Finding Nemo Trivia

Cameos, in-jokes, re-used animation, and other trivia from Finding Nemo.

Cameos

• During the preview of the escape plan, the Pizza Planet truck drives past.
• During the closing credits, Mike Wazowski snorkels by.
• A boy in the dentist's waiting room is reading a Mr. Incredible comic book.
• The dentist office waiting room includes a Buzz Lightyear toy on the floor.
• At the end, when the fish are escaping from the dentist's office, a car similar to Luigi from Cars drives past.
• Along with Buzz Lightyear, many other references from previous Pixar films make a cameo around a toy box in the dentist's office. These include:
  • Boo's teddy bear from Monsters, Inc.
  • The Luxo Ball
  • The plane from Toy Story
• One of the boats in Sydney Harbour is called "For the Birds", a reference to the short For the Birds.
• A113 appears as a model code on the camera used by one of the scuba divers.
• Sunny Atlantis from Knick Knack appears on the shipwrecked ship in the tank.
• Boo's fish mobile from Monsters, Inc. appears in the dentist's office.
• A Pixar University certificate is seen in the waiting room.
• A red monster car and monster taxi car from Monsters, Inc. drive on Wallaby Way, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Cameos Gallery

Mike Wazowski in Finding Nemo.

Toys in Finding Nemo.

Sunny Atlantis in Finding Nemo.

Mr. Incredible in Finding Nemo.

"For the Birds" boat in Finding Nemo.

A113 in Finding Nemo.

Car similar to Luigi in Finding Nemo.

Pizza Planet Truck in Finding Nemo.

Boo's fish mobile.

The certificate.

Monstropolis red car in Finding Nemo.

Monstropolis Taxi car in Finding Nemo.

In-Jokes

• When Marlin and Dory ask the school of fish for directions to get to Sydney, the scene is similar to the scene in the movie's own teaser trailer.

Deleted Scenes

Alternate Beginning: Bedtime Story

Marlin is constantly trying to tell Nemo a story, but Nemo keeps interrupting. The story in voles fish on the ocean floor, surrounded by kelp and clams, and explains that Nemo's mother was beautiful, and that the ocean took her away.

Panicked Father

After hearing that Mr. Ray is heading towards the drop-off, Marlin heads off to find him and Nemo, but is constantly frightened by many things surrounding him.

Shark Volleyball

Anchor, Bruce, and Chum are joined by Dory in a game of catch (using a mine). Meanwhile, Marlin tries to read the license plate (which later becomes a mask)

Dory has one little question: what happens if you drop the mine? (which she finds out when it falls and explodes to which she says oooh ok i get it. i get it!)

Soap Opera/Gill Lies

While taking swimming lessons from Gill, Nemo asks the former where he came from. Gill replies that he was from Bad Luck Bay, "a place shaped like a human skull." He also had siblings: Marco, Polo, Lester, Linus, and Lulu.

A soap opera starts playing on TV, and while the rest of the Tank Gang watches it, Nemo overhears a man reading to his child a story...about Bad Luck Bay.

Crush the Hippie

Marlin is explaining what happened when Dory got stung by the jellyfish, when Crush swims by. Marlin introduces Crush to Dory, and claims he has seen a whale. Crush begins talking about whales when he sees something.

Scent of Lavender

An alternate scene after Dory makes Marlin come down after swimming in a circle.

Sewage

After going down the drain, Nemo finds himself in the Sydney Water Treatment. He has to dodge all the obstacles in order to get out and find Marlin.

Other Trivia

• The film's prominent use of clownfish prompted mass purchase of the animals for children's pets in the United States, even though the movie portrayed the use of tropical fish as pets negatively and that saltwater aquariums are notably tricky and expensive to maintain. As of 2004, in Vanuatu, clownfish were being caught on a large scale for sale as pets, motivated by the demand.
• This is the first Pixar film to receive a PG rating in New Zealand.
• In the fullscreen version of the film, the viewer can actually see the visible portion of a female patient's legs (they are hidden under her skirt) as she is entering the waiting room and is mistaken for Darla. Unfortunately, this is only present in the 2003 US original home video release, as the Blu-ray release as with the international versions of both releases only contains the widescreen version. However, her legs are still visible even in that version, but she (and her son, see cameo of Mr. Incredible above) were sitting.
• This is one of Pixar's first attempt at animating realistically-flowing skirts and/or dresses on women, with the example being above.
• This film takes place in November.
  • Also, the scene where Darla arrives takes place on Friday the 13th.
• On Disney+, some audio options play the original 2003 audio over the 2012 video.
• This is the first Pixar film not to take place in the United States, instead taking place in the seas surrounding the eastern half of Australia.
• When Dory found the whale, she wanted to ask it directions whereas Marlin does not. Then Dory asks him, "What is it with men and asking directions?" This quote was also said in Mulan 2.
• This is the last Pixar film to have its fullscreen and widescreen formats in the same DVD case, but also the first to have them on separate DVDs, both in the same case. It should also be noted that this applies to the US version only, since the international version contains only the widescreen version and Disc 2 is made up of mostly bonus features.
• Although the film featured realistically-animated water, said water was slightly animated less realistically to avoid people confusing said water for live footage of the ocean.
• Although this movie portrays the idea that fish that are flushed down the drain are returned to the ocean unharmed, in reality this is not the case. In reality, though any water that goes down a drain does reach the ocean eventually, it will first go through equipment that breaks down solids, meaning that Nemo would have been killed long before being released into the sea. A company that manufactures such equipment put out a warning to prevent kids from flushing their fish thinking they were 'releasing' them (noting that in reality, they were grinding Nemo). A planned scene would have shown Nemo in the sewage plant somehow avoiding the grinding machinery (Nemo getting into the filter to jam it would have been a foreshadowing of this), but this was cut for time and pacing.
• At one point when Bruce is chasing Marlin and Dory, he bangs his head in one part of the submarine wreck and puts his head through and yells "Heeeere's Brucey!!!". This is a reference to the very famous scene of The Shining where Jack Torrance puts his head through the door and yells "Heeere's Johnny!!!".
• The scene where Nemo disobeys his father, who warns him to not touch the bottom of the boat is an homage to the ice cream scene from the 1979 movie, Kramer vs. Kramer.
• This is the first Pixar film not to be released in November.
• This is the first Pixar film not to be composed by Randy Newman.
• The film is one of Pixar's first attempt at animating "realistic" human characters (animated humans that sport mostly realistic body proportions, but with some slightly exaggerated anatomical structures, particularly their facial features, especially their eyes, and their hands and feet), their depiction of "realistic" when it comes to animating humans refers to how they draw them in a way so that they all avoid falling into the "uncanny valley".
• This is the first Pixar film to feature blood when Dory has a bloody nose, although in A Bug's Life, the mural had grasshoppers killed with blood doesn't count as it wasn't real.
• This is the first Pixar film not to feature a Toy Story character cameo; Toy Story and Toy Story 2 features the main characters, both outtakes in A Bug's Life had a Woody cameo and Monsters, Inc. had a Rex cameo during the end credits.
• This is the last Pixar film to star Joe Ranft in the main cast. Ranft was only an additional voice in The Incredibles, and he died in a car accident in 2005, during the production of Cars.
• This is the first Pixar film to win the Best Animated Feature Award. Monsters, Inc. was nominated, although it lost to DreamWorks' Shrek.
• 12,996 individual corals were used to build the reef that Mr. Ray’s class swims through.
• This is the first Pixar film to be adapted for Disney's As Told by Emoji series.
• The film grossed $871 million worldwide in its initial release, which made it at the time of its release the eighth highest-grossing film of all time (behind Titanic, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Jurassic Park, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and the highest-grossing animated film of all time (surpassing The Lion King) until it was surpassed by Shrek 2 in 2004. After its re-release in 2012, which made its current gross to $940 million, it is currently the 58th highest-grossing film of all time and the 12th highest-grossing animated film of all time.
  • However Finding Nemo would currently be the 70th highest-grossing film of all time and the 15th highest-grossing animated film of all time if the film and no other film had ever been re-released.
• This is the first Pixar film to be released in May.
• While Marlin and Dory are escaping the Anglerfish, which swallows Marlin whole at one point while he is grabbing onto its dorsal light organ, the Lightsaber sound effect can be heard when the Anglerfish spits Marlin out, still grabbing onto its light. Also, Nigel's line "Well don't everybody fly off at once." mirrors Han's line "Well don't everybody thank me at once." in A New Hope.
• Crush appeared on the PBS Kids Go! show, FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman, in the season 5 episode "The Ol' Shell Game." In that episode, it is Crush's birthday, so Ruff gives him a call. During that call, Crush tells Ruff about trouble happening with turtles, so Ruff sends Marco and Shreya to learn about sea turtles. At the end of the episode, Crush thanks them for helping the sea turtles, and says that it was the best birthday present ever.