A Bug's Life Trivia

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.
 * One of the boxes in Bug City is marked Darla. This is most likely a reference to Darla K. Anderson, a Pixar employee.
 * 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 a crewman, holding a clapper-board upside down, to mark the end of a scene gone wrong.

Other Trivia

 * The circus wagons are made of boxes of animal crackers called Casey Jr. Cookies. This is also the name of the toon 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 two other Pixar movies; 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. 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).
 * It is the first Pixar film to not feature any human cast, but their existence is hinted at and acknowledged throughout the film. The second film to not feature any human cast is Cars, and the third is Cars 2.
 * It is also the first Pixar film to have the words "The End" appear at the very final scene just before the credits. The second film to do this is Finding Nemo, and the third was Ratatouille, although the wording was in French, to tie in with the location of the film.
 * This is the first Pixar movie with bloopers at the end. The 2nd film that has bloopers is Toy Story 2, 3rd is Monsters, Inc and 4th is The Incredibles (though The Incredibles bloopers are mistakes made by the animators rather than the characters messing up as if they were real actors.)
 * 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 released on DVD.
 * 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.
 * 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 up until 2007's Ratatouille and to have the Pixar logo appear at the very beginning.
 * This is the only Pixar film to actually retain its fullscreen viewing format in its Blu-ray release.
 * Atta, the elder ant princess, is named after the scientific genus name for the leafcutter ants of Central and South America.
 * This is the first film to have locations from some of the scenes at the start of the credits. The second one is Finding Nemo.
 * This is the first film to mute the ending part of the Disney opening and the pixar opening, second film that mutes the ending parts is Monsters, Inc.
 * A Bug's Life has the most deceased voice actors in a Pixar film. (Roddy McDowall, Phyllis Diller, Joe Ranft, Madeline Kahn, and Jonathan Harris)
 * It also is tied with Cars for the most characters with deceased voice actors in a Pixar film, since Joe Ranft was the voice of both Red and Jerry Recycled Batteries.
 * This was also Roddy McDowall's final Pixar role. He passed away from cancer on October 3, 1998, a month before the film's premiere.
 * This and The Good Dinosaur are the only Pixar films to not have their own short films.