Reader Dan Siercks recently sent in some photos of a 1991 Pixar VHS—a compilation of short films Luxo Jr., Red's Dream, Tin Toy, and Knick Knack—asking if I knew anything about its history.
Not only did I not, there were no mentions of such a release anywhere. The lack of a barcode suggested it was not sold commercially. (Siercks had gotten it from a friend whose dad worked in the computer graphics field at the time.)
I sent the story and photos directly to Pixar, and my request was forwarded to studio archivist Christine Freeman. (This is her showing off some art goodies during the Toy Story 3 bloggers' day).
After 'checking in with some peeps', she was able to make some interesting observations:
"This might have been a giveaway during the time that we were promoting our ability to make commercials. The shorts collection would demonstrate the quality of the work that we were able to do. It might have been a giveaway at SIGGRAPH. John Lasseter designed the cover.
"Without seeing it [in person], I'm guessing that this video was put together by Direct Cinema Limited, who was our distributor back then. They handled external requests for our video (for broadcast or film festivals, for example), and were the people who you'd contact if you wanted a viewing copy."Freeman attached a copy of this 1990 ad for a compilation of three of the films that appear on the 1991 video.
"You'll also notice that these videos were not cheap to purchase. The reason for that is that we didn't produce very many copies," Freeman added. "The production costs were high, and I imagine that we wouldn't have been able to subsidize the price for consumers (1991 was a year of massive layoffs and budget tightening at Pixar)."Needless to say, Siercks was thrilled to own such a unique part of Pixar's history. Having seen one too many episodes of Pawn Stars, I offered to take it off his hands but, alas, Dan was not selling.
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6 comments:
Wow, haven't seen that for a long time. I have one of those stashed somewhere in a box. I got it as a giveaway at SIGGRAPH, I believe in 1996 or 1997.
That's awesome! Wouldn't it be someth g to be the person who owned a VHS even pixar themselves forgot they produced! :) hey mike, i'm sorry to be the annoying nerd to say this but... Do you watch storage wars as well? I love that show! Yuuup!
To the best of my knowledge those were never for sale. Known internally as the "LRTK" for the first letter of each title, I'm pretty sure they were used as promos in our commercial business. An earlier version, called the LRT, was used by the people selling our old hardware, the Pixar Image Computer.
The "Tiny Toy Stories" VHS is the one that was packaged for retail sale. That was quite a bit later IIRC.
I could be wrong, of course.
To Be Fair, Around The Time Toy Story Came Out, Pixar Released "Tiny Toy Stories", A Collection Of The Pixar Shorts On That Other VHS, Plus Andre and Wally B. and Toy Story Themed Segways. There's Also A Really Rare Tape With Just Geri's Game On It. Cool, huh?
Mr. Timn: I have seen Storage Wars a few times, but am not a fan.
Craig: Thanks for the additional details.
I also have one of these and to make it even more unique, its a PAL version. It was given away at SIGGRAPH in Anaheim in 1992 and they were very sought after items to be sure.
I also have an even earlier oddity and that is a set of huge Magic cards also given away at SIGGRAPH but this time it was in Dallas in 1990. It was to promote Renderman..
Regards
MARK
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