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Knick Knack
Poster for Knick Knack
Poster for Knick Knack
Directed byJohn Lasseter
Written byJohn Lasseter
CinematographyTony Apodaca
Don Conway
Edited byCraig Good
Music byBobby McFerrin
Production
company
Distributed byDirect Cinema
Release dates
Running time
4 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageNone

Knick Knack is a 1989 American animated short film produced by Pixar that was written and directed by John Lasseter.[1] The short is about a snow globe snowman who wants to join the other travel souvenirs in a summer-themed party. However, the glass dome that surrounds him prevents him from doing so, thus leading to his many tries to break out of his snow globe. Knick Knack is Pixar's fourth short and the final short produced during the company's tenure as a hardware company. It was also the final Pixar short film released before the company's first feature-length film Toy Story.

The short stands out from Lasseter's other early short films at Pixar in its reliance on pure comedy to drive the story. It was inspired by Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, and the work of animators Chuck Jones and Tex Avery. Lasseter and his wife, Nancy, collected snow globes and also enjoyed souvenirs from distant places and those elements made their way into the short as well. Singer Bobby McFerrin improvised the a cappella vocal jazz soundtrack to the film while watching a rough cut which was eventually left unchanged in its final edition.

Knick Knack debuted at the 1989 SIGGRAPH convention in Boston, Massachusetts and was presented in 3D. The short has enjoyed positive reviews since its debut and has been screened as a part of numerous film festivals. The short has now been associated with Finding Nemo, with a remastered version of the short being shown before it in that film's original theatrical run.

Plot

[edit]

On a bookshelf filled with vacation-themed souvenirs, a lonely and grumpy knick-knack snowman named Knick, who resides in a "Nome Sweet Nome, Alaska" snow globe, wants to reach a female "Sunny Miami" knick-knack that shows an attractive blonde and tanned pool-lounger, wearing a blue bikini and sunglasses. Knick tries several unsuccessful methods to break out of the globe: ramming the glass with the snow globe's igloo backdrop, using his carrot nose and a hammer to chisel through the glass, using a jackhammer (which causes his facial features to fall off), trying to cut the glass using a blowtorch and an igniter, and detonating TNT explosives. The latter causes the globe to fall over the edge. Knick notices an emergency exit in the base and frees himself just before he and the globe fall into a fishbowl, where Knick sees a mermaid souvenir from "Sunny Atlantis" identical to the Miami souvenir and starts gawking at her, only for the globe to settle to the bottom and trap him again, much to his annoyance.

Background

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In 1988, Pixar's third short film, Tin Toy, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, the first computer-animated film to claim the Academy Award. It was also the first win for the hardware company, which was still struggling to sell its main product: the Pixar Image Computer. The key animator and director behind Tin Toy, John Lasseter, had once worked at Disney several years prior but was fired by unknowingly stepping on his superiors' toes with his support for computer animation. Now, Disney took notice of the Oscar win for Tin Toy and began a campaign to win Lasseter back.[2]

Lasseter turned the studio's offer for a directorial position down, remarking to Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull, "I can go to Disney and be a director, or I can stay here and make history."[3] Jeffrey Katzenberg, the then-head of Walt Disney Studios, had a reputation for being difficult and controlling. In contrast, Lasseter received complete creative freedom at Pixar's small animation division and was highly respected by his colleagues.[3] In addition to capturing Disney's interest, Pixar owner Steve Jobs' interest in the animation group was invigorated, and he approved production of another short.[3]

Production

[edit]

After the headaches of animating Billy the baby in Tin Toy, Lasseter backed away from depicting human characters. The team all agreed to do something simpler that would not "drive us all crazy," according to producer Ralph Guggenheim.[3] When watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit during the production of Tin Toy, Lasseter became inspired to create a Chuck Jones-type of cartoon. Rather than challenge the limitations of the computer as they had done in the previous shorts, the animators wanted to make a short based on geometric shapes instead, which was a strength of the computer.[4] In a discussion with the group, Lasseter brought up famed Warner Bros. and MGM director Tex Avery, noting that his cartoons were wild and exuberant, yet not necessarily very complex. Lasseter collected snow globes and also enjoyed souvenirs from distant places; from those elements, Knick Knack—the only pure comedy among Lasseter's early short films at Pixar—began to fall into place.[3]

The rest of the team were also fans of Tom and Jerry cartoons and the work of Chuck Jones and found the idea of cartoonish violence appealing.[5] Animator Flip Phillips and production coordinator Deirdre Warin simultaneously hit on the idea of the snow globe falling into a fishbowl. Craig Good came up with the idea of an "iris out," a shrinking circle at the close, as a reference to Looney Tunes.[5] A skeleton on the shelf in the short was a 3D model from an Ohio State University skeleton data set called George, though the Pixar team stretched George's arms for comic effect.[5] Also distorted were the two female characters—the bikini-attired woman and a mermaid—whose breasts were ultra-exaggerated thanks to a technical director who was a pinup enthusiast.[5]

The singer Bobby McFerrin created the musical soundtrack and a cappella vocal jazz track which he improvised while watching a rough cut of the film. As the rough cut ended, the placeholder credits read blah-blah-blah-blah, so he sang those words and it remained in the film's score.[5] McFerrin did the score for free out of a belief that the film was cool to be involved with. Gary Rydstrom of Lucasfilm created the sound effects for the short.[5]

Release and re-releases

[edit]

Knick Knack debuted at the 1989 SIGGRAPH in Boston.[6] It was one of the last pieces of animation that Lasseter would animate personally during Pixar's years as an independent company.[5] In 1990, it won the Best Short Film award at the Seattle International Film Festival. When Lasseter presented it at the London Film Festival in 1991, The Independent of London called it "a four-minute masterpiece" and The Guardian hailed Lasseter as "probably the closest thing to God that has ever graced the electronic images community."[5] In 2001, Terry Gilliam selected it as one of the ten best animated films of all time.[7] After Knick Knack, Pixar took a break from animated shorts and re-focused on animating television commercials to build income and hire new animators.[8]

The film has been released in two versions, and each of these has been shown in both 3-D and 2-D. The original version was shown in 3-D in 1989 at the SIGGRAPH program,[6] and was released on the VHS and LaserDisc, Tiny Toy Stories, and also on the Toy Story Deluxe CAV LaserDisc edition. The short was later released on May 30, 2003, in theaters with Finding Nemo. For this release, the film was re-rendered with design adjustments for the woman on the "Miami" knick-knack and the mermaid in the fishbowl. Both characters now have much smaller breasts and the mermaid is now wearing a seashell bra rather than just starfish pasties. Lasseter defended the changes by saying, "It wasn't big bad Disney coming in and insisting we do this … it was our own choice. It was just crossing the line for me personally as a father. So I decided to reduce [these characters'] breast size."[9]

This updated version is preceded with the message "In 1989, six years before Toy Story, Pixar Animation Studios made this short film." This version was first made available with the Finding Nemo DVD & VHS. This version is subsequently on Nemo's Blu-ray, the Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1 DVD and Blu-ray, and on digital services that feature Pixar's shorts including Disney+. A 3-D version of the new edition played to the public as a short attached to the 2006 Disney Digital 3-D release of The Nightmare Before Christmas.[10]

References to Knick Knack in other media

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Notes

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References

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Knick Knack

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from Grokipedia
Knick Knack is a 1989 American computer-animated short film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by . The four-minute comedy depicts a frustrated confined within a on a bedroom shelf, who repeatedly attempts to break free and join a raucous among other tropical vacation souvenirs, only to be thwarted by the glass dome enclosing his wintry world. Originally rendered in stereoscopic 3D, the film showcases early innovations in through its stylized, geometric character designs and humor inspired by classic cartoons. Produced as Pixar's fourth short film following Luxo Jr. (1986), Red's Dream (1987), and the Oscar-winning Tin Toy (1988), Knick Knack was created during the studio's pioneering period under the leadership of Lasseter and Ed Catmull. The project originated from an idea to explore 3D animation techniques, with Lasseter drawing influence from animators like Chuck Jones, resulting in a dialogue-free narrative emphasizing visual gags and expressive movements. It premiered at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in 1989, highlighting Pixar's advancements in rendering complex reflections and transparencies, such as the challenging glass snow globe. Upon its initial release, Knick Knack received acclaim for its technical achievements and whimsical storytelling, earning the Golden Award for Best at the 1990 . For its 2003 theatrical re-release paired with , re-rendered the film with modifications to tone down elements deemed potentially offensive, including adding a top to a topless figurine, sparking discussions on in . The edited version later appeared in home media collections like Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1, cementing its status as a nostalgic staple in 's legacy of innovative shorts.

Development

Concept and Inspiration

Knick Knack originated as one of Pixar's four experimental short films created between 1986 and 1989 to showcase advancements in computer animation, succeeding Luxo Jr. (1986), Red's Dream (1987), and Tin Toy (1988). These early works were essential for demonstrating the potential of digital tools in storytelling and character animation during Pixar's formative years as an independent animation division. John Lasseter served as the writer and director, drawing on his experience from previous shorts to push the boundaries of inanimate object personification in a limited environment. The film's core concept centered on a snowman confined within a on a cluttered shelf of vacation souvenirs, yearning to escape to warmer, more vibrant settings like a sunny beach or tropical paradise. This idea stemmed from the personal habit of Lasseter's , Nancy, who collected snow globes from their destinations, inspiring the narrative of entrapment and desire for freedom among everyday objects. Lasseter aimed to explore themes of isolation and aspiration through simple, relatable scenarios involving household knick-knacks, transforming a mundane shelf into a dynamic world of comedic frustration. Influenced by classic , particularly the styles of and , Knick Knack emphasized , rapid-fire gags, and exaggerated character movements to drive the humor, marking a departure from the more narrative-driven tone of prior shorts. This approach was sparked during the production of , when Lasseter viewed and sought to emulate the energy of in . By focusing on timing and visual punchlines, the film highlighted animation's timeless appeal beyond technical realism.

Pre-production

The pre-production of Knick Knack occurred at Pixar Animation Studios between 1988 and 1989, positioning it as the studio's final short film before shifting focus to feature-length projects like Toy Story. This phase emphasized planning the visual comedy of a snowman trapped in a snow globe, drawing on Lasseter's interest in geometric forms and simple, vibrant shapes to highlight the inanimate characters' antics. John Lasseter, serving as writer and director, spearheaded the storyboarding, producing detailed panels in (measuring 8 by 6 inches) that mapped the snowman's escalating efforts to break free using everyday knick-knacks like bobbleheads and souvenirs. These storyboards guided the refinement of gag sequences, ensuring the humor arose from the objects' exaggerated, cartoon-inspired movements without relying on complex facial expressions. The process reflected Pixar's early collaborative environment, where a compact team of animators contributed ideas to the core narrative before advancing to modeling.

Production

Animation Process

The animation process for Knick Knack utilized early computer workstations, including workstations integrated with the , to create 3D models of the snowman, , and knick-knacks such as the hula girl and cowboy figurines. These systems allowed animators to construct geometric shapes and textures for the characters, adapting traditional design concepts to digital environments despite the hardware's limitations in the late . Keyframing techniques drove the snowman's physical comedy, with animators plotting key poses to simulate exaggerated movements, including stretching and squashing effects drawn from principles of traditional hand-drawn to convey and elasticity in his attempts to escape the globe. Director personally handled much of the keyframing, marking this as one of his final hands-on efforts before shifting to oversight roles. Producing the roughly 4-minute short spanned several months, as the limited computing power required extensive time for modeling, animating, and rendering each frame on the available hardware. Sound synchronization was integral throughout, with temporary audio effects layered in during keyframing to ensure comedic timing aligned with the visuals, guiding adjustments before final audio integration by designer .

Technical Innovations

Knick Knack represented a key milestone in Pixar's early use of custom for and rendering, relying on the Reyes architecture developed internally as the precursor to the commercial RenderMan release in summer 1988. This system processed scenes by subdividing into micropolygons—tiny polygons sized at the sampling resolution—for efficient , hidden surface removal, and compositing, allowing Pixar animators to handle increasingly complex object interactions within the short film's cluttered shelf environment. The software's procedural approach to and minimized the need for manual polygon modeling, enabling focus on artistic expression while pushing the boundaries of what was feasible on period hardware. A notable innovation in the film was the application of advanced techniques to achieve realistic glassy and reflective surfaces, such as the transparent enclosing the protagonist and the shiny, varied knick-knacks like the hula girl and . These elements employed environment mapping to approximate reflections from the surrounding room, combined with procedural textures to simulate the distortion and clarity of glass without the full computational cost of ray tracing, which remained prohibitive for entire scenes in 1989. Additionally, Pixar's Texture On Demand system, which streamed texture data from disk only as needed during rendering, allowed for high-resolution details on these surfaces despite memory constraints, marking an early step toward scalable texturing in production animation. The production was constrained by the era's hardware, rendered entirely on workstations that lacked the specialized graphics acceleration of Pixar's earlier Image Computers, limiting scenes to roughly a few thousand polygons per frame to fit within available RAM and speeds. Each frame took several hours to render due to these polygon and computational limitations, necessitating optimized algorithms to maintain visual fidelity. This environment drove advancements in shading models, including the use of shade trees—a hierarchical, procedural framework for defining complex material properties—which enabled realistic simulations of translucent particles inside the globe and glossy plastic finishes on the souvenirs, enhancing CGI's ability to depict everyday object realism through composable shading functions rather than brute-force geometry.

Release

Premiere and Initial Distribution

Knick Knack was completed in 1989 at Animation Studios, marking the company's final produced during its tenure as a hardware and software developer. A work-in-progress version premiered at the conference in on September 1, 1989, where it was showcased in stereoscopic 3D, 's first animation in that format. The screening highlighted the short's innovative use of to demonstrate advanced rendering techniques. Running 4 minutes and 10 seconds with no dialogue, Knick Knack relies on visual humor and expressive animation to tell its story. The plot follows a frustrated snowman trapped inside a snow globe on a dusty shelf, who envies the vibrant, sun-soaked knick-knacks around him—such as a bikini-clad figure from Miami—and attempts increasingly absurd escapes, from hammering the glass to using dynamite. Initially, the short was not released theatrically but circulated through limited festival screenings and as a demonstration reel to attract clients interested in Pixar's animation technology.

Re-releases and Home Media

Following its initial limited screenings, Knick Knack received its first wide theatrical release on November 25, 1992. A major re-release occurred on , 2003, when a remastered and re-rendered version of the short was paired with Pixar's during its theatrical run, exposing the film to a much larger audience. The updated version featured improved animation quality and adjustments to certain elements, such as the depiction of a , to align with contemporary standards. The short was re-released again on October 20, 2006, accompanying the re-release of . For home media, Knick Knack (using the 2003 remastered version) was included on the Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1 DVD and Blu-ray, released by Home Entertainment on November 6, 2007. It has been available for streaming on since the platform's launch in November 2019. Remastered editions in higher resolution, including 1080p, have been made available online, with Pixar uploading an official version to YouTube on July 9, 2015.

Reception and Legacy

Critical Response

Knick Knack received positive critical acclaim for its innovative computer animation techniques and whimsical humor, earning an aggregated score of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes based on contemporary and retrospective reviews. Critics praised the film's ability to blend technical prowess with cartoonish physical comedy reminiscent of classic Warner Bros. shorts, noting its success in creating engaging, expressive characters through geometric shapes and exaggerated movements. Audience reception has remained strong, with an IMDb user rating of 7.4 out of 10 from over 15,000 votes, reflecting appreciation for its lighthearted escapades and inventive visual gags. The short won the Golden Space Needle Award for Best Short Film at the 1990 . Its premiere at the 1989 conference drew particular praise for technical achievements in rendering complex deformations and lighting effects on early hardware, marking it as a milestone in . Reception highlights include widespread lauding of the film's wordless storytelling, which conveys the snowman's futile attempts to escape his through purely visual means, imbuing the with universal charm and accessibility. Reviewers have highlighted its enduring appeal as a concise, humorous vignette that showcases Pixar's early mastery of squash-and-stretch principles in a digital format. However, some modern critiques note that certain graphics appear dated compared to contemporary standards, though the core holds up better than some peers from the era due to its stylized simplicity. Over time, critical views have evolved from initial emphasis on technological innovation—evident in SIGGRAPH accolades—to later appreciation for the short's narrative economy and its role in Pixar's foundational canon of character-driven shorts. This shift underscores how Knick Knack's blend of technical experimentation and timeless comedic simplicity has sustained its relevance, particularly following its re-release paired with Finding Nemo, which introduced it to broader audiences.

Cultural Impact

Knick Knack stands as a pivotal milestone in the evolution of computer-generated imagery (CGI) animation, serving as one of Pixar's early shorts that demonstrated the potential for comedic storytelling through inanimate objects. Produced in 1989, it marked the studio's first short dedicated exclusively to humor, drawing inspiration from classic cartoons and allowing animators to refine techniques for expressive character animation in a digital medium. This focus on whimsical, relatable knick-knacks foreshadowed the object-centric narratives in Pixar's later feature films, such as the toy characters in Toy Story (1995), where director John Lasseter applied insights from shorts like Knick Knack and Tin Toy to bring everyday items to life. The short's success, including winning the Golden Space Needle Award for Best Short Film at the 1990 Seattle International Film Festival, contributed to Pixar's growing reputation and helped secure a pivotal distribution deal with Studios in 1991, bridging the company's demo phase toward full-length features. By showcasing advanced CGI capabilities, Knick Knack reinforced Pixar's brand for innovative, character-driven animation that blended technical prowess with emotional appeal, influencing the studio's shift from hardware development to storytelling dominance. Its re-release in 2003 alongside further cemented its status as an enduring example of early digital whimsy. In popular media, Knick Knack receives subtle nods within the Pixar universe, notably as a book title on Andy's bedroom shelf in Toy Story, alongside other short film references like Tin Toy, serving as an Easter egg that highlights the interconnected legacy of Pixar's early works. Additionally, the short holds technical trivia as Pixar's inaugural production in stereoscopic 3D, screened in a work-in-progress format at the 1989 SIGGRAPH conference, which experimented with depth and immersion in CGI shorts. These elements underscore Knick Knack's role in establishing Pixar's reputation for transforming ordinary objects into compelling, humorous protagonists.

References

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  2. https://www.vesglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/lassiterrelease.pdf
  3. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/knick-knack
  4. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097674/awards/
  5. https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=1883
  6. https://www.pixar.com/short-films
  7. https://www.thedisneyclassics.com/blog/pixar-shorts
  8. http://davidksmith.com/reviews/shorts/short_knickknack.htm
  9. https://www.fun.com/blog/p-884-pixar-short-films-timeline-infographic.aspx
  10. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/nov/19/londonfilmfestival2001.londonfilmfestival2
  11. https://www.pixar.com/our-story
  12. https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_91_300293601.pdf
  13. https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_387084.pdf
  14. https://gizmodo.com/pixars-demo-reel-from-the-80s-is-a-trip-to-the-digital-1793407632
  15. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/feb/12/interview-john-lasseter-pixar
  16. https://graphics.pixar.com/library/Reyes/paper.pdf
  17. https://graphics.pixar.com/library/TOD/paper.pdf
  18. https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-real-story-of-pixar
  19. https://graphics.pixar.com/library/ShadeTrees/paper.pdf
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  25. https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Knick_Knack
  26. https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Pixar_Short_Films_Collection_Volume_1
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  28. https://www.disneyplus.com/browse/entity-38cc9d18-7f6f-4ff7-8f49-ee1e6f34e7d8
  29. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC3PBabyWYw
  30. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-04-ca-542-story.html
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  32. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097674/reviews/
  33. https://rachelsreviews.net/2015/05/03/pixar-review-5-knick-knack/
  34. https://pixarpost.com/2012/06/knick-knack-directors-commentary-review.html
  35. https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/_flysystem/fedora/2023-03/23118-Original%2520File.pdf
  36. https://lbsresearch.london.edu/id/eprint/917/1/AMJ.%2520Mannucci%2520%2526%2520Yong%2520-%2520Differential%2520impact%2520on%2520knowledge%2520depth%2520and%2520knowledge%2520breadth%2520on%2520creativity%2520over%2520the%2520career.pdf
  37. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1493&context=book_chapters
  38. https://screenrant.com/toy-story-andy-bookshelf-easter-eggs/
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