Monsters, Inc.

As you know, I’ve been visiting Disneyland a lot lately. I love the place! One of my favorite Disney films is Monsters, Inc. from 2001. If you haven’t seen it, you have to check it out, it is hilarious! There is even a ride patterned after the film in California Adventure. Here are some fun facts about the film. Tell me what you think.

–Bill Murray was considered and tested for the role of Sulley, but the director, Pete Docter, said that when the filmmakers decided to offer it to Murray, they were unable to make contact with him and took that to mean “no”.

–The controls for the Monsters Inc. door mechanisms include a button that starts the process labeled “FIZT”. At the time, Fiz-T (Physics-Tool) was the latest software developed by Pixar Animation Studios to realistically render complex physical models – notably in this film to model Sulley’s fur and Boo’s clothing. Another button, “IKT,” was the name of Pixar’s “Inverse Kinematics Tool.”

–In the original draft of the script, Sulley was not to be a scarer but a worker named Johnson with brown fur. In fact, a quite long storyboard of the Sulley-as-lowly-helper is shown on the DVD. Also Mike was the assistant of Randall (who was named Ned in the first version). In another draft, Sulley was Ned/Randall’s assistant.

–The Abominable Snowman describes the children in the Himalayan village as “Tough kids, sissy kids, kids who climb on rocks”, a line taken from an old jingle for Armour hot dogs.

–There are retro Disneyland posters in the Monstropolis travel store and some of the children’s bedrooms.

–The restaurant that Mike and Celia are at is called the Harryhausen. This is an homage to Ray Harryhausen, the man who made the stop-motion animation monsters for films like Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Also, the octopus behind the bar in the restaurant with only six legs is a reference to It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), a film in which Harryhausen created an octopus with six arms due to budget restrictions.

–Disney/Pixar prepared a special trailer for Monsters Inc. to show before Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001). Mike and Sulley play a game of charades in their apartment, with Sulley acting out “Harry Potter.” Mike has difficulty solving the puzzle, some of his guesses being Dirty Harry (1971), “Harry Flowerpot” and “When Hairy met Sulley,” (a reference to Billy Crystal’s starring role in When Harry Met Sally… (1989)). Eventually Sulley puts on round spectacles, sticks a paper lightning bolt to his forehead and sits on a broom with an owl on his arm, to which Mike ecstatically guesses The Sound of Music (1965). Sully gives up and walks offscreen as Mike finally guesses “Harry Potter” and the cut away to title cards noting that “Monsters Inc.” is “Now showing at a theater near you. Really near you. Like, maybe, right next door.” At the end of the trailer, it is Mike’s turn to act out a part, with a very bored looking Sully guessing it is Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) within seconds, much to Mike’s dismay.

–Boo’s real name is Mary, as shown briefly on one of the crayon drawings she shows to Sulley in the scene where Boo is going to sleep on Sulley’s bed. The actress who provided the voice of Boo is Mary Gibbs.

–John Goodman and Billy Crystal sometimes recorded their lines in the same room together, an unusual move for animated films, where actors more often work alone. Steve Buscemi and Frank Oz (Randall and his assistant Fungus) also recorded their lines together for the bathroom scene.

–The ingredient list on the cereal that Sulley feeds Boo is as follows: Tentacles (includes suckers), sugar pods, gelatin, artificial flavor, artificial color (Yellow 53 & 54, Red 400, Blue 21, Plaid 16, Puce 30), salt, seawater, naturally occurring mercury, barium, sulfuric acid, lead, bile, blood, sweat, tears, zinc oxide, vitamins D & F, anemone, brine shrimp, coral, plankton, deadly pufferfish, depleted uranium (to preserve freshness).

–In early drafts, the character of Boo was written to be six years old. The writers decided to make Boo younger because it would make her more dependent on Sulley.

–All of the digital displays in Monstropolis (Sulley’s clock radio, scare station consoles, “Days Without An Accident” sign) are nixie tubes, a neon digital display technology from the 1960s.

–Mary Gibbs was so young that it proved difficult to get her to stand in the recording studio and act her lines. Instead, they simply followed her around with a microphone and cut Boo’s lines together from the things she said while she played.