Mike’s New Car (2002)

Directed by: Pete Docter, Roger Gould | 4 minutes | animation, short film | Original voice cast: Billy Crystal, John Goodman

The animated short ‘Mike’s New Car’ is a bit of an odd one compared to Pixar’s other Oscar-nominated short films. It is the first time that dialogue appears in the film and that the characters appearing in it have a direct connection to a full-length film from the studio. It is also questionable whether it was always intended as a short film, or if it should have been part of the main film initially. It feels more like an amusing bonus than a standalone movie or idea. The film itself is quite funny, but in terms of concept is less inspired than most previous Pixar short films.

The lead roles in ‘Mike’s New Car’ are, as in the big movie from which this smaller one originated, ‘Monsters, Inc.’, played by Sully and Mike Wazowski, voiced by John Goodman and Billy Crystal respectively. It is mainly the personality of and interaction between these two characters that this film has to carry, as the idea of ​​the film itself is not groundbreaking or unusually funny. It’s just a fun commentary on modern engineering, manifested by the rampaging of Mike’s flashy new car with all kinds of buttons and functions; not entirely incomparable with the way Jacques Tati often mocked modern architecture and inventions in his films.

Unsurprisingly, everything that can go wrong with Mike’s car goes wrong when he and his big, furry friend take a seat in this state-of-the-art piece of engineering. This is quite entertaining, if not surprising and won’t really make the viewer laugh. It’s kind of fun to see Mike bouncing around on the raging engine, you know, but the most fun are the small, subtle things Sully (wrong) does that irritate Mike terribly, resulting in a tired, angry looking eye. These moments occur at the beginning and end of the video. For example, Sully gets in and hears from his friend that the seat is electrically adjustable to each side. So Sully dryly presses the button to move his chair a little bit to the right, left, back, forward, down, and up. To start all over again, with a steely expression on his face. The enthusiastic Mike is immediately a lot less pleased and his level of irritation is steadily increasing. Then there is a very funny final quip after Mike has just had a good fight with the engine and managed to get back into the car. It is finally quiet and Sully’s eyes fall on the tilted rear-view mirror. He tries to straighten it carefully, but of course the thing breaks off. That’s the last straw for Mike! Sully has to get out.

The animation is beautiful. Colorful, with a shiny car with a striking appearance and a lot of buttons, and of course the well-known animation of the monsters, where the flowing hair of the big, blue Sully has been especially successful. However, the video itself is not much. Charming and amusing enough, yes, but not very startling.