I guess in a lot of ways, the generation I have, and a lot of other people on this board have, have grown up with Pixar films (thats a lot of “haves” 
). With me, I had Toy Story on video at an early age and was obsessed with ABL at the age of 5; the films are something I have completely grown up with. I have a stepsister who moans at me for watching “kids films”, and still brings Up over to watch and plays Pixar Top Trumps with me and my sister-she will not admit she likes animation 
.
In one of the papers today, there was an article on the predictions for the Oscar from some of Britain’s best media corrospondantants or whatever, and one of them wrote a short but very nice piece about how he saw Toy Story 3 to be a “dark horse”, and commenting in the end that “nobody would really be disappointed if it won, because it was most heartwarming film of the year”. This is a middle aged, top critic, speaking the minds of all these people, never mind the UK, but across the world. And he’s quite right. Because most people would struggle not to find at least a spark of humanity and beauty in any of Pixar’s films.
A person I work with has a 5 year old lad who’s obsessed with Cars. He bought his Lightning McQueen toy in and raced around the lounge, acting out the film. And whilst Cars is my least favourite of the films, it was still so sweet to watch how these films are exciting kids.
It has a huge effect on teenagers too; when Wall-E came out, the amount of times people came up to me and went “Eeeeevvaaaaahhh” tolled to so much it actually got extremely annoying, despite Wall-E being my favourite film. The amount of people I saw at college with Toy Story bags, stationary and waterflasks was almost amusing. The number of times quotes from Monsters, Inc. or Finding Nemo have been fired across the classroom is unaccountable.
Three different ages of people, all reacting to Pixars films. Yeah, I’ve gone off topic
Each person in my family likes at least 2 Pixar films. My dad, of all people, likes most of them. They are not children’s films. Can they be enjoyed by children? Duh. But child friendly doesn’t mean child selective. It means, to me, the most adult film making. The kind that can be enjoyed by anyone but only truly understood by an older crowd.
A while ago I went volunteering at one of my old schools and none of the kids there had any Inside Out backpacks or Inside Out lunchboxes! That made me feel somewhat disappointed.
But on the other hand, when I went volunteering there around Halloween, I saw one of the kids dressed up as an Incredible! And I was wearing an Incredibles logo T-shirt when that happened, so that’s great news. In fact, I was rather surprised to see that…it actually cheered me up quite a bit after not seeing the backpacks and lunchboxes I thought one of them was supposed to have.
Meanwhile, however, it’s now Christmas-time over here, and I’m looking at some local causes to donate to…the problem is, so far, none of them contain any requests for Pixar-related toys and stuff. In fact, half of them are asking for electronics right now and they’re not even in their teens yet! (I mean, we millennials did not start asking for such devices until our teen years…but why are today’s kids suddenly asking for those at a very young age? 
And I’m talking Apple devices, mostly.) But going back to the matter for this subject, there’s a good chance I may order some Pixar-themed children’s clothing and then have them donated at some point throughout this holiday season. And I will use my special wrapping paper for that…
*Oh, and before you ask: No. I did not go off-topic for this post.
–evspixarfan2012