Once took a Texan to a wedding

December 15, 2014 8:32 PM

The Brave Little Toaster's "Worthless" (Slower, Sadder, With Lyrics) (SLYT)
posted by theodolite (14 comments total)

So, this finally jogged my memory as to why I was convinced that it was plausible that Disney really was going to kill all of the characters during that once scene in Toy Story 3....

The Brave Little Toaster was weirdly dark and confusing for a kids' movie...
posted by schmod at 8:45 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Between this movie and Toy Story, I think we know why so many mefites are a bunch of robot-loving crouton-petters.
posted by lilac girl at 8:46 PM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Love the movie, love this song, hate this video. It's plenty sad at the normal speed without garbled audio, thankyouverymuch. It also always has lyrics. What this video has is subtitles. Now excuse me while I go youtube the actual scene and then get a glass of whiskey.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 9:16 PM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

Tom Waits needs to cover this song
posted by hellojed at 9:35 PM on December 15, 2014

Or Johnny Cash should have, like he did for Hurt.
posted by loquacious at 9:39 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Brave Little Toaster was weirdly dark and confusing for a kids' movie...

A lot of that comes from Thomas Disch, who wrote the novella the movie was based on. Disch's next most famous work is probably Camp Concentration, in which the government injects political prisoners with a modified syphilis spirochete as an experiment in the stimulation of intelligence.
posted by Iridic at 10:18 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here it is full speed with the cutaways to another scene pretty well edited out (and lyrics in the description).

Preceded Toy Story by 8 years, and in spite of Pixar's awesome technical superiority, Toaster still feels more 'real' to me; also Tom Hanks and Tim Allen could never be as good as Thurl Ravenscroft and Phil Hartman.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:58 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

A lot of that comes from Thomas Disch

Who, it must be pointed out, died from suicide.

.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:12 AM on December 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

I can't find it online but this thread made me think of Billy C. Wirtz's "Burnie the Toaster,"'about a sad little toaster that wants to be Johnny Cash. He starts burning toast in frustration at his life until his owner is about to throw him away. But the Wise Old Blender tells him to be the best toaster he can be and stop trying to be Johnny Cash. And he starts making such good toast that his owner writes a letter of praise to the toaster manufacturer and the owner and Burnie get to appear in an ad on TV with .... Johnny Cash! Which just shows you can achieve your dreams if you make the best toast.

It also made me think of AskMe and teenage Tumblrs.
posted by spitbull at 5:18 AM on December 16, 2014

Brave Little Toaster was the go-to video for my kids when they were little, and one I didn't mind watching along with them. At the time, I was lucky enough to be working with/around a large group of young animators (mostly Cal Arts grads, several of whom eventually landed at Pixar and Disney) and they all, to a person, had a great fondness for BLT, as well. I guess you could say it was a sort of touchstone for that era.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:34 AM on December 16, 2014

Disch could really have benefited from a rediscovery during his lifetime. He was one of the most thoughtful writers and critics of sci fi in the late-60s/70s. There are some people who I wish we had helped along a bit more. They are brilliant and capable of great work. But they get hitched up on life's inevitable lifeness: sickness, work, compromise, love, death and the rest. The work starts to fade and the world gathers around to finish them. When I think of people like Disch, I always see the ghosts of their uncompleted works.
posted by One Hand Slowclapping at 6:04 AM on December 16, 2014 [5 favorites]

Geez, what a movie. I like the fast version of the song better: there's something about being both worthless and hopeless and frenzied that speaks to me.

Also in the fast version I found where the animators snuck in the inappropriate picture for a few frames, when the TV says "We've got photos to prove it and I … don't even want to look at 'em, blugh." Never caught one of those on my own before.

What a screwed-up movie. One of my favorites.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 8:33 AM on December 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Brave Little Toaster was the first movie my son saw in a theater. We'd had a long talk about sitting quietly and not disturbing anyone, and he was almost too good, sitting up straight in his seat, his hands clasped on his lap the whole time. We saw it one of those old restored arthouse theaters, so it was appropriately fancy, and then went out to eat at a nice (for us) place, just like grownups. It was a huge, huge deal for him, so it was for me too.

And I'll just point out that it was not really a Disney movie as such. Disney rejected it, although they provided some funding and retained rights to the home video. I don't know enough about the movie business to fully understand the implications of that political stuff, but if it's noticeably different from other Disney movies, that could have something to do with it, maybe.
posted by ernielundquist at 8:48 AM on December 16, 2014

The Brave Little Toaster was weirdly dark and confusing for a kids' movie...

It could be darker.
posted by mbrubeck at 11:10 AM on December 16, 2014