Toon Talk: The Incredibles DVD - Mar 15, 2005

Toon Talk: The Incredibles DVD
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(c) Disney

Incredible Easter Egg Hunt:

As is the norm for Pixar’s films, there is a whole Easter Basketful of hidden features in this set … you just have to be patient. In the case of all the Eggs that I found, you have to wait on a menu screen until the screen loop is almost done, and a hidden icon for you to click on will appear. To follow is a list of the notable ones, see if you can find the others on the various menu screens yourself (I found a total of nine eggs, one on Disc 1, the rest on Disc 2):

  • On Disc 1, go to Audio Commentary menu and wait for a silhouette of Mr. Incredible to appear in the lower right hand corner of your screen. Click on it for a very funny musical moment with Mr. I himself.
  • On the Disc 2 Main Menu, wait for an Omnidroid icon to appear in the upper right hand corner to see a collage of all the buttons, doors and explosions in the movie (and yes, there are a surprising number of each).
  • Follow the same method as above on the Behind the Scenes Main Menu to see Brad Bird’s tribute to Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.
  • On the Set-Up menu, again follow the same procedure as above to see a hilarious version of The Incredibles … done entirely with sock puppets!
  • This isn’t really an Easter Egg, but also watch the Jack-Jack icon on the Main Menu for Disc 2 during the full loop to see him in action.

In addition to an Art Gallery (where you can browse galleries of Story Art, Character and Set Designs, Color Scripts, Lighting and Collages), there is a Publicity section that includes, in addition to the requisite Trailers, Character Interviews that were used on such fluff entertainment “news�? shows as Access Hollywood and Extra. Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Frozone and E are all “interviewed�? in separate, originally animated segments that, aside from Frozone’s “Justice is spelled ‘just ice’�? comment, aren’t as amusing as they could have been.

And finally we come to the “Top Secret�? section, which features the “lost episode�? of Mr. Incredible and Pals, a take-off on such 1970s Saturday morning TV staples as The SuperFriends, complete with “Lip-O-Vision�?, a 'technique' that superimposes live action lips onto the faces of the cartoon characters for an unnerving effect that would cause nightmares for any child. Mr. I is joined by his “pals�? Frozone and … Mr. Skipperdoo, a bespectacled bunny in the tradition of Gleek the Super-Monkey. Mr. Incredible is saddled with dialogue that veers from excessive alliteration to such heavy-handed flag-waving pronouncements as “Nothing can beat the power of freedom!�?, while Frozone is forced to utter such hilariously un-hip, so-called urban slang as “Dig it, Daddy-O�?. Add in fake flickering and “grainy print�? effects, and the makers of this hoot of a short just about nail the cheese factor of such shows.

There is also an optional Audio Commentary for Mr. Incredible and Pals, provided by Mr. Incredible and Frozone themselves (a.k.a. Craig T. Nelson and Samuel L. Jackson). Ostensibly their reactions upon viewing the episode for the first time, and even though they were scripted by Bird himself, the actors sound like they were improvising the whole thing, and is frankly not as funny as the epsisode itself.

Rounding out this section and closing the set is the NSA Files, highly classified secret “files�? from the National Supers Agency, which includes profiles of the minor heroes seen briefly in the film, such as DynaGuy, Gazerbeam and Thunderhead, as well as such erstwhile super-groups as The Phantasmics and The Thrilling Three. Each file comes with an audio clip of the super’s NSA interview, with such clever bits as Elastigirl bemoaning the lack of appropriate (yet fashionable) “action ware�? and Frozone referring to himself as a “human Zamboni�?; most of the remaining gags are obvious. In the end, you’ll come to see why some of these supers were so easy to kill off…

Toon Talk Rating: A-