Pixar pushes for ‘Toy Story 3,’ still makes cool goodies

• Coutesy of Disney/Pixar

I felt a little let down that the DVD release of Toy Story 3 did not contain an animated follow-up to the feature film, along the lines of The Incredibles’ “Jack-Jack Attack” or Cars’ “Mater and the Ghost Light.” Nevertheless, Pixar can still deliver imaginative pop product. Ahead of this year’s Academy Award nominations (to be announced Jan. 25), Disney is giving a big push to Toy Story 3 to be the first winner in Best Picture history. You may have seen these For Your Consideration ads that cleverly draw connections between Toy Story gang and previous Best Picture winners. My favorite’s the one pictured here.

Seems that if Disney marketers can convince Academy voters that recognizing Toy Story 3 would be a way of rewarding both the beloved (and highly lucrative) trilogy as a whole, as well as Pixar’s persistent standard of excellence, Toy Story 3 might have a shot at the statuette. Especially if there’s vote splitting between The King’s Speech as an old school Oscar film and front-runner The Social Network as a brash New Media dramedy.

As far as I know the Toy Story Zoetrope has no overt connection to its Oscar campaign, but it’s a cool gizmo that harks back to midway-style entertainments of a century ago, and as the clip below explains, provides a graphic demonstration of how the process of animated filmmaking works. (It also really makes me want to see that Totoro Zoetrope in person.)