''Cars Toons'' is a

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...

of 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 ...

s 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 ...

. It features the main characters

Lightning McQueen Montgomery "Lightning" McQueen is a fictional anthropomorphic stock car who is the protagonist of the animated Pixar franchise ''Cars'', primarily voiced by actor Owen Wilson. His appearances include the feature films ''Cars'', ''Cars 2'', and ''C ...

and Mater from Pixar's ''Cars'' franchise non-canonically in the original plot.

Larry the Cable Guy Daniel Lawrence Whitney (born February 17, 1963), known professionally by his persona Larry the Cable Guy, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, country music artist, and former radio personality. He was one of the members of the ...

reprises his role as Mater while Keith Ferguson replaces

Owen Wilson Owen Cunningham Wilson (born November 18, 1968) is an American actor. He has had a long association with filmmaker Wes Anderson with whom he shared writing and acting credits for '' Bottle Rocket'' (1996), '' Rushmore'' (1998), and '' The Royal ...

as the voice of Lightning McQueen until ''The Radiator Springs 500 ½'', when Wilson reprises his role. The series premiered on October 27, 2008 on both

Disney Channel Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...

Toon Disney Toon Disney was an American multinational pay television channel owned by Disney Channels Worldwide, a subsidiary of Disney-ABC Television Group. The channel's target audience was children ages 2–11, and children ages 6–13 during the Jetix ...

and

ABC Family The American cable television, cable and satellite television network that is now known as Freeform (TV channel), Freeform was originally launched as the CBN Satellite Service on April 29, 1977, and has gone through several different owners (and s ...

. Not exclusive to television, the shorts were also released on home media and/or as theatrical shorts. The series ended on May 20, 2014 with ''The Radiator Springs 500 ½'' being the final short to be made.

Premise

''Mater's Tall Tales''

All ''Cars Toons'' in ''Mater's Tall Tales'' follow a shared formula: Each episode opens with Mater popping out of his garage door and declaring, "If I'm lyin', I'm cryin'!" (or a variation thereof as seen on the home media and television releases) before cutting to the episode's

title card In films, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (i.e., ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred to as "dialo ...

. Each episode then properly begins with

and Mater seeing something that results in the latter proceeding to tell the former a

tall tale A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it n ...

about something he supposedly did in the past, before the action shifts to the flashback of Mater's story. At a midway point, the action briefly shifts back to Mater and McQueen in which the former proclaims that the latter was also involved by saying, "Don't you remember? You was there too!" (or also some other variation thereof). The flashback then resumes with McQueen's sudden and usually unwilling participation in the story's events. After Mater finishes telling his tall tale (with the exception of ''Tokyo Mater''), McQueen denies the fact that Mater's tale is real and Mater replies, "Well, suit yourself!" (or also some variation thereof) before one or more characters/elements involved in the story coincidentally appear to McQueen's shock, paradoxically suggesting that Mater's story really happened. Each episode ends with Mater and McQueen posing in their corresponding story's costumes, with the exception of ''Tokyo Mater''. All episodes also feature Mia and Tia and various pit crew

forklift A forklift (also called lift truck, jitney, hi-lo, fork truck, fork hoist, and forklift truck) is a powered industrial truck used to lift and move materials over short distances. The forklift was developed in the early 20th century by various c ...

s in supporting roles (with the exception of ''Time Travel Mater'').

''Tales from Radiator Springs''

All ''Cars Toons'' in ''Tales from Radiator Springs'' simply follow the comedic antics and adventures of McQueen, Mater and their friends in their hometown

Radiator Springs Radiator Springs is a fictional small Arizona town and the principal setting of the Disney/Pixar franchise ''Cars''. A composite of multiple real-world locations on the historic U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, it is most prominently f ...

, following the events of ''

Cars 2 ''Cars 2'' is a 2011 American computer-animated Spy film, spy comedy film produced by Pixar, Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the sequel to ''Cars (film), Cars'' (2006), the second film in the Cars (franchise), ''Cars'' f ...

''.

Voice cast

as Mater * Keith Ferguson (2008–2013) /

(2014) as

George Carlin George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American comedian, actor, author, and social critic. Regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comedians of all time, he was dubbed "the dean of countercul ...

(2009, archive recordings) /

Lloyd Sherr Lloyd Michael Sherr (born February 28, 1956), also known by his stage name Max Raphael, is an American voice actor. He is best known for his role as Fillmore in the ''Cars'' franchise, taking over the role from George Carlin since his death in ...

(2013–2014) as Fillmore *

Tony Shalhoub Anthony Marc Shalhoub ( ; born October 9, 1953), is an American actor. His accolades include five Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, six Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award nomination. He played Adrian Monk in the USA Net ...

as Luigi *

Guido Quaroni solidThinking is a software company developing Evolve, a 3D modeling and rendering software and Inspire, a concept generation tool. History Brothers Alex Mazzardo and Mario Mazzardo started the solidThinking project in 1991 with Guido Quaroni ...

as Guido *

Michael Wallis Michael Wallis (born October 7, 1945) is an American journalist, popular historian, author and speaker. He has written seventeen books,Danna Sue Walker"Award-winning author speaks to library backers" ''Tulsa World'', March 7, 2010. including ''R ...

as Sheriff *

Katherine Helmond Katherine Marie Helmond (July 5, 1929 – February 23, 2019) was an American actress. Over her five decades of television acting, she was known for her starring role as Jessica Tate on the sitcom ''Soap'' (1977–1981) and her co-starring role as ...

as Lizzie * Lindsey Collins as Mia *

Elissa Knight Elissa Knight (born April 15, 1975) is an American employee at Pixar and voice actress. As a voice actress, her first major role was in the 2006 film ''Cars'' as one of the twins known as Tia and as Eve in ''WALL-E'' 2008. Biography Knight wa ...

as Tia *

Jerome Ranft Jerome Ranft is an American character sculptor and voice actor for Pixar Animation Studios. He is the younger brother of the late Pixar story artist Joe Ranft. Career Ranft attended Fullerton College and the California College of the Arts. He g ...

as Red (only in ''Tales from Radiator Springs'')

Production

After the success of ''

Cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

'', production of ''Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales'' began in 2006. The first nine shorts were produced by

, while all the following shorts were produced by Pixar's subsidiary,

Pixar Canada Pixar Canada (stylized as P I X A R – C A N A D A) was a short-lived, wholly owned subsidiary of Pixar, Pixar Animation Studios. It was located in Vancouver, British Columbia. The studio was tasked to produce short films based on Pixar’s featu ...

. "Tokyo Mater" premiered in theaters in the US with '' Bolt'' on December 12, 2008. The short is the first

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 ...

production presented in

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 ...

. However, the DVD release features a different short, ''

Super Rhino ''Super Rhino'' is a 2009 American computer animated comedy direct-to-video short film, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and starring the characters from feature film '' Bolt''. Directed by Nathan Greno, the short film picks up sometime ...

''. Sulley and

Mike Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and docume ...

from the 2001 film ''

Monsters, Inc. ''Monsters, Inc.'' (also known as ''Monsters, Incorporated'') is a 2001 American computer-animated Monster movie, monster comedy film produced by Pixar, Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, B ...

'' (also made by Pixar) make

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly eit ...

s in "Tokyo Mater" as their car forms from the ending of the first film.

Release

Merchandise

It was announced that ''Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales'' was to be released as part of the ''Disney·Pixar Cars Die-Cast Line'' in mid-2009. In October 2009, they released several die-casts. They released all of the "Rescue Squad Mater" and "Mater the Greater" die-casts, and they are working on "El Materdor" die-casts and reverse.

Video game

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

based on the series also titled ''Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales'' and developed by

Papaya Studio Papaya Studio was an independent American video game developer based in Irvine, California. Papaya Studio was known for titles on the Xbox 360, Wii, PC, PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by S ...

, was released on October 19, 2010 for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

. A PC version was also released outside the United States and on

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

worldwide in 2014.

Home media

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 kind ...

and

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 ...

compilation of the first nine shorts, titled ''Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales'', was released on October 31, 2010. The compilation includes "Mater the Greater", "Rescue Squad Mater", "Monster Truck Mater", "Unidentified Flying Mater", "El Materdor", "Moon Mater", "Heavy Metal Mater", "Mater Private Eye" and "Tokyo Mater", with ''Moon Mater'' and ''Mater Private Eye'' created exclusively for this set. Choosing the "Play All" option from the menu gives each short (except for ''Mater the Greater'' which plays first) unique intros. The remaining two episodes of ''Mater's Tall Tales'', "Air Mater" and "Time Travel Mater" were released on the Pixar Short Film Collection, Volume 2. And the three episodes of ''Tales from Radiator Springs'', "Hiccups", "Bugged" and "Spinning" were released on YouTube. The remaining episode of ''Tales from Radiator Springs'', "The Radiator Springs 500 ½" was released on the Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 3.

Future

In addition to "The Radiator Springs 500 ½," which was released in 2014, director Rob Gibbs revealed at the 2013

Disney D23 D23: The Official Disney Fan Club is the official fan club for The Walt Disney Company. Founded in 2009, the organization is known mainly for its biennial exposition event, the D23 Expo. The name ''D23'' refers to ''D'' for ''Disney'' and ''23' ...

Expo a fifth ''Cars Toons: Tales from Radiator Springs'' episode titled "To Protect and Serve." The short was expected to debut in 2014 on

, but to date this has not occurred.

Episodes

''Mater's Tall Tales'' (2008–12)

''Tales from Radiator Springs'' (2013–14)

Characters

''Mater's Tall Tales''

''Tales from Radiator Springs''

* ''Note'': A grey cell indicates the character was not in the episode.

References

External links

*
Mater's Tall Tales
on Disney website * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cars Toons Cars (franchise) Pixar short films 2008 American television series debuts 2014 American television series endings 2000s American animated television series 2010s American animated television series American children's animated comedy television series American animated television spin-offs Animated television shows based on films English-language television shows Television series by Disney Television series based on Disney films Television series by Pixar Disney animated television series American computer-animated television series Animated television series about auto racing Short films directed by John Lasseter