WELCOME
PIXAR AS A TOPIC
The company that would become known as Pixar Animation Studios had its origins in 1979 in the
special effects computer section of George Lucas’ company Industrial Light and Magic, known as
the Graphics Group. They were primarily concerned with special effects for the Star Wars movies.
In 1984 John Lasseter left his job with the Disney Company when he was passed over for a directing
assignment and joined the Lucas subsidiary. The first animated film he produced under the Pixar
banner, Luxo, Jr., won awards at the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.
In 1986 Steve Jobs of Apple purchased the Pixar portion of Lucas' computer graphics division for
$10 million and established it as an independent computer hardware company. Pixar employed
44 people at that time with Ed Catmull as chief technical officer.
Though Pixar's main animation focus became making commercials, in 1991 they were approached by
the Disney Studio to collaborate in the production and distribution of three feature length animated
films. At this time Pixar was losing money and Steve Jobs considered selling it but the deal with
Disney encouraged him to give it another chance to succeed.
The first film to be distributed by Disney was to be called Toy Story. It was released in November 1995
and the story of toys coming to life was an immediate sensation grossing over $200 million in North
America alone. The Disney Company immediately began negotiations to expand their contract and in 1997 an agreement was reached to jointly produce five animated features. By this time Pixar had outgrown its studio and occupied a second building in Point Richmond to house its 375 employees.
The first Disney/Pixar stamps were issued by Uganda (Scott 1479-84) in 1997. Consisting of three sheetlets of 6 stamps and 3 souvenir sheets, the stamps show scenes from Toy Story.
Controversy accompanied the release of A Bug's Life in 1998. Jeffrey Katzenberg had left Disney due to problems with CEO Michael Eisner and with Stephen Spielberg had formed his own company, Dreamworks. Word leaked out that Katzenberg was also doing a similar film called Antz. Eisner and Jobs accused Dreamworks of stealing the idea from Disney/Pixar which Katzenberg denied and then released his film two weeks before A Bug's Life.
Palau issued 4 sheetlets of 4 stamps and accompanying souvenir sheets (Scott 467-474) in December 1998 showing characters and scenes from A Bug’s Life.
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Toy Story 2 was released in 1999 breaking opening weekend box office records around the globe and becoming the first sequel to out gross its original. Toy Story 2 is also the first film to be created, mastered and exhibited digitally in its entirety.
By 2001 when Monsters, Inc. was released Pixar's employees had swollen to 600. Ed Catmull was now President and John Lasseter executive vice-president. Monsters, Inc. became the 3rd highest grossing animated film of all time. Finding Nemo, a story about fish, was released in 2003 and won an Oscar for best animated film.
Finding Nemo appeared on two souvenir sheets issued by China (Scott 3803-04) each with 5 stamps in various shapes depicting characters from the film.
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Australia released a Finding Nemo souvenir stamp sheet in 2004. This was the first in a series of Disney/Pixar souvenir stamp sheets and featured 10 stamps with characters from Finding Nemo on the tabs and border area in the new A4 format with a special printed effect. (A complete list and illustrations of all of the Disney/Pixar Australian Souvenir Stamp Sheets can be found in the Handbook of Disney on Stamps – Part 3.)
A year later an action-adventure film, The Incredibles, about undercover superheroes, was released. John
Lasseter sat in the director's chair for the 2006 release Cars about race cars and life on Route 66. In the
same year the Walt Disney Company purchased Pixar.
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Only one stamp had been issued with a scene from Cars (Scott U.S.A. 4553) but Australia did release one
of their series of Souvenir Stamp Sheets with a Cars theme in 2006. The Cars characters are depicted in
the tabs and borders of the sheet with Australia’s set of classic cars stamps.
Austria also released a special booklet for Cars with three sheets of personalized stamps featuring Cars
characters on the stamps and in the borders. Belgium has issued one of its duostamp booklets (five
generic stamps with Pixar stamp tabs) featuring Cars as well.
Academy Award winning Ratatouille, about a rat who wanted to be a chef, was released in 2007. Austria released a booklet of two sheets with three stamps and illustrations of the characters from Ratatouille and the United States issued a single in their ‘Send a Hello’ pane.
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Andrew Stanton, who had directed Finding Nemo, had another smash hit with a film about a futuristic robot named WALL-E in 2008. This film also appeared in an Austrian booklet of 2 sheets with WALL-E characters on the 3 stamps. Belgium also issued one of its duostamp booklets featuring WALL-E and US issued a single in the ‘Send a Hello’ pane.
The charming film about a lonely old man, Up, was released in 2009, opening the Cannes Film Festival and eventually garnering five Oscar nominations. Up appears on a single US stamp from the ‘Send a Hello’ pane. Following the success of its predecessors, Toy Story 3 was released in 2010. As a result John Lasseter became the first producer of animated films to receive the Producer's Guild of America's David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures. Toy Story 3 went on to become the highest grossing animated film of all time until usurped by Disney’s Frozen in 2014.
The United States issued 5 stamps and accompanying postal cards to commemorate Disney/Pixar movies in 2011 under the name ‘Send a Hello’. The self-adhesive stamps depict characters from Toy Story 2, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up.
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Austria released a set of 4 folding booklets featuring Mater, Lightning McQueen, Finn McMissile, Holley Shiftwell and assorted characters in a 5th booklet commemorating Cars 2.
(The Austrian booklets had limited print
runs and are available only through
Post.at and will probably not be listed in
most catalogues.)
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A second pane of five forever stamps was issued June 1, 2012 under the name ‘Mail a Smile’ and was accompanied by a stamped postal card booklet of 20. The five different designs featured characters from A Bug’s Life, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. Poland released a souvenir sheet with a scene from Cars 3 (Scott 4284).
The latest Disney/Pixar film Brave was released in 2012 and to date no stamps have been issued featuring Brave though Israel released a souvenir stamp sheet with Merida and her three brothers on a tab.
A prequel to Monsters, Inc, called Monsters University, was released in 2013 but
has not been commemorated on any stamps so far. Another film, Newt, was
cancelled when it was found to be too similar to Rio, a film released by Blue Sky
Studios. Other Pixar films without stamps include Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur,
Finding Dory, Coco, Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4, Onward and Soul.
Most of the Disney/Pixar films have been represented either on stamps or
stamp tabs until recently. Singapore released a ‘MyStamp’ series of personalized
type stamp sheets in 2007 showing scenes and characters from most of the
Pixar films. Thailand issued a similar offering in sheetlets of 5 or 10 with regular
issue Thai stamps and Pixar tabs.
(Illustrations and a complete list of MyStamps and souvenir stamp sheets
can been seen in the Disneyana on Stamps Society’s Handbook of Disney on Stamps-Part 3 – Unauthorized Stamps, Stamps and Tabs and Personalized Stamps available in pdf format.)
To date Pixar has produced commercials, shorts, feature length films, television shows and Disney theme park attractions. They have earned numerous Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and Grammy Awards and have only just begun.
(Reprinted and Updated from Disnemation #66)
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