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Cameos, in-jokes, re-used animation, and other trivia from A Bug's Life.

Cameos[]

  • The Pizza Planet truck appears next to the mobile home when a bug flies into a bug zapper.
  • A cereal box in Bug City bears the code "A113-1195". It marks the appearance of Pixar's in-joke A113, while 1195 represents the release date of Toy Story (November 1995).
  • A drink cup from Pizza Planet can be seen on top of the restaurant can in Bug City.
  • The brand names on the boxes in Bug City are references to the children of Pixar employees.[1]
    • One of the boxes in Bug City is marked Darla. This is possibly a reference to Darla K. Anderson, one of the film's producers.
  • A poster for Disney's The Lion King: On Broadway can be seen amongst the posters in Bug City at the 0:26:49 mark in the film.
  • In one blooper that plays during the end credits, Flik yells Buzz Lightyear's line "To infinity and beyond!" as he is about to take flight.
  • In one of the additional bloopers, Woody from Toy Story enters the frame as second assistant camera, holding a clapper-board upside down, to mark the end of a scene gone wrong.

Cameos Gallery[]

Deleted Scenes[]

Museum Opening[]

Originally, there was going to be a prologue taking place in the future, where an elderly ant is giving some ant scouts a tour of the ant hill, looking at the hieroglyphics, not unlike Ancient Egyptians. The scouts see a picture of the grasshoppers and says that they are cool, at which point they are told their ancestors didn't think they were cool, as they, of course, harrased them, as they would terrorize them after each harvest and take their food. When one girl asks why they don't come there anymore, the elder ant explains that they experienced their dryest summer ever, as they barley had time to harvest for themselves and one ant managed to stand up to them, which then leads into the story. It was cut for timing reasons, as well as the fact that it made the film look too much like a fairytale and it was too similar to a lot of things Pixar had seen.

P.T.'s Office[]

P.T. Flea fires his troupe in his office, while in still in the midst of getting rinsed off. He announces that the circus is off and that he's instead gonna do "Live Nude Worm Wrestling In Mud!!!!". As the troupe tries to leave, Dim, who stuck his head through the door to better listen in on what P.T. is saying, gets his head stuck and P.T. realizes they're still here as Dim struggles to get unstuck, throwing the carriage around. The scene was in the movie for the longest time before it was cut before it could be animated because it was felt to be pointless, as they felt it worked better if he just said they were fired after he got burned.

Changed Scenes[]

  • In an earlier version of the first scene between Flik and Dot, Dot does not say, "But it's a rock."[1]
    • Lines such as, "But it's a rock," were added after a pitch of a version of the scene that the filmmakers felt was "overly sincere".[1]

Other Trivia[]

  • A Bug's Life was released in cinemas on November 20, 1998, the same day as Nickelodeon's first feature film, The Rugrats Movie, which is also the first feature film for the popular 1991-2006 animated series Rugrats.
  • The circus wagons are made of boxes of animal crackers called Casey Jr. Cookies. This is also the name of the cartoon circus train in Disney's 1941 animated film Dumbo. And the bakery that makes Casey Jr. Cookies according to the box is the J. Grant Bakery, named after Joe Grant, one of the storyboard artists on Dumbo.
  • The ant's tree is used again in other Pixar movies. For example, in Toy Story 2, it is the tree in Jessie's flashback and in Up, it is the tree Carl Fredricksen and Ellie go to.
  • A Bug's Life used almost 10 times the computing power that Toy Story required.[2] On average it took 3 hours to render each frame of the film. Compare this to the average of 17 hours it took for each frame of Cars. This may seem counter-intuitive given the large increase in computer processing power between the two movies. But it demonstrates how much more detail is going into the film. In addition, computers are being used to do things that the animators used to do by hand such as ray tracing (for reflections).
  • This movie bears many similarities to Antz (both films feature a colony of ants with a member who thinks differently to the others and wishes to gain the feelings of the princess), a movie released by DreamWorks Animation a month beforehand. This was due to Jeffrey Katzenberg leaving Disney due to a bitter dispute between himself and the company. Katzenberg then co-founded DreamWorks SKG with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen and, knowing that Disney was making an movie about ants, instantly started production on Antz (although Katzenberg claimed that the film came from an independent pitch that had nothing to do with Disney). When Pixar scheduled A Bug's Life to be released in the same week as DreamWorks' first feature The Prince of Egypt, Katzenberg was furious. In retaliation, he brought forward the release date of Antz by five months to ensure it was released ahead of A Bug's Life (with a rumor that was never confirmed that he offered 'rich financial incentives' to the production team to get their film out first despite Pixar's head start). In the end, A Bug's Life made $200,000,000 more at the cinema thanks to better promotion and being more aimed at kids, although both films were praised by critics and audiences.
  • This is the first Pixar film to be released on DVD.
  • This is the oldest Pixar film to not produce a sequel, although Heimlich and Flik made a cameo in the outtakes of Toy Story 2 where they mentioned about a sequel called A Bug's Life 2 but it never happened.
  • This is the first Pixar film to be promoted by McDonald's inside the United States and Latin America, where Toy Story promoted it outside of the United States and Latin America (particularly in Europe and Asia).
  • This is the first Pixar film to receive a fullscreen home release. Unlike most fullscreen viewings, which cut off huge portions of the image to make it fit on a smaller screen, A Bug's Life actually has many scenes in the film completely reanimated (such as minor tweaking of certain characters, props, and even entire scenes) so that its quality remains true to the widescreen release even on a smaller TV screen. The process would continue until 2006's Cars. It should also be noted that the fullscreen version is exclusive only to the US original home releases, all of the international versions contain only the widescreen version.
  • This is the first Pixar film to have outtakes at the end of the film.
  • This is the first Pixar film not to have the Wilhelm scream.
  • In a game of "Props" on an episode of improv-show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, regular performer Wayne Brady, held a big V shaped figure that looked like the antenna of a bug, put the figure on top of his head and said, "Maybe you've seen me in Bug's Life," referring to Flik.
  • The story of the film is based on the Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper. Also, the plot has references to The Seven Samurai.
  • This is the first Pixar film to both use the "normal" customized Walt Disney Pictures logo which is used until 2007's Ratatouille and to have the Pixar logo appear at the very beginning.
  • This is so far the only Pixar film where John Ratzenberger voiced more than one character, not counting Cars, where he voiced car-ified versions of the characters he voiced in other Pixar films as the inside joke.
  • This is the only Pixar film to actually retain its widescreen viewing format in its Blu-ray release.
  • Atta, the elder ant princess, is named after the scientific genus name for the leaf-cutter ants of Central and South America.[citation needed]
  • This is the first Pixar film to be produced in anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio (2.35:1); all of that company's previous films were produced in 1.85:1/1.78:1.
  • This is the first Pixar film not to feature any humans.
  • This is the first Pixar film where the Pixar Ball does not make an appearance.
  • This is the first Pixar film to have a music closing logo.
  • In the UK, the attached short Geri's Game was absent from the theatrical release but was added onto the end of the VHS.
  • This is the first Pixar film to have the words "The End" at the end.
  • In the Romanian version, the English version of "The Time of Your Life" is not sung by Randy Newman.
  • This is the only Pixar film released before Disney's acquisition of the company that has not received a prequel or sequel.
    • This is Pixar's only THX-certified film that has not received a prequel or sequel.
    • In general, this is also Disney's only THX-certified film that has not received a prequel or sequel.
  • Several lines in the film were altered before the final cut. Evidence of this was proved in the Storyteller and Read Along audio releases of the film containing the original lines:
    • In the film, Atta says that she and the council have granted Flik his request. On the Storyteller release, Atta states that only she granted his request.
    • In the film when Flik thanks Atta letting him leave, after promising not to let her down he keeps saying "I promise." over and over again. On the Storyteller release, Flik instead says "I promise I won't screw up, I promise."
    • In the film and the Storyteller release, some lines are said in two different tones of voices:
      • "Alright, clown, get up and fight like a girl."
      • "Hey, Tiny. Let's get this show packed up, we've got paying customers hatching."
      • (Without emotion on the Storyteller release) "Alright, now it's get mushy. We're out of here. Hee-yaa!"
    • In the film, Flik says "We can get rid of Hopper and no one has to know that I messed up." On the Storyteller release, he says "We can get rid of Hopper and no one has to know that I screwed up".
    • In the film Hopper refers to the ants as "soil shoving losers, but the Storyteller release and the Read Along indicate that he was original meant to say "soil sucking losers".
    • In the film Hopper says "You ants stay back.", but on the Storyteller release he says "You ants get back."
  • Voice recording sessions took place from late 1996 to 1997.

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 A Bug's Life audio commentary
  2. Pixar Animation Studios 1996 Report to Shareholders
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