YMMV / Pixar Shorts

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Some argue that Purl is more focusing on inclusiveness in general instead of gender equality, given that the newest employee at the end is a white guy and the character design of Purl falling a bit under Viewer Gender Confusion. Speaking of race, all of the employees at the start are white, while there are several nonwhite employees at the end.
• Angst? What Angst?: Tales from Radiator Springs "The Radiator Springs 500½": Lizzie does not show any discomfort (and in fact, seems to enjoy it a bit) when seeing Lightning and Mater portray her late husband Stanley.
• Anvilicious
  • Purl's message of gender inclusivity is not subtle.
  • In case you didn't get that Float was about a father needing to learn to allow his son to be himself, the only line in the otherwise dialogue-free short is the father screaming "Why can't you just be normal?"
• Applicability: The son's ability to fly in Float is meant to be an analogy for the director's struggle to accept that his son has autism, but it's broad enough to be symbolic of any difference that would set a child apart from other children which their parents would have to struggle to accept.
• Broken Base: Lava is a rather contested short. It's considered either a charming love story or an obnoxiously saccharine drag to sit through before Inside Out.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The pre-Bowdlerization versions of Sunny Miami and Sunny Atlantis from "Knick Knack" have a small fan following for obvious reasons.
• Genius Bonus: In "Mater and the Ghostlight". A "ghostlight" is also the theatrical term for the one light traditionally left on when the theatre is closed.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Red's Dream is popular in Europe.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The titular unicycle of Red's Dream is lonely with no one to accompany him. The short itself isn't accompanied with any Pixar film.
  • Now that John Lasseter's history of sexual misconduct has come to light, ultimately resulting in his resignation from Disney/Pixar, Knick Knack's premise of the snowman pursuing an attractive, swimsuit-clad women feels a lot skeevier. Worse if you know that he has previously stated that it was created by the staff to "blow off steam" (though if it's any consolation, it was Lasseter's idea to remove the woman's comically oversized breasts for the 2003 version).
• Ho Yay: The interactions between the two Robots in Smash and Grab is filled with this. When one of the robots gets its arm shot off, the other robot blows up the drones with an energy core.
• Mis-blamed: When Pixar released the bowdlerized version of Knick Knack, a lot of people assumed that Disney, who had recently acquired the company, forced them to make the edit. The Pixar staff said that they had made that choice themselves. When they originally made it, they were a bunch of lonely computer nerds, whereas at the time of the re-release, they were men with families, no longer comfortable with having women objectified in that fashion.
• Narm Charm: Despite the short not working for some, for others the ending of Lava manages to be heartfelt and moving, especially when that wonderful harmony kicks in.
• Spiritual Successor: To Silly Symphonies, a testing ground for an animation studio's technical innovation, storytelling techniques and new recruits.
• Ugly Cute: The baby animals that Gus makes in Partly Cloudy, particularly the crocodile and the electric eel.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The volcano main characters in Lava are less expressive and more puppet-like than the usual Pixar characters, with quite a few viewers noting their creepiness.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • All of The Blue Umbrella, to the point some thought the short was live action with CGI umbrella faces.
  • The swooping overhead shots that open Lava, as well as the volcanic designs that give them human features.

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