Pixar loves to load its animated movies with easter eggs and hidden details and there are
stacks of them you might have missed when you first watched Cars 3.
Yippee-ki-yay movie lovers, it's Jan here, and with Cars 3 available now to watch at
home, I've gone through the movie with a fine toothcomb and today I'll be explaining all
the Pixar easter eggs and cool details hidden in the film.
Also, I'm starting a new Disney Funko giveaway for one of these Cars pop figures.
For a chance to win, make sure you're subscribed to my channel and leave me a comment about
your favourite easter eggs you spotted in the movie.
And just a quick warning before we start, I'll be discussing spoilers from Cars 3, so
take care if you haven't seen the movie yet.
Cruz's license plate is a clever shout-out to the actress Cristela Alonzo who voices
the character in the movie. It's a combination of her initials, C and
A, and then her birthday January 6th. Plus the plate is registered in Texgas, a
pun on Texas, which is where Alonzo was born.
The Sleep Well motel from Toy Story of Terror also shows up in Cars 3 on a giant roadside
advert above the bridge where Mack and Lightning spend the night after the Thunder Hollow incident.
The sign says "Time To Re-Tire?" which reflects Lightning's state of mind at that moment as
he's just had an argument with Cruz after she won the demolition derby and he's thinking
about giving up racing for good. But it's also an extra reference to Toy Story
of Terror and how Bonnie's mom had to stay at the Sleep Well motel after she got a flat
tyre. Also on that billboard, there's a deep-cut
easter egg to Pixar's incorporation date in the numbers 0-2-0-3-86, in other words, February
3rd, 1986.
And while Mack is sleeping below the bridge, inside Lightning is flipping channels, and,
for just a moment, the Cars 2 scene of a kissing couple on the Pont des Arts in Paris pops
up on the TV screen. By the way, those kissing cars are named John
and Nancy after Pixar's John Lasseter and his wife, whose favourite colour just happens
to be lavender, the same as the female car in the scene.
One of the most memorable moments in Cars 3 is the demolition derby race where we meet
the fearsome Miss Fritter. And the scenes at the Thunder Hollow Speedway
are also a fantastic treasure trove of Pixar easter eggs and references for fans to appreciate.
During the contest, one of the competitors, Bill, gets pushed along by Miss Fritter and
his colour design is the same as Pixar's famous Luxo ball, plus he even has the Luxo ball
painted on his hood. The Luxo ball appeared in Pixar's very first
short film, Luxo Jr together with two desk lamps, one of which is still used in Pixar's
logo.
Another competitor at the Thunder Hollow demolition derby is the Pizza Planet Truck, aka Todd,
who has appeared in both of the previous two Cars movies, and in Cars 3 at one point a
car goes crashing into him which knocks the Pizza Planet rocket off his roof and sends
it flying into the crowd.
A Crazy Eight racer called T-Bone, whose body is kind of twisted, has a street sign at the
front of his hood in the race. The sign reads Park Avenue, a shout-out to
the location of Pixar Animation Studios' main office at 1200 Park Ave, Emeryville.
Miss Fritter is, of course, the queen of the track at Thunder Hollow and the design of
her smokestacks are a deliberate homage to the horns of the classic Disney villain Maleficent.
And dotted around the speedway are a number of billboards which have some super-sneaky
easter eggs hidden within them. There's a car life insurance ad by a company
called Insuricare which is the same insurance company that Bob works for in The Incredibles.
And the Wild Bill's Racing Cones billboard is a reference to Cars 3 production designer
Bill Cone.
And the radio station "Wild 86.2 FM" is another deep cut easter egg to the month and year
when Pixar was incorporated, February 1986. By the way, there's yet another nod to that
year in the movie as the number of Bill, the Luxo Ball car, is 86, and 1986 is also the
year that Pixar released their first short film, Luxo Jr., which also featured the Luxo
Ball.
In 1986, it was Steve Jobs who provided the investment money for Pixar's spin-out as a
corporation from Lucasfilm, and since then Pixar have included numerous homages in their
movies to Steve Jobs' most famous brand, Apple. In Cars 3, you can hear the Mac starting sound
when Cruz boots up the treadmill on Fireball Beach.
You might also have heard the same sound in WALL-E as it plays after WALL-E has finished
charging himself.
Speaking of WALL-E, there's an easter egg to that movie via the BnL, aka Buy n Large,
track sponsor at one of the speedways. BnL is the corporation in WALL•E that basically
enabled the pollution of the planet and sent humans away from Earth while it attempted
to clear it up. A BnL Raceway logo also appears during the
Cars 3 credits.
Pixar's films always include easter eggs for their next movie, which in the case of Cars
3 means Coco. And there are loads of Coco easter eggs and
references in this Cars 3. For example, you can spot the guitar from
Coco on the stage behind Sweet Tea and her band at the Cotter Pin bar.
The town where Coco is set, Santa Cecilia, appears on the treadmill screen at the Rust-eze
Racing Center when one of the homesick cars thinks of home.
And there's also a neat Coco-inspired brand of liquor in the bar where Miss Fritter and
her friends go to watch the Florida 500 race. The brand advertised is torquela which is
a clever car-based pun on torque and tequila.
While Miss Fritter's in that bar, you'll need to look very carefully to spot a sneaky A-1-1-3
easter egg via one of the license plates hanging on the side of the school bus, and you can
see that a bit more clearly during the Crazy Eight demolition derby as well.
Miss Fritter collects license plates from the opponents she defeats at the Thunder Hollow
speedway and she also seems to collect street signs.
And one of those street signs is for "West Cutting Boulevard", a reference to the street
address of Pixar's former headquarters in Richmond, California.
Other Cars 3 A-1-1-3 easter eggs include one on the press sticker that track reporter Shannon
Spokes wears on her side. And there's a fairly obvious A-1-1-3 on the
door to Sterling's office at the Rust-eze Racing Centre.
And inside Sterling's office, there are some more cool easter eggs.
Hidden among the trophies on his shelves is Cinderella's pumpkin carriage.
The movie's set department included this as it's a four-wheeled vehicle and is a fun little
nod to one of Disney's classic films.
And this one is much harder to see, but if you look very carefully, there's a small picture
of Sir Miles Axlerod, the villain from Cars 2, which might suggest that Sterling once
knew the evil mastermind from the second Cars movie.
The miniature tree on Sterling's desk also looks a lot like the tree from A Bug's Life
which has also appeared previously in Up and Toy Story 2.
And before Lightning went to the Rust-eze Racing Centre, he spoke on a payphone to Rusty
and Dusty from Radiator Springs. Now, that payphone was originally designed
to appear in the first Cars movie but ended up being cut.
In fact, when Cars 3 production designer Jay Shuster joined Pixar back in the early 2000s,
that payphone was one of the very first things he created.
During the Florida 500 race, one of racers spins out of control nearly causing a multiple
car accident. The spinning car is number 31 and its sponsor
is Triple Dent Gum, which is the chewing gum from Inside Out that had a recurring jingle
that played throughout that movie.
Now, what was your favourite moment or easter egg in Cars 3 and were there any other cool
details you spotted that I missed? Let me know in the comments below and don't
forget to subscribe as well for a chance to win a Disney Cars 3 Funko Pop!
I'll probably announce the winner on one of my upcoming Coco videos next month, so make
sure you have notifications enabled to get all my new videos as soon as they're ready.
And, if you enjoyed this, do hit that thumbs-up button and take a look at some more Pixar
and other videos you might like right here. Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!