Cars 3 brings back Lightning McQueen for the third instalment in Pixar's Cars trilogy and,
like all Pixar films, it's loaded with Pixar and Disney easter eggs like the Pizza Planet
Truck and Cinderella's carriage. Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here
and in this video I'll be revealing where all the usual Pixar easter eggs including
A-1-1-3 are hidden as well as uncovering some more obscure ones, and how the movie fits
in with the Pixar Theory. I'm also kicking off my very special Cars
3 giveaway. Two lucky winners will get this awesome The
Art of Cars 3 hardback book which shows off some of Pixar's amazing concept art, storyboards
and exclusive insights into the making of the movie.
For a chance to win, just subscribe and leave a comment about the film, and also answer
the question I'll be asking later in the video. Quick warning there are spoilers ahead for
Cars 3, so take care if you haven't seen the movie yet.
Let's start with the Pizza Planet Truck, which debuted in Pixar's first feature Toy Story
and which has appeared in almost every Pixar film to date.
In the Cars universe, the Pizza Planet Truck is actually a character called Todd and in
the first movie he appeared as an onlooker at the Los Angeles International Speedway.
He cameo'd twice in Cars 2, the first time appearing on TV and, the second, as a spectator
at the Radiator Springs Grand Prix. And in Cars 3, Pizza Planet Truck Todd is
a participant in the Crazy 8 demolition derby. And in this movie, the Pizza Planet Truck's
rocket actually flies into the crowd at one point!
Miss Fritter is a cool new character we meet in Cars 3 who collects the license plates
of each of the opponents she defeats at the Thunder Hollow Speedway.
Miss Fritter also carries a street sign that appears to read "West Cutting Boulevard",
an easter egg to the location of Pixar's former headquarters in Richmond, California.
And this street sign last appeared in Toy Story 3 above the door in Andy's bedroom.
Also, on the side of Miss Fritter is the number 58 which the animators included as a reference
to the year Miss Fritter voice actress Lea DeLaria was born.
And the name of DeLaria's high school is also on the bus!
By the way, I wonder if Miss Fritter's name is a play on "Ms. Frizzle" who drives the
Magic School Bus in the animated TV series of the same name?
The Pixar Luxo ball is also in the demolition derby scene painted on one of the vehicles
participating in the race at Thunder Hollow Speedway.
The Luxo ball, of course, goes back to Pixar's very first short, Luxo Jr, which features
both the Luxo ball and two desk lamps, one of which appears in Pixar's logo.
There's also a couple of A-1-1-3 easter eggs in Cars 3.
You can see one on the press sticker that Shannon Spokes wears on her side.
Spokes is the on-the-track reporter who's voiced by real-life sports reporter Shannon
Spake. And A-1-1-3 is also the number of Sterling's
office at the Rust-eze Racing Centre. The A-1-1-3 easter egg has appeared in every
single Pixar movie to date and is an homage to the classroom at California Institute of
the Arts where the likes of Pixar's John Lasseter studied.
And this one's quite hard to spot, but inside Sterling's office, hidden among the trophies,
is Cinderella's pumpkin carriage.
And could this be an easter egg to the tree from A Bug's Life which has also appeared
previously in Up and Toy Story 2?
Back at Thunder Hollow Speedway, there's a sneaky easter egg to Cars 3 production designer
Bill Cone on the Wild Bill's Racing Cones billboard which you can spot in the background
here. And I wonder whether Wild Bill also provided
the cones for Sally's Cozy Cone Motel in Radiator Springs?
An important easter egg in Cars 3 that links the movie to Jon Negroni's Pixar theory is
the first appearance of Buy n Large, aka BnL, in a Cars feature film, where it appears as
a track sponsor at a speedway. 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. The Pixar Theory suggests that Cars takes
place after humans leave the planet and before a time hundreds of years later when the events
of WALL•E take place and the presence of Buy n Large as a racetrack sponsor in Cars
3 supports this suggested timeline.
Racer number 31, Terry Kargas, is sponsored by Triple Dent Gum, the chewing gum from Inside
Out with the recurring jingle that plays throughout that movie.
Pixar's lucky charm John Ratzenberger returns in Cars 3 as the voice of the truck Mack,
and there's a scene with Mack in the movie which includes a very sneaky and obscure NASCAR
easter egg. Before going to the demolition derby at Thunder
Hollow Speedway, Mack and Lightning decide they want to go incognito.
For his disguise, Mack chooses to go as a Jocko Flocko Party supplies truck, which is
an awesome reference to the real-life monkey called Jocko Flocko that raced with NASCAR
champ Tim Flock. Jocko Flocko and Tim Flock drove together
in eight races in 1953, including Flock's Grand National win at Hickory Motor Speedway.
By the way, I wonder whether the clown on Mack's truck disguise is also a reference
to Jangles, the clown that Riley fears in Inside Out.
Cars 3 also pays homage to NASCAR's roots in Prohibition-era bootlegging with a moonshine
still that appears in the background of a scene in the woods!
And those origins also get a nod in the character of Junior "Midnight" Moon who is voiced by
NASCAR legend Robert Glenn "Junior" Johnson, who got his start in racing by making moonshine
runs through the mountains of North Carolina, and more recently teamed up with a distillery
to share his family moonshine recipe which is sold as Midnight Moon.
I also liked this shot in the woods of Lightning in silhouette leaping across the full moon
which not only has a kind of E.T. vibe to it, but also made me think back to the first
Cars movie where we saw Mater in silhouette leaping across the face of a full moon.
And talking of classic movies, I think there's shades of Rocky's story in the scenes of Lightning
training on the beach, the way he's competing against a new younger rival and has to go
back to the drawing board to figure out what he needs to do to win, and also how he has
to get himself a new trainer.
As always, Pixar have included an easter egg to their upcoming movie in the current film.
After Cars 3, Pixar is releasing Coco, a Mexican Day of the Dead story.
There's already a Cars easter egg in Coco where a young boy is wearing a pair of shoes
that sport some Lightning McQueen stylings. And Cars 3 director Brian Fee has confirmed
there are two Coco easter eggs in his movie, one of which appears at the Rust-eze Racing
Center when a homesick car thinks of home and a picture of the town from Coco appears
on one of the TV screens, and there's a second nod to Coco in the background of another scene
when a car is on stage singing.
There's a fabulous homage to Doc Hudson, aka the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, when Lightning
changes his number and colours to Doc’s and reveals he’s now the Fabulous Lightning
McQueen.
So, which was your favourite easter egg in Cars 3 and were there any you spotted that
I missed? And what did you think of the movie?
For a chance to win this awesome The Art of Cars 3 hardback book, be sure to subscribe,
and leave a comment about the movie, and also answer the following question:
What was the Nascar monkey called whose name features on Mack's disguise?
Make sure you turn on your notifications to get all my new Cars 3 and Pixar videos and
I'll be announcing the winners for the giveaway on an upcoming video.
Congratulations to the five winners of my recent Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 giveaway
are on the screen now! If you're one of them, send me a message on
YouTube or via my email which you can find on my About page so I can get your details
to send you the prize. If you enjoyed this, I really appreciate you
hitting that thumbs-up button and check out some more of my Pixar and easter egg videos
right here. Thanks for watching and see you next time!
Yippee-ki-yay movie lovers!