Knick Knack
Encyclopedia
Knick Knack is a computer animated
short film
produced by Pixar
, and directed by John Lasseter
. It was released in 1989
, and was the last short film produced by Pixar until the success of their full-length motion picture Toy Story
(1995) and the final short Pixar made as a hardware company. It was also the first of the company's animations to be originally shot in 3D. The accompanying score consists of a cappella
vocal jazz composed and performed by Bobby McFerrin
.
from Nome, Alaska
sits by itself. The snowman inside (named Knick, the cousin of Frosty the Snowman, according to the audio commentary) wants to reach a "Sunny Miami" knickknack that shows a pretty girl lounging in a bikini. Knick tries several methods to break out of the globe: ramming it with the igloo
backdrop, using a hammer and his carrot
nose to chisel through, attacking it with a jackhammer
(which causes the coals that make up his face to fall off from the vibrations), burning it with a blowtorch (which blasts him back to the far wall), and detonating explosives. None of his attempts are successful, but the blast from the explosion causes the globe to tip over the edge of the shelf and fall; he then notices an emergency exit in the base and frees himself just before he and the globe fall into a fishbowl. Here Knick sees a pretty mermaid
souvenir from "Sunny Atlantis
" and runs toward her, but before he can reach her, the globe settles to the bottom and traps him again.
It was originally shown in 3-D at the 1988 SIGGRAPH
Animation Show. The original edition (though in conventional 2-D) was shown before The Little Mermaid
in theaters and on the Walt Disney VHS Tiny Toy Stories
and also on the Toy Story
Deluxe CAV Laserdisc Edition, both of which are now out of print.
The film was completely remade for release in theatres preceding Finding Nemo
. This new version is preceded with the message "In 1989, six years before Toy Story, Pixar Animation Studios made this short film" followed by the modern Pixar logo. In this version, the girl on the "Miami" knick knack and the mermaid
in the fish bowl now have much smaller breasts and the mermaid is now wearing a seashell bra rather than just starfish pasties
. Lasseter defended the changes by saying, "It wasn’t big bad Disney coming in and insisting we do this … it was our own choice. It was just crossing the line for me personally as a father. So I made the decision to reduce (these characters’) breast size.” This version is available on the Finding Nemo
DVD
set, the Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1 DVD and Blu-Ray, and through the iTunes Store
. A 3-D version of the "small breasts" edition played to the public as a short attached to the 2006 Disney Digital 3D release of The Nightmare Before Christmas
.
and in 2001 Terry Gilliam
selected it as one of the ten best animated films of all time.
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
short film
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
produced by Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
, and directed by John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
. It was released in 1989
1989 in film
-Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million...
, and was the last short film produced by Pixar until the success of their full-length motion picture Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
(1995) and the final short Pixar made as a hardware company. It was also the first of the company's animations to be originally shot in 3D. The accompanying score consists of a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
vocal jazz composed and performed by Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...
.
Plot synopsis
On a bookshelf filled with vacation souvenirs, a snow globeSnow globe
A snow globe is a transparent sphere, usually made of glass, enclosing a miniaturized scene of some sort, often together with a model of a landscape. The sphere also encloses the water in the globe; the water serves as the medium through which the "snow" falls. To activate the snow, the globe is...
from Nome, Alaska
Nome, Alaska
Nome is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. According to the 2010 Census, the city population was 3,598. Nome was incorporated on April 9, 1901, and was once the...
sits by itself. The snowman inside (named Knick, the cousin of Frosty the Snowman, according to the audio commentary) wants to reach a "Sunny Miami" knickknack that shows a pretty girl lounging in a bikini. Knick tries several methods to break out of the globe: ramming it with the igloo
Igloo
An igloo or snowhouse is a type of shelter built of snow, originally built by the Inuit....
backdrop, using a hammer and his carrot
Carrot
The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh...
nose to chisel through, attacking it with a jackhammer
Jackhammer
A jackhammer is a pneumatic tool that combines a hammer directly with a chisel that was invented by Charles Brady King. Hand-held jackhammers are typically powered by compressed air, but some use electric motors. Larger jackhammers, such as rig mounted hammers used on construction machinery, are...
(which causes the coals that make up his face to fall off from the vibrations), burning it with a blowtorch (which blasts him back to the far wall), and detonating explosives. None of his attempts are successful, but the blast from the explosion causes the globe to tip over the edge of the shelf and fall; he then notices an emergency exit in the base and frees himself just before he and the globe fall into a fishbowl. Here Knick sees a pretty mermaid
Mermaid
A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...
souvenir from "Sunny Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
" and runs toward her, but before he can reach her, the globe settles to the bottom and traps him again.
Versions
The film has been released in two versions, and each of these have been shown in both 3-D and 2-D.It was originally shown in 3-D at the 1988 SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
Animation Show. The original edition (though in conventional 2-D) was shown before The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid (1989 film)
The Little Mermaid is a 1989 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was originally released to theaters on November 14, 1989 and is the twenty-eighth film in...
in theaters and on the Walt Disney VHS Tiny Toy Stories
Tiny Toy Stories
Tiny Toy Stories is a VHS featuring five computer animated short films made by Pixar. It was released on October 29, 1996 by Walt Disney Home Video.- Shorts :The video includes:*The Adventures of André and Wally B. Directed by Alvy Ray Smith...
and also on the Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
Deluxe CAV Laserdisc Edition, both of which are now out of print.
The film was completely remade for release in theatres preceding Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
. This new version is preceded with the message "In 1989, six years before Toy Story, Pixar Animation Studios made this short film" followed by the modern Pixar logo. In this version, the girl on the "Miami" knick knack and the mermaid
Mermaid
A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...
in the fish bowl now have much smaller breasts and the mermaid is now wearing a seashell bra rather than just starfish pasties
Pasties
Pasties are adhesive coverings applied to cover a woman's nipples and areolae. Though pasties are commonly associated with burlesque and erotic entertainment, they are also at times worn as an undergarment and occasionally as beachwear.Some women wear pasties when wearing a strapless or backless...
. Lasseter defended the changes by saying, "It wasn’t big bad Disney coming in and insisting we do this … it was our own choice. It was just crossing the line for me personally as a father. So I made the decision to reduce (these characters’) breast size.” This version is available on the Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
set, the Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1 DVD and Blu-Ray, and through the iTunes Store
ITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
. A 3-D version of the "small breasts" edition played to the public as a short attached to the 2006 Disney Digital 3D release of The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas, often promoted as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, is a 1993 stop motion musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick and produced/co-written by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, a being from "Halloween Town" who opens a portal to...
.
Critical acclaim
In 1990, it won the Best Short Film award at the Seattle International Film FestivalSeattle International Film Festival
The Seattle International Film Festival , held annually in Seattle, Washington since 1976, is among the top film festivals in North America. Audiences have grown steadily; the 2006 festival had 160,000 attendees...
and in 2001 Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
selected it as one of the ten best animated films of all time.