Mouse Madness

The time has finally come!  Over this past week, we've been holding polls to see whether the champion from Mouse Madness could hold its own over the champion from PIXAR Panic!  That's right: The Emperor's New Groove vs. The Incredibles ultimate matchup has finally concluded, and we now have a definitive answer to the question of what Disney animated movie is truly the greatest masterpiece!  Now, obviously we can't stretch out a two-film matchup discussion to a full two hours, so the bulk of this video is dedicated to one of my personal favorite pastimes: list time!  That's right!  Wesley, Carrick, Jackson and I take this opportunity to count down and explain which 5 PIXAR movies are our absolute favorites.  We even talk about things that haven't been touched upon in any of the previous podcasts, so I recommend listening to the whole thing if you want to get our whole thoughts.  Don't worry, I've included timestamps in case you need multiple listens to get through; it is a two-hour podcast, after all!  Thank you everyone who participated in this tournament over the past two months!  It's always fun to talk about movies that we love, and PIXAR certainly has no shortage of those.  And it's always fun to see so many people engaged in this style of showdown.  Funnily enough, Mouse Madness was originally created to fill in the gap that COVID created when March Madness was cancelled.  And at the time of recording and upload, the actual March Madness 2021 tournament is close to starting!  I love it when things come full circle!  We're gonna take a much-needed break from the tournaments for a while, so stay tuned for whatever content comes your way in the future.  Take care!

Let me get this out of the way first: I'M SO SORRY ABOUT THE AUDIO ISSUES IN THIS ONE!!  For whatever reason, my mic was barely picking up, which is why for so much of this podcast my voice is barely audible.  I did make a point in editing to match my volume to my friends/partners during long sections where I was the only one talking.  So basically my intro and the stats section of this podcast are the only significant parts where I can be heard at all.  There are some other parts scattered here and there where I boosted my audio, but for the most part I am close to unintelligible, and I deeply apologize for that.  At the very least, I didn't have to scrap this episode like I did in Season 1.  One lost episode was enough, thank you very much!  Alright, enough feeling sorry for myself.  We've got work to do!  So spoilers for people who haven't listened 5 minutes in yet, but The Incredibles wound up winning PIXAR Panic.  And as we planned from the very beginning, now that the PIXAR tournament has concluded, we're holding one final competition to truly determine the greatest animated film that Disney has to offer.  That's right: it's the Mouse Madness champion The Emperor's New Groove, facing off against the PIXAR Panic champion The Incredibles!  Emperor vs. Superhero!  Pacha vs. Parr!  Wendie Malick vs. Samuel L. Jackson!  Good god, how the hell do we choose?!  Well, we did choose.  And now it's your turn to choose as well.  As always, voting ends this Sunday at 5 PM EST.  Twitter polls can be found pinned on Wesley's Twitter page, and the Strawpoll is in the link at the bottom of the description.  Have fun!

WALL-E vs. Incredibles

Fun geography fact: there's a lake in Antarctica called Don Juan Pond that is so salty, it never freezes, even in temperatures well below 0 degrees.  Scientists have declared it the saltiest place in the world.  But in reality, it's only number 2.  The actual saltiest place in the world? Me, upon watching "Inside Out" get completely curbstomped last round!  What were you people thinking?!  What possessed you to commit such an atrocity?!  Well, as upset as I am by that upset, we've still got a tournament to complete.  This week, I'm joined by Wesley and Jackson as we discuss the Final Four round of PIXAR Panic.  The public has apparently decided that these films are the best that PIXAR had to offer, and honestly, I can see someone make a case for any of these.  Unlike Mouse Madness, where the winners seemed obvious even in the later rounds, it feels like anything goes at this point.  I legitimately have no idea which film is going to win, but I'm beyond excited to see what happens!  So join us as we talk about space robots, blue-collar monsters, and the Battle of the Bird!  Twitter polls can be found on the front page of Wesley's Twitter, and Strawpoll links are provided at the bottom of the description.  See you next week for the finals!

Hey all!  As mentioned last time, we're talking a little break from the main tournament and instead spending this Valentine's Day talking about the myriad of short films produced by Pixar.  Specifically, the theatrical shorts, feature-related shorts, and SparkShorts (going through everything else would have been way too time-consuming, lol).  It was fun going through these shorts, even if I myself haven't seen a good number of them (I had a busy week).  Next week, we'll return to form with the PIXAR Panic Final Four, where we'll discuss the winners of last week's matchups.

This week's podcast is dedicated to the late great actor Christopher Plummer, who sadly passed away last Friday at the ripe old age of 91.  Given that he voiced a major character in one of this week's films ("Up"), it's only fitting to give him this tribute.  His career was long, eventful, and fruitful.  His accomplishments will always be appreciated, and his legacy never forgotten.  Rest in peace, Mr. Plummer, and may you continue to rip up Nazi flags in the great beyond.  RIP Christopher Plummer 12/13/1929 - 2/5/2021  ___________________________________________________________________________ 

Well folks, here we are!  The Elite Eight, the beginning of the end, the moment where the truly best of the best reveal themselves!  This week, Wesley and I are joined by our usual posse along with one or two special guests.  We talk about films we've already discussed before and try to make arguments for which ones should move on to the Final Four.  Something worth noting is that, of the 8 films remaining, 7 of them came out before 2010.  I guess recency bias won't be playing a part in this tournament.  Not much else to say except enjoy the show!  One last thing: we'll be taking a break from the tournament next week as we enter the Final Four, continuing the tradition started by me with Mouse Madness.  Instead, we'll be doing a special episode next week.  What kind of special episode?  Watch this video to find out, or stay tuned for next week!

Strawpolls:  WALL-E vs. Up: https://strawpoll.com/qzwsoxfrx​Monsters Inc. vs. Inside Out: https://strawpoll.com/4wc1yyvzf​Toy Story vs. The Incredibles: https://strawpoll.com/gx8ae341s​Ratatouille vs. Finding Nemo: https://strawpoll.com/vxd7wabsf

Original Airdate: February 3, 2021 (I was just lazy with the upload, and the file itself was so massive) 

I'm just sitting here looking at the numbers from last week with my jaw dropped and my eyes wide.  I never could have expected this kind of turnout!  Seeing so much participation in this tournament is such a delight, and I couldn't be happier!  Let's keep that momentum going forward!  Once again, we've got quite the set of matchups this week.  Almost every movie this week was a massive critical, audience, and financial success, so much so that it was hard predicting which ones will move on.  But of course, that's for you to decide!  I'm joined once again by the usual posse (with Wesley in charge!) as we discuss fish, rats, superheroes, Mexican culture, and arguably the most influential film of the past 50 years!  As always, links to the polls can be found on the home page of Wesley's Twitter, or at the Strawpoll links down at the bottom.  See you next week for the Elite Eight!

It's time for the tournament proper!  Now that all the preliminary matchups are over, we can finally get into the meat of this thing.  At the time of upload, every matchup this week has already gotten well over 100 votes between Twitter and Strawpoll, far more than we've seen before; and I hope that as the tournament progresses, that upward trend continues!  

Today Wesley and I are joined by the usual posse (Carrick and Jackson) as we discuss some of Pixar's more acclaimed films.  We're talking their best-animated films, their best-written films, their most emotional films, and a lot of Toy Story films!  As you can imagine, we had a lot of ground to cover this week, and we didn't even cover half of what we could have talked about, on account of half of these movies will be returning in Round 2.  So if you want to hear our thoughts, please sit back and enjoy the podcast!  

And as always, if you want to vote, polls can be found at the bottom of the description or on the pinned comment chain of Wesley's Twitter page.  Remember: only vote on one of these platforms, not both!  We don't want any insurrection here!  One last thing: my mic was significantly quieter than my partners', so the parts where I'm talking may be a bit harder to hear.  If you want a clearer explanation of where I stand on these films, don't hesitate to ask.  Thanks for your patience.

WALL-E vs. A Bug's Life: https://strawpoll.com/wg3j2oar6​

Up vs. Toy Story 2: https://strawpoll.com/bxj46qvgq​

Toy Story 3 vs. Monsters Inc.: https://strawpoll.com/ycaaa2gs4​

Inside Out vs. Toy Story 4: https://strawpoll.com/badesqyzx

Original Airdate: January 18, 2021

(Distributor's note: I was just lazy with this one. I have no excuse)

Well, if the numbers from last week's polls are anything to go by, it seems that the Mouse Madness formula has some staying power.  Either that, or people are more enthusiastic to vote for movies whose expected quality is much higher.  I mean let's face it, there's a reason why people get disappointed if a Pixar movie is anything short of a masterpiece!  Anyway, this week Wesley and I are joined once again by Carrick and Jackson as we discuss the second half of the preliminary round of this tournament.  We talk about sequels, prequels, and lots and lots of cars!  The winners of these matchups will determine how the main tournament is set up; that is, how the preliminary winners will be matched up against the top dogs.  The results from last week weren't exactly surprising, and I don't expect this week's to be any different.  But hey, anything is possible.  As of the time of uploading this podcast, Cars 2 already has at least one vote!

Ladies, gentlemen, and everybody in between!  We are back with more movie-based tournament podcast action!  It's been more than two months since the conclusion of Mouse Madness.  And while I'd love to say we spent that entire time gushing about The Emperor's New Groove nonstop, we had other business to attend to.  See, during the middle of that tournament, Wesley and I were talking about what this tournament would look like if we ranked all the Pixar movies.  And seeing how much fun we had with the Disney Animated Canon, we decided that at the conclusion of that tournament, we would do the same thing with Pixar, with Wesley taking on hosting duties!  The reason we had to wait so long after Season 1's conclusion was so that we could include "Soul" in the tournament.  Bit of a pain to have to extend the wait, but here we are now!  Because Pixar only has 23 feature films, we had to structure the bracket a bit differently.  Here's a breakdown of how it works:  -Instead of being split across four classes, all the movies were given a rank from 1 to 23, based on the average of their IMDb and Metacritic scores.  -The top 9 seeded movies automatically enter the tournament.  The other 14 will face each other in a preliminary round.  The preliminary matchups are determined by seed, where higher seeds compete against lower seeds (so #10 faces #23, #11 faces #22, and so on).  -Once the preliminary round is completed, the winners will be reseeded by relative rank.  This means that the highest-seeded winner will be the #10 seed for the main tournament, second-highest will be the #11 seed, and so on.  -Finally, the reseeded films will enter the main tournament, and their primary opponents will follow the standard March Madness bracket formula (see the following link for the layout: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/im... ).  The rest should follow naturally.   Since there are 14 films in the preliminary round, we'll be covering it in two sessions: 6 films this week and the other 8 next week.  This week, the normal posse and I are joined by a newcomer to the server, from the UK no less.  That's right, Mouse Madness is going international!  (Granted this isn't the first time we've done this, we've had non-American guests before, but it's still really cool!)  

The 6 films we talk about this week are as follows:  -A Bug's Life (#16) vs. Cars (#17) -Monsters Inc. (#13) vs. Onward (#20) -Toy Story 4 (#12) vs. The Good Dinosaur (#21)