Cars Toons

Cars Toons is a series of shorts based on Cars. The show airs on Disney Channel, Disney XD, ABC Family, and one episode was even shown in theaters. Its first broadcast was on October 27, 2008 and still airs new episodes. From 2008 to 2012, the series consisted only of episodes of Mater's Tall Tales. A new series of Cars Toons, called Tales from Radiator Springs, was debuted on March 22, 2013.

Mater's Tall Tales
Mater's Tall Tales is a short series based on Cars, featuring Mater (who's now the titular protagonist) and Lightning McQueen (who's now the deuteragonist).

Plot
All of the episodes follow the same tall tale sequence: Mater tells a story of something that he has done in the past. In the story, Mater finds himself in an inescapable predicament.

When Lightning questions Mater over whether the events in the story actually occurred, Mater always claimed that Lightning was also involved, often saying, "Don't you remember? You was there, too!" (or some other variation). Then, Mater continues to tell the story, including Lightning's sudden participation. The episodes end with Mater leaving the scene, often followed by characters or references to the story that was being told, suggesting that the story might be real.

Unused Episodes
The DVD/Blu-ray release of Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales included in its bonus features several abandoned concepts of Tall Tales:
 * Runway Mater
 * Stunt Mater
 * Backwards to the Forwards
 * Mater Goes to the Car-Nival
 * Import Mater

Tales from Radiator Springs
Disney Channel debuted three new "Shorty Shorts" of 90 seconds shorts during an airing of Up on March 22, 2013. The three shorts are named Hiccups, Bugged and Spinning. All three are directed by Jeremy Lasky and produced by Mary Alice Drumm. They are the first Cars Toons not to revolve around Mater.

Production
Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Wallis, Guido Quaroni, Lindsey Collins, and Elissa Knight reprise their voice roles from the films. Owen Wilson did not return to voice Lightning McQueen, who is replaced by voice actor Keith Ferguson in all episodes. Though Nathan Stanton claims that Lloyd Sherr, who voiced Fillmore in Cars 2, replaced the late George Carlin in the series, Carlin is credited at the end of several Cars Toons.

Future
It was revealed at D23 Expo 2013 that two new Cars Toons episodes called Radiator Springs 500 1/2 and To Protect and Serve are currently in development, for a release on Disney Channel in 2014.

According to an online catalogue from Disney Publishing Worldwide, "new racing-themed toons" will be released in 2013. Another Disney merchandise magazine states "many more" new Cars Toon shorts are in development. They will be released as bonuses on DVDs, on Disney Channel, Disney XD and other digital platforms; Some of these episodes will debut at cinemas as a preview to other animated films. According to Disney Brochure 2013, one of the new episodes will be released in June 2013, and two more will be released in September 2013.

Toys
It was announced that Cars Toons were to be released as part of the Disney·Pixar Cars Die-Cast Line, in mid-2009. In October 2009, they released several die-casts. Die-casts have been released for all episodes of season 1. They have produced die-casts for all of season 2's shorts except for Mater Private Eye.

Video game
A video game based on the Mater's Tall Tales series was released in October 2010 for the Wii and PC.

Release
On November 2, 2010 the first 7 Cars Toons episodes, plus the next 2 episodes exclusively, were released on DVD and Blu-ray, the same day on which Toy Story 3 was released on DVD and Blu-ray. With the exception of Mater the Greater, which is played first in the collection, the episodes have corresponding opening sequences of Mater appearing and saying "If I'm lyin', I'm cryin'" in different ways, when the viewer selects the "play all" option.

The Cars Toon, Air Mater, was released with the DVD and Blu-ray release of Cars 2.

Also, Air Mater and Time Travel Mater were included on Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2.