George and A.J.

An accompaniment to everyone's favourite ten minute introductory sequence (I'm holding back the tears already...), this short to 'Up' unravels what happened to the Shady Oaks retirement nurses after Carl moves his house by unleashing thousands of balloons. Let's just say, Carl has now inspired many other individuals in their golden years to inventively move their houses. This includes commanding a hundred cats to pull a house away, a giant drill to dig an underground tunnel and powering a colossal fan to jet across the ocean. It makes for some humour, but that's about all this short has to offer. The rudimentary storyboard animation looks more like fan art than an official Pixar short. Inconsistencies with the feature film, in particular Russell clinging onto the house by hiding underneath it (which didn't happen in the film), indicates that this was made before the film itself. The eponymous retirement nurses lack any charisma and contain minimal expression. And the whole ordeal feels uninspired. It's a downgrade from other accompanying shorts, which is a shame as Pixar usually gets these right. You could say the limited budget was a factor, but if that's the case then don't force the release of something that is of minimal quality. To not put in the effort to fully animate this seemingly deleted scene, well, it's lazy. Animation fans may find it interesting to see the initial conception of this storyboard aesthetic, but unfortunately does not match the quality of its companion feature film.

George & A.J. are staff from Shady Oaks Retirement Village who are supposed to bring in Carl Fredricksen. They are shocked when he flies away with his home. One week later, they are to bring in Mrs. Peterson but she escapes with her cats pulling her home away. Others do their own escapes in their own special ways until Shady Oaks itself is rocketed away with oxygen tanks. Then Carl returns in the blimp crushing George & A.J.'s van.

The animation is more primitive and similar to animated storyboards. It ties in with the movie 'Up'. It has a fun premise building upon the movie. The characters are good. The primitive animation does limit its appeal and there are obvious differences from the movie. I'm guessing this short was done before or during the making of the movie and some of the differences can be contributed to changes that naturally happen in any production.

This short has unlikable animation and should have been CGI instead like the original movie. The only things that i like about this short is that the premise is great, and that it shows how Russel got on the house. The voice actors aren't great for the characters either. If anything they should have gotten the original actors to reprise their roles. Russel doesn't even sound like a kid, he sounds like a 15 year old. don't waste your time on this. just watch the original and the original short.

I am pretty sure this is just colorized storyboards of rejected gags from the movie UP. If it is not the animation style sure feels like that. There is a amusing daft vibe to this short and most of the gags are funny. But it doesn't have the care of most Pixar works.

If you remember the Pixar movie UP, you may recall that a couple of men from the retirement home were coming to take him there when he thwarted everyone (except the audience), by attaching many balloons to his house. In this ultra-short cartoon, they don't know what to make of it, but when local news reports on it, all the other elderly people in town quickly figure it out. Much to the bafflement of those two men.

This partially animated short seems to have first appeared on television. It has shown up on various home video sets since then -- how do you think I saw it? Despite its deliberately poor production values, it is very well written.