Before the emotional decimation that some people may know as “TOY STORY 3” (and before I sobbed so hard I almost needed to be carried out of the theater), Pixar stuck with tradition and treated audiences to a new short. While DAY & NIGHT was no PRESTO (Alec the Bunny is a personal life hero of mine), it was entertaining, touching, and inventive. Basically, it was standard-issue Pixar. Like any other Pixar production, DAY & NIGHT was cut through with all sorts of references to other Pixar flicks – including UP, CARS, and TOY STORY 3 itself. It also paid serious homage to 1950s Technicolor films, both in style and reference.

Did you see DAY & NIGHT yet? Think you caught all these fun surprises? And, if you missed our recent post about fun facts for TOY STORY 3, check it out HERE. After the break, check out some fun facts about DAY & NIGHT, along with a special behind-the-scenes look at the making of the short!

DAY & NIGHT Fun Facts

In the scene where Day is watching a drive-in movie through Night, the drive-in theater sign says the film playing is "TS3,” the abbreviation for TOY STORY 3.

The western movie playing at the drive-in is homage to the T.V. show in 101 DALMATIONS.

The flip-flops next to the girl on the beach are actually 10 times bigger than her foot.

There are several characters in Day & Night that were taken from the film UP.
-The joggers are all background characters from UP.
-The lumberjack chopping down the tree is the construction working, Tom, from UP.
-The howling wolf is a modified version of Alpha, Charles Muntz’s head dog from UP.

The cars seen on the strip in Vegas were taken from the film CARS.

The airplanes that Night sees zooming through Day are modeled on “Glamorous Glennis,” the rocket-powered Bell X-1 that Chuck Yeager flew to break the sound barrier.

Day and Night are lit in homage to 1950s Technicolor films. In those films, directors would shoot night scenes during the day, and use tinted filters to make the scene look like nighttime.  In DAY & NIGHT, Night, in particular, is lit in this style.

There were 29,888 frames inked, painted and exported from animation for the final versions of Day, Night and the special effects in the film.

The radio broadcast in DAY & NIGHT is taken from a talk given by Dr. Wayne Dyer, an inspirational speaker and author. Director Teddy Newton remembered hearing Dr. Dyer on recordings his mother played when he was young, and he decided to incorporate one of the recordings into the film.

Dr. Dyer’s closing line in the film, “The most beautiful things in all the universe are the most mysterious,” is a paraphrasing of Einstein’s quote, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”

In the Czech-language version of DAY & NIGHT, the radio broadcast is voiced by former President of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel.

In the Croatian-language version of DAY & NIGHT, the radio broadcast is voiced by the current President of Croatia, Ivo Josipovic.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko-27mN7Z2Y[/youtube]

Source Disney Pixar