Calling all Toy Story 1 and 2 fans! In a move that reflected their network premiere of Cars one month ago and a repeat of The Incredibles the month before that, Channel 7 will be screening the two Pixar masterpieces back-to-back on Free-To Air, this Saturday, from 6:30 pm AEST.
This will be a great opportunity for Pixar fans Down Under (like Yours Truly) to rediscover their childhood classic, as well as to brush up on the upcoming Toy Story commentary. It is also the wish of The Drive-In Theatre that there will be Wall-E promotional TV spot tie-ins during the shows, though it is unlikely since it’s been in cinemas for one month and is about to end its theatrical run soon.
So get ready this weekend, cos’ the “toys are back in town”!
Now if I can just sit through those annoying commercials…what I would do for Tivo…
I saw the ad during Saturday Disney. Two weeks ago I was complaining they never play Toy Story on free-to-air TV, and then Channel 7 goes and plays both movies in a Saturday night! I hate the ads as well, but I’ll still watch the movies. I don’t think they’ll play the WALL•E ads, but there’s always a chance! Thanks for the reminder, Andre!
Channel 7 must have some sort of contract with Disney or something, 'cause they always play their movies… except for when they played Shark Tale, last week. That was awful. Should have played Finding Nemo instead.
Well, besides the obvious Saturday Disney affiliation, I know 7 used to air Disney films like Lilo & Stitch and Aladdin a few months back every Saturday, but they scrapped that.
No offense, but it seems that Aussie TV programming schedule is run by monkeys who like to play musical chairs with the timings (We’ve got a brand-new gameshow coming…oh, whoops, it just got cancelled after 2 episodes, but don’t worry, we’re replacing it with the Simpsons. And 20 to 1 returns for the 1000th time! Did we mention that Rove is now playing at an all-new time of 8:30 pm, just for this week? And so on… ). It just gets on my nerves when I’m getting used to a show aired at a certain time only to get switched around or scrapped next week. Singapore and Malaysia are less ‘volatile’, they always have set movie timings on weekends like Friday Night Supper Club, Stay Home Saturday Movie, Saturday Movie House, and Sunday Blockbuster Movie, all at fixed timings of either 7:30 pm or 10:30 pm. And news is always at one time, 9:30 pm every night, with periodical updates throughout the day. Sorry, just got off on an off-tangent rant there.
But yeah, Shark Tale was a bad move. I commented to my bro the fishes looked too much like their voice actors (a bad Dreamworks habit) and we swtiched to Monster House on 9 after we got bored.
I watched both of them earlier. It was good, but I didn’t like how the movie kept cutting out to a blank screen in the first half of Toy Story 1. I guess the broadcaster was having problems.
Overall, I liked Channel 7’s broadcast of Toy Story and Toy Story 2. There were a lot more ad breaks in the first movie than the second, and I liked how it went straight from the end of TS into the beginning of TS2. They cut off the Pixar and Disney logos at the beggining, though.
However, if you saw the part in Toy Story 2 where the toys are outside trying to get to Al’s Toy Barn to rescue Woody and Buzz gives a speech, there was an American flag in the background, and also the US anthem (if I remember correctly.) That was really neat because I hadn’t seen that version before since every version of the VHS and DVD sold outside of the US has a different version of that scene with a globe of the world spinning in the background and different music. I’m guessing that the version they played on Channel 7 was given to them by Disney in the US, along with the idents and commercials (except ours was dubbed with an Australian voice over.)
thedriveintheatre - I know what you mean… Channel 7, 9 and 10 are shameless when it comes to switching around programs. Like when they would play new episodes of Family Guy at 8:30pm, the stop playing it for no reason, then it would come back a couple of months later but put in a really late timeslot, or they just stop playing it all together. I’m so sick of those commercial networks, I just get my TV shows from other means. ABC and SBS are pretty reliable, though.
Unfortunately I missed it due to being at a party, but regarding the US Flag in the background, I have seen that version before, but I forget where I had seen it. Perhaps it was in the original DVD release of Toy Story 2 I had, but then we got the international version in the 10th Anniversary edition.
Did anyone notice if it was broadcast in HD? That would’ve been lovely to watch. Channel 7 are broadcasting most of their content in HD these days.
bawpcwpn - You may have seen it on the extras DVD of Toy Story 2 where they show the difference between the two versions. We don’t receive HD because we don’t have a HD cable, but from what I could see through the Foxtel program both movies were broadcast that way. Woulda been good to record it onto your DVD player’s hard drive in high quality since it doesn’t look like Toy Story or Toy Story 2 will be released on Blu-Ray any time soon.
I had a look at it on my capture card/tv tuner card and I couldn’t notice much of a difference. I flipped between SD Prime (Local version of 7) and HD Prime and I couldn’t notice much of a difference.
I saw a bit of the start of Toy Story 2… I was saying all the lines along with it… I didn’t feel that I needed to watch it, even though it’s my favourite movie. last night I watched Atlantis.
I’ve got both of them on DVD, I’ve watched them plenty of times. I don’t know why I watched them on Channel 7/Prime. Maybe it’s the fact that both of them are damaged slightly and skip at a few key moments.
“Besides, when it’s all over I’ll have old Buzz here to keep me coskip and beyond.”
Maybe they’re just some urgency to watching them on tv that I like.
I have no idea.
Wall-E and Al-Bob: Yeah, sorry about that. But I did mention in the first post that this is the chance for residents of Down Under… Tough cheese, haha!
Pewpewpew: Strange, I didn’t get any skipping on my telly. Though for some reason 7 has that hissing feedback and the images appear blurrier than the other channels on my telly.
nathan: You mean you watched Atlantis on DVD? I don’t think they were showing it on FTA to my knowledge. Atlantis was win. I should watch it again on VCD.
bawpcwpn: I wasn’t aware there was an international version. I got TS2 on VCD but it’s back in Sing, so I can’t remember what flag they showed. And I keep hearing you have to get a HD set-top box to be able to watch HD, but I never figured out where to obtain it. Who exactly do I go to if I want to be able to receive HD? Is there a subscription fee, or is it gratuit?
rachelcakes1985: Yeah, I thought they skipped the credits for TS1 entirely and was outraged, but they showed it at the end of TS2 simultaneously. Very sneaky of 7…more airtime for ads then! I never saw the outtakes, so it was cool seeing them for the first time and it ended perfectly as both credits stopped rolling. Perfect timing, I say! And I returned home a little late so I missed the first few minutes of TS1, but I’m glad they honoured the tradition of Luxo bouncing out and turning off the ‘lights’. Overall, it was a great night in and I’m glad that the back-to-back airing brought back fond memories of the films (I liked spotting which toys I played with in my childhood, Pixar must have got licensing rights for the many different products featured!)
I didn’t like how they just skipped through the credits when the Incredibles aired. awesome credits start awesome credits get squished to the bottom whilst still at the awesome part and speed up
Blah blah blah dancing with the stars blah blah 7:30 blah blah*
driveintheatre: I watched Atlantis on DVD on my portable DVD player upstairs in my room eating chips and drinking lime cordial. that’s what I do for my Saturday night movie. I was going to watch Elf and then in the adds I was going to watch Toy Story, but my brother wanted to watch Pirates of the Carribean with mum because she’s never seen it before.
Pewpewpew: That is so true! I hate it when they do that, at least have some respect for the filmmakers! What’s the point of showing the credits if you’re gonna shrink it to half the size and fast-forward through it all anyway? The entire point of the credits is to honour the people who made the film possible, and all they are concerned about is advertising the next show that’s coming up! Sheesh.
nathan: Huh, I did the exact opposite. I watched Toy Story 1 & 2 (even though I had seen the former in theatres and the latter on VCD before), then switched over to Johnny English during the breaks (I watched Elf on an airplane, and it was painfully mediocre). Oh, and hope yer ma and bro enjoyed Pirates, cos’ the entire trilogy is epic win in my opinion.
7 made my Saturday night. Straight after TS 1 & 2, was Die Hard! John “Yippee ki yay mother@#$%^&”, baby!
Yeah, one of the best parts of The Incredibles is the end credits (and I mean that in a nice way) and the music that goes along with it. I was a bit annoyed too when Channel 7 cut it off, but that’s just the way it is.
Oh, yeah, I thought of you, Andre, when they played Die Hard after Toy Story 2, but I skipped watching it 'cause I was way too tired. I switched between Elf and Toy Story - I thought it was quite funny. But Will Ferrell is one of those love-him-or-hate-him kind of comedians.
Meh, it’s lucky that your channels are still broadcasting Toy Story. I doubt Disney Channel Asia has shown it nowadays any more. If any Disney Channel Asia subscribers is able to prove otherwise, please pipe up.
They still play A Bug’s Life a lot lately, though. This probably shows Asians’ continuing support for the underrated film. Way to go!
). It just gets on my nerves when I’m getting used to a show aired at a certain time only to get switched around or scrapped next week. Singapore and Malaysia are less ‘volatile’, they always have set movie timings on weekends like Friday Night Supper Club, Stay Home Saturday Movie, Saturday Movie House, and Sunday Blockbuster Movie, all at fixed timings of either 7:30 pm or 10:30 pm. And news is always at 
Tough cheese, haha!