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For the Birds is a Pixar short film written and directed by Ralph Eggleston. Its worldwide debut occurred at the Annecy Film Festival in France on June 5, 2000. It would later premiere in the United States at the 27th annual Siggraph conference on July 24 of that same year, and was attached to the theatrical release of Monsters, Inc. in 2001. It was re-released on December 19, 2012 with Monsters, Inc. in 3-D and later with the theatrical release of Luca on March 22, 2024. The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Plot[]

Fifteen bluebirds land one by one on a power line, and soon they encounter a huge and goofy-looking bird. They mimic and tease him, but he goes on the cord anyway, trying to be friendly. The little birds screech at him shrilly, and one of them Bully pecks him hard on the side causing the big bird to drop from the cord. He still manages to hang on by his toes, which two of the little blue birds Bully and Snob start pecking at grumpily in order to make him let go. The rest of the birds (including the big blue one) egg them on, until at the last second one of the little bird's spots how close to the ground they actually are. Alerting the others, they quickly try to stop the other two but it is too late. When the big bird falls off, the others are all flung away into the sky like a slingshot, while the big bird lands on the ground unharmed. The little birds then fall back to the ground, all having lost their feathers, making them the goofy-looking ones now. The short ends with the big bird laughing hysterically as the other birds hide behind him.

The first four small birds to land on the power line are named Bully, Chipper, Snob and Neurotic.[1]

Production[]

Ralph Eggleston had this to say about his inspiration for the short:

Probably visits to my aunt when I was a kid. She lived in the country and I spent long rides to her house peering out the car window at birds on a wire. Also, I did a project in my design class at CalArts that my friend, Ken Bruce, told me might make a good film. I boarded it out at CalArts, but frankly, I couldn’t imagine the difficulty of drawing all those birds. Little did I know it would be just as difficult on the computer!

Trivia[]

  • The title of the short is a reference to the idiom of the same name, meaning "being worthless, undesirable, crazy, and ridiculous".
Nemoforthebirds

"For the Birds" boat in Finding Nemo.

  • There is a boat in Finding Nemo entitled "For the Birds".
  • The background music in this short, titled "Big High Wire Hop", is performed by Riders in the Sky. It is included in the band's 2002 album Monsters, Inc. Scream Factory Favorites.
  • Carsforthebirds

    The birds on the power line in Cars

    The small birds on the power line make a cameo appearance in the movie Cars during the "Life is a Highway" scene. Unlike many of the other "animals" in the films, the birds aren't car-ified.
  • Concept art for Toy Story 3 showed that a toy version of one of the small birds was going to be one of the toys strapped to the garbage truck that Lotso ended up on.
  • "For the Birds" is the name of a board game seen in Mason's room in Toy Story That Time Forgot, when Bonnie visits after Christmas.
  • The birds from this short have been reused as brief cameos in Inside Out.
    • A drawing resembling the Big Bird appears beside Ralph Eggleston's name in the credits of Inside Out 2, likely in memoriam of Eggleston.
  • The background is actually just painted.
  • This short originally started off as an idea for a student film by Ralph Eggleston but was never made because it would have taken forever to draw all of the birds.
  • The Big Bird resembles either a shoebill or a hammerkop, while Bully and his flock appear to be some sort of waxbill (even having the same squeaks).
  • This is Pixar's first attempt at animating both feathers and moving backgrounds.
  • At the end of the short, the words "the end" appear to be written on what appears to be bird feces splattered onto a black background. Ironically, bird excrement is actually white, not brown.

Gallery[]

References[]

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