Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, Inc. is the fourth animated feature produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution in the United States on November 2 2001, and in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2002.

The original story was written by Robert L. Baird, Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, Jonathan Roberts and Andrew Stanton. It was directed by Peter Docter, Lee Unkrich and David Silverman.

Monsters, Inc. premiered in the United States on October 28, 2001, and went into general release on November 2, 2001 with the best opening ticket sales ever for an animated film and the sixth best of all time.

Voice cast

Actor	Role
John Goodman	James P. Sullivan (Sully)
Billy Crystal	Mike Wazowski
Mary Gibbs	Boo
Steve Buscemi	Randall Boggs
James Coburn	Henry J. Waternoose
Jennifer Tilly	Celia Mae, Mike's girlfriend
Bob Peterson	Roz, the secretary
John Ratzenberger	The Abominable Snowman
Frank Oz	Jeff Fungus, Randall's accomplice
Dan Gerson	Needleman and Smitty, the teenage monsters
Steve Susskind
Bonnie Hunt	Mrs.Flint

Plot

The story is set in Monstropolis, a city inhabited by "monsters" who despite their variety of forms act much like human beings, down to using human names. They live in deep fear of human children, whom they believe will kill them simply by touching them. However, because the energy expended by a frightened child's screams can be converted by the monsters into electricity, "scarers" work to frighten children and are regarded as the heroes of Monstropolis for being brave enough to enter a child's room, using special doors that lead to the bedrooms and closets of the humans. The main power company in the city is called Monsters, Inc. Their Chief Executive Officer is a spider-like monster called Henry J. Waternoose. Lately he's been worried that children are getting harder to scare.

The top scarer at Monsters, Inc. is James P. Sullivan, aka "Sulley" (voiced by John Goodman), a blue-furred giant who is partnered with the green, one-eyed Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). The two of them are best friends. Sulley is a gentle creature, while Mike is obsessive and dreams of getting a raise and marrying his fiancee, the medusa-like Celia Mae (Jennifer Tilly.) Sulley's main rival as a scarer is the chameleon-like Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi) who possesses the ability to become invisible.

While taking care of paperwork for Mike, Sulley discovers a door that has been left on the scare floor after working hours, contrary to strict company policy. When Sulley investigates the door, a small human girl enters the monster world.

At first frightened, Sulley attempts to get Mike's help in returning the girl to her home, but fails to do so when she escapes into a restaurant, causing an uproar. They rush her to the home they share, hiding her there until they can think of a plan. They soon discover than the girl is not really toxic at all (Note: it is never explained why this was believed to be true by the monsters). Sulley comes to befriend the playful toddler.

In the morning, they disguise her as Sulley's niece (known in the film as his cousin's sister's daughter) and take her to work with them, intending to find her closet door and put her through it. Unfortunately, the monster organization known as the Child Detection Agency (CDA) is on the alert, so getting Boo home is extremely difficult. It is while shepherding her through the building that Sulley gives her the nickname "Boo" since she keeps saying that.

Mike does not find Boo's door; he tries to send her through another, hoping that she will be taken off his hands, but Sulley is more responsible. They leave the scare floor and go looking for another solution. Boo, feeling both bored and curious, escapes from her guardian and wanders away. Sulley and Mike are forced to split up in order to search for her.

Mike runs into Randall, who orders him to bring Boo to the scare floor at noon. He promises that Boo's door will be present then (against the rules, as before; noon is the lunch break) and Mike may send her home.

Sulley, having found Boo, follows Mike to the scare floor, but does not trust Randall. Indignant, Mike enters Boo's room himself to prove the it is okay, but is proved wrong when Randall, who had been waiting for Boo, captures Mike by mistake and takes him into the cellars of the factory. In the cellars, Randall has been hard at work creating a "Scream Extractor", a mechanism designed to drain someone of screams by force, which he had intended to test on Boo. His plan is to extend the exploitation of human fear already practiced, moving beyond scaring to kidnapping and draining.

Mike is rescued by Sulley, who takes the story to Waternoose. He is outwardly empathetic; he takes hold of Boo and promises to take care of her. However, rather than send her home, he instead pushes Mike and Sulley through a door into the Himalayas.

Thus banished from their home world, the two are helpless, and would die without the intervention of the talkative Abominable Snowman, who is himself an exile from the monster world. He offers them his hospitality and some well-intentioned advice. Mike is annoyed with Sulley for getting them into trouble, and Sulley is obsessed with the need to go home and rescue Boo. Mike refuses to help him. Luckily for Sulley, the Abominable Snowman knows of a Nepalese village not far away. He returns to Monstropolis through a child's door therein.

Once home, he invades Randall's laboratory and seizes first Boo, then her door. Randall attacks Sulley, but Mike shows up to help after all. After a long chase sequence involving several of the magical doors, Randall is given a thorough beating by Boo, who was once his target while he worked as a scarer. Much amused, Mike and Sulley send Randall to a motor home in a Florida swamp, where he is beaten up a second time by the family living inside (who mistake him for an alligator). Mike and Sulley destroy that door (presumably the only one accesible in the swamp) leaving Randall trapped there.

Waternoose tries to capture Boo himself, explaining that he is willing to kidnap children in order to save his company, not realizing he is being exposed by Sulley and Mike to the CDA, who arrest him and take him to prison. The Agency's Agent Number 001 (who turns out to be Roz, the scare floor secretary) tells them that without their help, they would never have known that Randall's plan had been agreed to by Waternoose - although, because her voice is a perpetual sarcastic drawl, it's hard to tell if she's telling the truth or not. Boo is sent home, and the door corresponding to her closet door is destroyed, as she has seen too much of their world.

In order to cope with the budding energy crisis, Sulley redefines the company. Instead of scaring, the monsters now amuse the children, having discovered (thanks to Boo) that laughter is ten times more powerful than screams. Later, Mike reassembles Boo's door in secret, allowing Sulley to remain in contact with her.

Trivia

Monsters, Inc. won the Academy Award for Best Song (Randy Newman for If I Didn't Have You). It was nominated for Best Animated Feature, Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing and Best Music, Original Score.
All of the digital displays in Monstropolis (Sulley's clock radio, scare station consoles, "Days Without An Accident" sign) are nixie tubes, a neon digital display technology from the 1960s. The five- and six-digit numbers displayed with nixie tubes near the doors are all Pixar employees' or relatives' birthdays.
The names on the scream-totals board (with the exceptions of those of Sulley, Randall, and Ricky Plesuski) are all Pixar employees' names.
Some of the "sets" in this film were used in the animated feature Toy Story.
When George is coming out of his first room, a "Paul Bunyan" poster is seen. It was previously used in Sid's room in Toy Story. Another reference to Toy Story is when Fungus is pulling different backgrounds down for Randall - one of them is the wallpaper from Andy's room.
At the very beginning of the film, there is a shot of a shelf in the mechanical child's bedroom. On the far left is the toy airplane that Buzz Lightyear rides on to prove to Woody that he can fly in a scene from Toy Story. This airplane appears in several of Pixar's other films as well.
Mary Gibbs, the three-year-old daughter of writer Rob Gibbs, provided Boo's voice. They were unable to get her to sit still in the recording studio, so instead they followed her around with a boom-mic, and things she said while playing were cut into the movie.
The restaurant Mike visits is named after stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen and its logo and name are a play on the Fish and Chip franchise Harry Ramsdens.
In Harryhausen's, the wallpaper behind the octopus chef is a Finding Nemo wallpaper, making a debut appearance before the film is released.
When Boo sits in a bathroom stall in the men's room, she sings a couple verses of Beauty and the Beast's theme song.
The scene where Sulley fears Boo has been thrown in a garbage compressor is inspired by the 1952 Chuck Jones cartoon Feed the Kitty.
The garbage compressor (trash compactor) is labeled "XP-13". This is probably a reference to the low budget "chop-job" 1970 sci-fi horror film Horror of the Blood Monsters, which carried the tag line: "You'll scream yourself into a state of shock!". In Horror of the Blood Monsters the space ship is named the "XP-13".
Props seen earlier in the film make up the "scream extractor".
The Abominable Snowman is based on the character "The Bumble" from the stop-motion Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Christmas Special.
When Mike enters the room of a child near the movie's ending, you can see early posters of Disneyland attractions and lands.
When Randall is jettisoned from Monstropolis, you can briefly see Nemo from Finding Nemo mounted on the wall as a fishing trophy.
Randall is banished to the same motor home used in A Bug's Life, and (again) includes the Pizza Planet truck.
Near the film's ending, Boo excitedly shows Sulley her toys in her room, including Jessie from Toy Story 2, Nemo from Finding Nemo and the ball from Luxo Jr..
In one of the outtakes during the closing credits, Rex from Toy Story is seen auditioning for the part of Ted, a large monster that Mike and Sulley meet while crossing the street on the way to work in the beginning of the movie.
In the scene where Boo is sitting on Sulley's bed refusing to sleep, she shows Sulley a picture of Randall. Very briefly, as she moves one of her other pictures to show Sulley the one of Randall, you can see that on one picture she has signed, "Mary," implying that Boo's real name is Mary. The reason that the picture is signed "Mary" is because it was in fact a picture that Mary Gibbs, the voice of Boo, had drawn and was put into the film.
Mike makes a cameo appearance during the Finding Nemo closing credits, swimming across the screen.
Vehicular versions of Mike, Sulley and the Abominable Snowman make cameo appearances during the Cars closing credits, in a drive-in movie. Mike is an Isetta, Sulley is a monster truck and Abominable is a snowplow.

Spin-offs

A manga version of Monsters, Inc. was made by Hiromi Yamafuji and distributed in Kodansha's Comic Bon Bonmagazine in Japan; the manga is published in English by TOKYOPOP.
Feld Entertainment currently tours a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Disney on Ice skating tour.
A series of mini-computer video games, and a multi-platform video game were created, based on the movie.
A theme park ride, "Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!", opened at Disney's California Adventure park in January 2006.
A similar theme park ride, with a working title of "Monsters, Inc. Ride n' Go Seek!" will debut at Tokyo Disneyland in 2009.
An interactive show, with the title "Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor Comedy Club" will debut at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in 2007.The Walt Disney Company - Press Release - 7 June 2006
A short was made by Pixar in 2001 named Mike's New Car.
In Cars, there is a part at the end when Mack is watching a few movies. One is called "Monster Trucks Inc."

=Attached short films=

For the Birds

Main article: For the Birds

The theatrical and Video/DVD release of the film included For the Birds, a Pixar short made in 2001, a year before this film was released.

Mike's New Car

Main article: Mike's New Car

The Video/DVD release also incldued an additional short called Mike's New Car, starring the characters from the film.

=References=

=External links=