BG Roundtable: Favorite Pixar Characters

by Betsy

With Wall-E out in theaters, there is a lot of talk around Bad Genious Mansion about Pixar movies and the memorable characters therein.

Friendly Neighborhood Editor Liana said, "Hey, let's do a roundtable. I call dibs on editing. There's nothing more fun than editing a roundtable!" I said, "Step aside, catlicker. I'm editing this one.

I wonder why she was snickering at me behind her hand.

I figured, how hard can it be? Everyone tells who their favorite character is, I do some copy-paste, and we're done.

"So, geniouses," I asked at our morning meeting, "Who's your favorite Pixar character?"

Tyler says, "I liked The Incredibles." Doug agrees - that movie was fantastic. That's well and good, but we're looking for a favorite character. Do you like Dash? Violet? Edna Mode? Suddenly, things get quiet at Bad Genious Mansion.

I employ my time-honored editorial trait of glaring and banging my fist on my desk to make my coffee cup jump in the air. I figure if it works for J. Jonah Jameson, it'll work for me. Finally, Jon chimes in.

"Elastigirl. Favorite means 'most want to sleep with,' right?" Because I think Elastigirl is awesome and am secretly writing a future post about her, I will accept this answer.

Dan, Yoda bless him, is considerably more helpful. He muses, "Mater or Sulley? Sulley or Mater? Well, they had a fight to the pain and Sulley wins my heart. Hard-working. Logical. Realistic. All things that make a great character! Oh, who am I kidding, I love Sulley because he’s a big huggable furballarific Kitty!"

Meanwhile, at Cindy's house, they're still a bit confused about the topic of this week's roundtable. Cindy marches right up to my coffee-stained desk and says, "I polled the members of my home for their favorite Pixar movies. My 12 year-old son, Jackson, had to think about it for a minute. My however many years-old boyfriend quickly responded, "The Incredibles, no doubt!" Jackson replies, "Oh yeah, The Incredibles!" I do love that movie, but I have to pick Finding Nemo, simply for giving us, Dorie. She's so open and devoid of edginess. She's funny without being overly clever. She's genuine without being too sappy. All the while, she's a fish, the only animated fish ever to almost bring me to tears. Not bad at all for a fish."

Technically, Cindy and her family got confused on the whole character vs. movie question. But, not only did Cindy bring me a cup of coffee along with her completed assignment, she also gave me an idea: we need to ask some kids.

First up were Sarah and her son Callum. Sarah, like any good parent, has watched a lot of Pixar movies and was able to give this matter a lot of thought.

"Pixar has a plethora of great characters from their films, some of Callum's and my favourites are Dorie from Finding Nemo and Buzz from Toy Story. However there is one film that has what are probably our two favorite characters in.

"Which film is this and who are those characters? Well it is the film Cars. From the first viewing of this film (and boy have we watched this a good few times, probably triple figure viewings) there was one outright winner for my son Callum, yep Lightning McQueen. In the words of a four-year-old boy who is car crazy 'He's cool, he's red, he drives fast but best of all he is a talking car, you can't get cooler than that, well apart from if he was blue he should have worked for Dynoco.' Callum has every version we've managed to track down of the Mattel's Lightning McQueen Car, he can quote line after line of Lightning's from the film and quite often you will hear him going round going 'Ka-chow! Ka-ching!'

As for who my favorite character is, it is Mater:

Mater: My name is Mater.
Lightning McQueen: Mater?
Mater: Yeah, like tuh-mater, but without the "tuh."

I love everything about this adorable character, his simplicity at seeing things in life to his loving heart, plus he's pretty funny. You can't help but love Mater."

Next, I had Chris ask his daughter Cassie who her favorite Pixar character is. Because Cassie is crazy for all things princess - and Pixar is princess free at the moment - he gave her a bit of direction.

Chris: Cassie, who do you like more: Buzz, Woody, Jessie, Sully, Mike, Boo, or Lightning McQueen.
Cassie: You mean the ride?
Chris: No, which of those characters is your favorite?
Cassie: Ummmm... Buzz!
Chris: Buzz?
Cassie: Yeah.
Chris: Why?
Cassie: Fly!
Chris: Because he flies?
Cassie: Yeah. I like flying.

Chris adds, "I figured she would have said Mike or Sully because she used to watch Monsters Inc. about once a day (if not more). I wonder if her choice has something to do with the fact that she loved the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disneyland.

I'd probably have to go with Sully. He's loyal, brave, and has a strong sense of right and wrong. Plus, he sticks up for his friends."

Of course, I knew that if I was going to ask some kids, I should probably talk to my own. So, I asked Jack who his favorite Pixar character was. Without hesitation, he threw in with Cassie: Buzz Lightyear all the way. And why? Like Cassie, Jack digs the fact that Buzz can fly... never mind that according to Woody, he doesn't fly so much as he falls with style. Jack added that he likes that Buzz is friends with Woody and thinks that he's funny.

Thanks to Jack, my husband Steve has watched many the Pixar movie. His favorite character is Marlin, from Finding Nemo. Steve says, "I can really relate to Marlin. Being a father is so important to him, and he does everything he can to protect Nemo and keep him safe. Unfortunately, that causes him to be overprotective, which I can be too. I hope that, like Marlin, I can gain the courage to let Jack fall down - and to let him succeed even when I think he might not."

As for me, I had to give this matter a lot of thought. I love Elastigirl, but like I said, I'm saving my thoughts about her for a future post. I like Jessie's spunkiness and spirt of adventure. I even have a soft spot for Andy in Toy Story, whose vivid imagination reminds me of Jack's. But right now, my heart belongs to Wall-E. I adore his curiosity and the magpie way that he keeps interesting objects he finds. He is incredibly loyal and loving to EVE, he's funny, and he even enjoys a good musical.

Ha! Editing a roundtable isn't so hard. All you have to do is get your kids to do the work for you. Until the next roundtable, in which we ask our children about their favorite issue of Preacher, chime in, lurkers: who is your favorite Pixar character?