film's score.
McFerrin did the score for free out of a belief that the film was cool to be involved with.
Gary Rydstrom
Gary Roger Rydstrom (born June 29, 1959) is an American sound designer and film director. He has been nominated for 20 Academy Awards for his work in sound for movies, winning 7.
Life and career
Rydstrom was born in Chicago. He graduated from t ...
of
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the ''Star Wars'' and ' ...
created the sound effects for the short.
Release and later re-releases
''Knick Knack'' premiered at the 1989 SIGGRAPH in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
.
It was one of the last pieces of animation that Lasseter would animate personally during Pixar's years as an independent company.
In 1990, it won the Best Short Film award at the
Seattle International Film Festival
The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), held annually in Seattle, Washington since 1976, is among the top film festivals in North America. Audiences have grown steadily; the 2006 festival had 160,000 attendees. The SIFF runs for more th ...
. When Lasseter presented it at the
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shor ...
in 1991, ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' of London called it "a four-minute masterpiece" and ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' hailed Lasseter as "probably the closest thing to God that has ever graced the electronic images community."
In 2001,
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance Gilliam (; born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, comedian, animator, actor and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe.
Gilliam has directed 13 feature films, including ''Time Bandits'' (1981), ''B ...
selected it as one of the ten best animated films of all time.
After ''Knick Knack'', Pixar took a break from animated shorts and re-focused on animating television commercials to build income and hire new animators.
The film has been released in two versions, and each of these has been shown in both 3-D and 2-D. The original version was shown in 3D in 1989 at the
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference on computer graphics (CG) organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH, starting in 1974. The main conference is held in North America; SIGGRAPH Asia ...
program,
and was released on the
VHS and
LaserDisc
The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as DiscoVision, MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diam ...
, ''
Tiny Toy Stories'', and also on the ''
Toy Story
''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American computer-animated comedy film directed by John Lasseter (in his feature directorial debut), produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The first installment in the '' Toy Story ...
'' deluxe CAV
LaserDisc
The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as DiscoVision, MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diam ...
edition. The short was later released on May 30, 2003, in theaters with ''
Finding Nemo
''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was writ ...
''. For this release, the film was re-rendered with design adjustments for the woman on the "
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
" knick-knack and the
mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaids are sometimes asso ...
in the fishbowl. Both characters now have much smaller breasts and the mermaid is now wearing a seashell bra rather than just starfish
pasties
Pasties (singular pasty or pastie) are patches that cover a person's nipples and areolae, typically self-adhesive or affixed with adhesive. They originated as part of burlesque shows, providing a commercial form of bare-breasted entertainment. T ...
. Lasseter defended the changes by saying, "It wasn’t big bad Disney coming in and insisting we do this … it was our own choice. It was just crossing the line for me personally as a father. So I decided to reduce
hese characters’/nowiki> breast size."
This updated version is preceded with the message ''"In 1989, six years before ''Toy Story'', Pixar Animation Studios made this short film."'' This version was first made available with the ''Finding Nemo
''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was writ ...
'' DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
& VHS. This version is subsequently on ''Nemos Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
, the '' Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1'' DVD and Blu-ray, and on digital services that feature Pixar's shorts including Disney+
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and deligh ...
. A 3-D version of the new edition played to the public as a short attached to the 2006 Disney Digital 3-D
Disney Digital 3-D is a brand name used by The Walt Disney Company to describe three-dimensional films made and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures mostly under the Walt Disney Pictures label and shown exclusively using digital pr ...
release of ''The Nightmare Before Christmas
''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' (also known as ''Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas'') is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy film directed by Henry Selick (in his feature directorial debut) and produced and ...
''.
References to ''Knick Knack'' in other media
In the ''Toy Story
''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American computer-animated comedy film directed by John Lasseter (in his feature directorial debut), produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The first installment in the '' Toy Story ...
'' franchise, a book titled ''Knick Knack'' is often seen on a bookshelf along with other books named after Pixar shorts. Knick and his snow globe appear in '' Toy Story That Time Forgot''.
During 2007–2008, a series of commercials released in the United Kingdom for Bupa
Bupa , legally British United Provident Association Limited, is an international health insurance and healthcare group with over 38 million customers worldwide.
Bupa's origins and global headquarters are in the United Kingdom. Its main countrie ...
featured the ''Knick Knack'' theme tune as their soundtrack.
A store at Pixar Pier
Pixar Pier is a themed land at Disney California Adventure, based on that of Victorian boardwalks that were once found along the coast of California. Despite its name and the presence of a nearby man-made lake, Pixar Pier is not actually a pier ...
at Disney California Adventure
Disney California Adventure Park, commonly referred to as California Adventure or by its acronym DCA, is a theme park located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Park ...
references this short film. The name of the store is Knick's Knacks. The sign at the front of the store displays Knick the snowman in his snow globe.
Notes
References
*
External links
*
*
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{{John Lasseter
1980s American animated films
1980s animated short films
1989 computer-animated films
1989 short films
1980s 3D films
American comedy short films
3D animated short films
Animated films without speech
Censored films
Fictional humanoids
Films about mermaids
Films with screenplays by John Lasseter
Pixar short films
Short films directed by John Lasseter
American animated short films
Fictional snowmen