The Brave Little Toaster


Voices of: Jon Lovitz, Timothy Stack, Timothy E. Day, Thurl Ravenscroft, Deanna Oliver, Phil Hartman, Wayne Kaatz
Directed by: Jerry Rees
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
1987

Times Seen:
Tim: 4

Summary: To search for their absent master, a toaster, radio, lamp, blanket, and vacuum cleaner leave their cottage and travel to the big city.

Review:

Tim: The Brave Little Toaster was one of the definitive movies of my childhood. I loved this film and watched it over and over again. It was great fun to sit down and watch it again, several decades later. The movie is much as I remember it. I won't quite go so far as to call this a great movie, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable one.

I suppose we should give the film credit for the idea of appliances being alive. While this idea would be improved upon later in Toy Story, it's a fairly unique one in the 1980s. Some of the best scenes are early on, when we see the secret life of our appliances when no one else is around. So, while I give the story credit for this unique idea, it does create some challenges. First off, it's confusing as to whether or not these appliances need electricity. We see them bring along a battery to power Kirby, but the rest of them move about easily enough with no power source. I'm not sure how that is supposed to work. It would be hard to tell a story about appliances traveling across the country and having adventures if they needed to be plugged in all the time. It's a big inconsistency in the film and it slightly bothered me as an adult (as a kid, I didn't care). The other issue I had is that the appliances want to reunite with their master because he loved them so much. I get loving a childhood blanket and maybe the radio, but who feels any kind of emotion toward their toaster? Or their lamp? Or most especially their vacuum cleaner. It just felt like a stretch that the master would care in the least about these necessary but somewhat boring appliances.

Anyway, the adventure our five appliances go on is very entertaining. I like that they weren't all nice to each other- they're downright mean many times. You wouldn't see that in a children's movie today. As an adult, their insults and mean nicknames for each other did make me laugh. I like that this film had a meaner streak than most animated fare.

The songs in the film are okay, but none are really classics. A few are pretty annoying. I wouldn't call this a plus or a minus for the film, the different songs kind of end up canceling each other out.

The voice cast is all very good- I love how each of the appliances really had its own unique voice. I applaud everyone involved in voicing these characters to life. I do need to give special mention to Jon Lovitz, who's just perfect as the Radio. Really, though, everyone was fantastic.

While this film is a bit cheesy by today's standards, it still manages to tap into the childhood dream of having great adventures with your friends. There's some exciting moments, some frightening moments (the dream sequence is a bit disturbing). There's some unexpected moments (the lightning strike). There's some depressing moments (the parts shop and the junkyard are a bit hard to watch). Through it all, it's great fun to see these appliances doing their best to overcome obstacles, work together, and achieve their ultimate goal.

While I can't call this a great animated film, it's still one of my all time favorites. The nostalgia factor is very high with this one and even as an adult, I had fun watching The Brave Little Toaster.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Land Before Time, Masters of the Universe, The Secret of Nimh