Stream It Or Skip It: ‘LEGO Pixar: BrickToons’ On Disney+, Cartoon Shorts Where Classic Pixar Characters Are LEGO-ized

LEGO Pixar: BrickToons are a series of five 6-minute shorts that take characters from Pixar movies and turn them and their surroundings into LEGOs. One thing we can sa y is that, no, you won’t see the old guy from Up as a LEGO person… at least not yet.

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Opening Shot: Before each short, we see a LEGO-ized version of the Pixar logo, complete with Luxo Jr. (the desk lamp) hopping on the “I” in “PIXAR.” Only this time, when he hops on the “I”, it breaks into a few dozen LEGO bricks.

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The Gist: In a Cars short, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) flies apart during a practice run before a big race. Mater (Larry The Cable Guy) brings him to Ramone (Cheech Marin) to get repaired, but the “spare parts” Ramone has make Lightning into a monster truck.

In a Brave short, Merida (Ruth Connell) takes her triplet little brothers to Stonehenge during the solstice, and hijinks ensue. To get her brothers out of trouble, Merida turns to The Witch (Susanne Blakeslee) turn them back into the rambunctious boys they are.

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In an Incredibles short, Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson) is making dinner for his wife Helen (Holly Hunter), when baby Jack-Jack goes missing (he disappears while trying to grab pizza toppings). Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Dash (Banks Pierce) look for their brother but also have to fend off Syndrome (Jason Lee), who is trying to sap electricity from everyone in town.

In a Finding Nemo short, Nemo (Pressly James Crosby) and his class go on a field trip with Mr. Ray (Bob Peterson) to a sunken pirate ship. Marlin (Jess Harnell) and Dory (Jennifer Hale) insist on tagging along and exploring ahead of the class to make sure it’s safe, but cause more problems than the kids would have. Thankfully, the ship is made of LEGO.

Finally, in a Coco short, Miguel (Ryan Lopez) is participating in the Land of the Dead’s Battle Of The Bands. Mama Imelds (Alanna Ubach) puts a lot of pressure on him to win, but Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal) tells him to just have fun. What does Miguel sing? “Proud Corazón,” of course.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Disney has LEGO -ized so many properties, from Frozen to Star Wars and more, that the list of similar shows is pretty long.

Our Take: BrickToons are five fun animated shorts; some of them take more advantage of being LEGO-ized than others. The ones that work better are ones where the characters look more like LEGO people and the settings are made of LEGO bricks that fall off easily and/or look like they’re made of classic LEGO parts.

The shorts that are better are ones that use the voice actors from the original films, which we see in the Cars, Incredibles and Coco shorts. The lack of original voices was most disappointing in the Nemo short, since Ellen DeGeneres so defined the character of Dory, and unlike Harnell, who managed to sound just like Marlin’s original voice, Albert Brooks, the new Dory doesn’t even come close.

What Age Group Is This For?: This is definitely a series for all ages.

Parting Shot: We did like how the Nemo short ended, because it leaned into the LEGO-ness of it all the most.

Sleeper Star: Larry The Cable Guy will always be Mater, and it’s certainly hard to replicate what he can do with the character.

Most Pilot-y Line: The Witch in the Brave short felt very un-LEGO-like, and Bill in the Incredibles short had actual hands instead of the hooks LEGO people usually have. Wonder when those design decisions were made.

Our Call: STREAM IT. LEGO Pixar: BrickToons has a lot of fun with familiar characters, with some being more LEGO-tastic than others.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

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