Pixar’s April Fools prank has us looking for Hank in all the wrong places
Are we being pranked by Pixar? The Disney-owned animation studio, responsible for such films as Toy Story, Inside Out, A Bug’s Life, Ratatouille, Finding Nemo and many more, claims there’s something we’ve been missing all along in their films. And while the legendary company is generally top-notch at providing wonderful stories, there’s something a bit…fishy…about this April Fool’s announcement.
One of the hallmarks of Pixar movies is the secret Easter eggs they plant inside all their films. Done as inside jokes since the beginning of the studio, they include recurring gags like the Pizza Port delivery car that has been everywhere from post-apocalyptic Earth to ancient Scotland. Their movies also frequently include characters from stories in development in small cameos. For example, check out the shadow of Doug the dog from Up in a brief scene in Ratatouille.
“Every Pixar fan knows that we love Easter Eggs,” director Andrew Stanton said in a promo video appropriately released on April Fool’s Day. But now, we think Stanton, who directed the forthcoming Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory, is baiting us. In a new promo video, Stanton and Modern Family star Ed O’Neill try to convince us that O’Neill’s Finding Dory character, Hank the octopus, has been with the animation studio since the beginning. “And until now, Hank has been our most closely guarded secret. There are even people internally at Pixar who don’t know about this.”
While they’re history certainly makes this gag feel a little more probable, we’re not buying this story, hook, line, OR sinker despite Stanton’s claims that Hank has camouflaged alongside the Easter Eggs in the studio’s films for years. But maybe let’s hold off on telling an extremely excited Ed O’Neill, who has already added Stanton’s revelations to his Wikipedia page, saying, “I’m gonna be more famous at Pixar than that lamp!”
Finding Dory hits theaters June 17.