George and A.J.

Directed by:	Josh Cooley
Release date:	November 12, 2009

Pixar Short George and AJ

George and A.J. is a Pixar short film directed by Josh Cooley. It was released in the Disney-Pixar Channels and iTunes along with Up. It will also be included on Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2.

Plot

The short starts out with a scene from Up, where two nurses, George and A.J., from Shady Oaks Retirement Village knock on Carl's door to escort him to the nursing home. As seen in the film, Carl instead takes off in his house. George and A.J. stare dumbfounded at the sky while their van's alarm goes off (it had been bumped by Carl's house).

The next day, a news reporter does a story about sightings of a floating house. She attempts to get George and A.J.'s opinion, but they are still in shock. Meanwhile, other senior citizens around the city, including at Shady Oaks, are watching the news report and learn that Carl has "escaped". A week later, George and A.J. are back at their task of escorting elderly citizens to Shady Oaks in their van. Unfortunately, the seniors have gotten ideas from what Carl did, and every time George and A.J. come to a house to take a person away, the senior living there escapes with their house somehow.

Finally, George and A.J. arrive back at the Shady Oaks Retirement Village, only to find an old man outside the door who yells, "So long suckers!" and hits his cane against one of many canisters attached to the outside of the building; the other canisters soon follow and spew out a powerful gas. After the man goes inside, the entire building launches into the sky. Still dumbstruck, George and A.J. stare up. A few canisters fall down, and one lands on their van, setting off its alarm again. Suddenly, from behind them, a giant blimp starts to descend. It turns out to be Charles F. Muntz's Spirit of Adventure dirigible, and Carl is flying it, with Russell next to him. The airship lands on top of the van, effectively stopping its alarm. Carl and Russell climb out George incredulously says, "Mr. Fredricksen?". They walk past the nurses, and Russell says that next time he'd like to steer. A.J. turns to George and says, "That was the craziest thing I've ever seen!". They look down to find Dug in front of them. Dug says, "Hi there!" through his collar, and George and A.J. are even more shocked than before.

Release

Instead of being released on DVD like Partly Cloudy, Dug's Special Mission, or any other Pixar short film, George & A.J. was initially released on iTunes as an extra feature that came with a purchase of the film. It was later released to fans of Disney/Pixar on their Facebook page and later to the official Disney/Pixar YouTube page. However, it will be included on Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2.

Inconsistencies with Up

• There are slight dialogue differences in the scene where George and A.J. first talk with Carl at his house.
• In this short film, Russell is seen bracing himself underneath the floorboards of Carl's house. While this attempts to explain how Russell ended up on Carl's porch later in the film, Russell is not seen underneath Carl's house when it takes off in the film.
• In Up, Carl's surname is always spelt as Fredricksen. Yet in the news items which are seen crawling across the screen during the news program, his surname is spelt "Fredrickson" twice, a difference that could be attributed to a mistake on the part of the news media.
• The Shady Oaks Retirement Village building blasts off into the sky in this film, yet during the credits of Up, Carl is seen socializing with other residents of the home along with some of Muntz's dogs, implying he ended up living there after the film.
• At the end of the short, Carl is seen in the airship without his jacket. Although through most of the end of the film he is seen without a jacket, he does have one at the very end in the airship.

Trivia

• During the news report, there are various reports along the bottom of the screen:
  • ...reports of 'flying house' floods police phones
  • Local birthday parties suffer from citywide helium drought
  • Construction pile driving drives city insane
  • Entertainment news: Charles Muntz biopic in production
  • Carl Fredrickson charged with 'assault with an elderly weapon'
  • Fredrickson's sentence reduced due to senior citizen discount
  • Report: South America just like America, but south
  • Study shows 80 is the new 30
• Note that Carl's last name of "Fredricksen" is incorrectly spelled "Fredrickson" in these tickers.