"'Toy Story 3' backstory revealed by Pixar's John Lasseter"

"Hero Complex," the super LA Times movie blog, has this report:

When it came time to create the third installment of the "Toy Story" saga, John Lasseter gathered members of the creative team who worked with him on the groundbreaking computer-animated film -- Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter -- and retreated to a little cabin where they developed the story for the original 1995 animated film.

The group spent two days brainstorming ideas to arrive at a story drawn from their own life experience. Lasseter said he had just dropped his son, Ben, off to college at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

"Driving away, when you leave your child behind at college, all I could think of was him as a little kid, sliding down the slide," Lasseter said in a press conference. "It was very emotional for us."

Lasseter said this life experience was the basis of the new story for Buzz and Woody, as the toys deal with the ultimate rite of passage -- Andy's departure for college.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons Pixar manages to keep creating stories that resonate with audiences: They draw upon simple yet profound human experiences. For instance, as I recall, Lasseter said that the inspiration for Monsters Inc. was his memories as a child, lying in bed at night as he tried to go sleep, seeing shadows in the darkness -- a pile of clothes here, a stack of books there -- and his imagination would 'see' them as they transform into, well... monsters!

While I like this idea for Toy Story 3 and can certainly relate to the experience as a parent, having recently said good-bye to Will as he headed off for his sophomore year in college, there's already a wonderful animated movie with a similar premise: The Brave Little Toaster (1987). In Toaster, a group of household appliances -- toaster, electric blanket, radio, vacuum cleaner, and lamp -- head off in search of "The Master," the boy whose family owns the vacation home in which the appliances live. The boy is prepping to go to college and the appliances have to find him before he goes.

The Brave Little Toaster is a fantastic movie. Co-written and directed by Jerry Rees with great original songs penned by Van Dyke Parks. Here's an excerpt from the movie featuring one of its songs "Worthless":

Burg & Myers actually wrote a script with Jerry Rees attached to direct. The project, greenlit at one point, never got made, but I was always thankful to have had the chance to meet Rees and hear his stories about the production of The Brave Little Toaster.

Still I'm sure that Lasseter and Pixar are well aware of Toaster and will provide their own unique spin on the premise for Toy Story 3.

UPDATE: Per a comment by Jeff Carroll, check this out from John Lasseter's Wikipedia entry:

Later he and Glen Keane talked about how great it would be to make an animated feature where the background was computer animated, and then showed Keane the book The Brave Little Toaster by Thomas Disch, which he thought would be a good candidate for the film. Keane agreed, but first they decided to do a short test film to see how it worked out, and chose Where the Wild Things Are (a decision based on the fact that Disney had considered producing a feature based on the works of Maurice Sendak). Being satisfied with the result, Lasseter, Keane and Thomas L. Wilhite went on with the project, especially Lasseter who dedicated himself a lot to it, while Keane eventually went on to work with The Great Mouse Detective^[7]. They unknowingly stepped on some of their direct superiors' toes by circumventing them in their enthusiasm to get the project into motion. One of them, the animation administrator Ed Hansen^[8] disliked it so much that when Lasseter and Wilhite tried to sell the idea to him and Ron Miller, which they at that time were already aware of, they turned it down. A few minutes after the meeting, Lasseter was summoned by Hansen to his office, where John was told that his employment in the Walt Disney Studios had been terminated. The Brave Little Toaster would later become a 2D animated feature film directed by one of John's friends, Jerry Rees, and some of the staff of Pixar would be involved in the film alongside Lasseter.

Well, well. As I said in comments, looks like the premise for Toy Story 3 will provide a nifty way for Lasseter to round off a bit of unpleasant history.