Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Truly Trivial: What school is secretly referenced in every Pixar film ever made?

Toy Story (1995) was the first fully computer-...Image via Wikipedia
Christmas is over, but this godless heathen is still taking it easy. As such, you get another rerun from my Geek Trivia archives. Don't worry; it's timely. For those of you with kids, there's a good chance somebody got the rugrat a Pixar film -- probably Up! -- as a holiday gift, and the adults in the house are watching the CG animation on a nigh-endless loop. Fret not, Jay is here to help. The following bit of info can be used to construct a Pixar drinking game to kill the pain:
It just wouldn’t be Christmas without a CGI cartoon character voiced by John Ratzenberger, after all. John who? For the uninitiated, John Ratzenberger is merely the actor that portrayed iconic trivia geek Cliff Clavin on the long-running sitcom Cheers ... [and] he’s the only voice actor to appear in every Pixar feature film to date — to the point Ratzenberger is jokingly referred to as Pixar’s “good luck charm” ...
That said, Ratzenberger isn’t the only Easter egg that has so far snuck into every Pixar feature film to date. An inside reference to a famous academic institution has also shown up in each Pixar movie — if you know where to look for it.
WHAT ACADEMIC INSTITUTION HAS BEEN SECRETLY REFERENCED IN EVERY PIXAR FILM TO DATE?
Get the complete Q&A here.