Cars Toons

Cars Toons is an American animated short series based on the Cars franchise. It features Lightning McQueen, Mater, and their friends in comedic antics and adventures canonical to the films. Larry the Cable Guy reprises his role as Mater while Keith Ferguson replaces Owen Wilson as the voice of Lightning McQueen until "The Radiator Springs 500 ½", when Wilson reprises his role.

The series premiered on October 27, 2008, with "Rescue Squad Mater" on Disney Channel, Toon Disney and ABC Family. Not exclusive to television, the shorts were also released on home media and/or as theatrical shorts. The series ended on May 20, 2014, with "The Radiator Springs 500 ½".

Premise

Mater's Tall Tales

The series presumably takes place between the events of Cars and Cars 2 (sometime after Mater and the Ghostlight), seeing as it was aired mostly before 2011, and judging by Lighting McQueen retaining his "Radiator Springs" appearance from the end of Cars. This doesn't apply for the "Time Travel Mater" episode though, where he retains his "World Grand Prix" appearance from Cars 2 and Mater's Tall Tales: Tales from Radiator Springs.

All Cars Toons in Mater's Tall Tales follow a shared formula: Each episode opens with Mater saying, "If I'm lying, I'm crying!" and then the title card. Next, McQueen and Mater see something that results in the latter proceeding to tell the former a “tall tale” about something he supposedly did in the past, before the action shifts to the flashback of Mater's story. At a midway point, the action briefly shifts back to Mater and McQueen in which McQueen questions Mater over whether the events in the story actually occurred (or in some episodes asks him what he did next), resulting in Mater proclaiming that McQueen was also involved ("You was there too!"). The flashback then resumes with McQueen's sudden and usually unwilling participation in the story's events. After Mater finishes his tall tale, McQueen denies the fact that Mater's tale is real before one or more characters/elements involved in the story coincidentally appear to McQueen's shock (with the exceptions of "Tokyo Mater", "Unidentified Flying Mater" and "Time Travel Mater"), paradoxically suggesting that Mater's story really happened.

All episodes also feature Mia and Tia and various pit crew forklifts in supporting roles (with the exception of "Time Travel Mater").

Tales From Radiator Springs

All Cars Toons in Tales from Radiator Springs follow the daily lives of McQueen, Mater and their friends in their hometown Radiator Springs, following the events of Cars 2.

Voice cast

• Larry the Cable Guy as Mater
• Keith Ferguson (2008–2013) / Owen Wilson (2014) as Lightning McQueen
• George Carlin (2009, archive recordings) / Lloyd Sherr (2013–2014) as Fillmore
• Tony Shalhoub as Luigi
• Guido Quaroni as Guido
• Michael Wallis as Sheriff
• Katherine Helmond as Lizzie
• Lindsey Collins as Mia
• Elissa Knight as Tia
• Jerome Ranft as Red (only in Tales from Radiator Springs)

Production

Production of the series began in 2006 following the success of Cars. The first nine shorts were produced by Pixar, while all the following shorts were produced by Pixar's subsidiary, Pixar Canada.^[1]

"Tokyo Mater" premiered in theaters with Bolt on December 12, 2008. The short is the first Disney/Pixar production presented in Disney Digital 3-D.^[2] However, it is not featured on the film's home media releases. Sulley and Mike from Monsters, Inc. make cameo appearances in "Tokyo Mater" as their car forms from the credits of the first film.

Release

Merchandise

The Disney·Pixar Cars Die-Cast Line included die-casts of various characters from the shorts, including "Rescue Squad Mater", "Mater the Greater", and "El Materdor", in the toy line.

Video game

A video game based on the series titled Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales was developed by Papaya Studio and released on October 19, 2010 for the Wii.^[3][4] A PC version was also released outside the United States and on Steam worldwide in 2014.^[5][6][7]

Home media

A DVD and Blu-ray compilation of the first nine shorts, titled Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales, was released on November 2, 2010. The compilation includes "Mater the Greater", "Rescue Squad Mater", "Monster Truck Mater", "Unidentified Flying Mater", "El Materdor", "Moon Mater", "Heavy Metal Mater", "Mater Private Eye" and "Tokyo Mater".^[8] "Moon Mater" and "Mater Private Eye" debuted in this set.^[9]

"Air Mater" and "Time Travel Mater" were released on Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 2, while the former was also released as a bonus short on home media releases of Cars 2. "Hiccups", "Bugged", and "Spinning" were released on Disney.com and YouTube. "The Radiator Springs 500 ½" was released on Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 3.

YouTube

Mater's Tall Tales were added to the Disney Jr. YouTube channel from January through August 2024, where they accumulated about 22 million views with the most-watched episodes being "Tokyo Mater" (17M) and "Monster Truck Mater" (5M).

Unreleased short

In addition to "The Radiator Springs 500 ½", which was released in 2014, director Rob Gibbs revealed at the 2013 Disney D23 Expo a fifth Cars Toons: Tales from Radiator Springs episode titled "To Protect and Serve". The short was expected to debut in 2015 on Disney Channel,^[10] but it ended up being unreleased for unknown reasons.^[11] Despite never being released, it did receive merchandise, including die-cast models and a book. The book contains several images from the short. In the short, Sheriff goes on a mandatory vacation, leaving 2 squad cars in charge. However, the squad cars soon wreak havoc on the town by ticketing everyone for minor offenses.

Characters

Mater's Tall Tales

Tales from Radiator Springs

• Note: A gray cell indicates the character was not in the episode.

References

1. ^ "All Films". Pixar Canada. Archived from the original on August 26, 2013. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
2. ^ "Disney-Pixar to Premiere Its First Disney Digital 3-D(TM) Short Film Oscar(R)-Winner John Lasseter Directs Animated Short Based on "Cars" Character". Pixar. 2008-12-09. Archived from the original on 2010-12-30. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
3. ^ "Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales". GameFAQs. Archived 2011-05-13 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
4. ^ "Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales". IGN. Archived from the original on 2010-09-12. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
5. ^ "Cars Toon : Mater's Tall Tales (Game, PC)". Flipkart.com. Archived November 26, 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
6. ^ "Disney•Pixar Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales on Steam". store.steampowered.com. Archived 2022-10-16 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2022-10-16.
7. ^ "SteamDB". Archived 2022-10-16 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2022-10-16.
8. ^ "Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales Blu-ray". Pixar Talk. Archived January 6, 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
9. ^ Bastoli, Mike (August 13, 2010). "Report: Cars Toons BD/DVD on Nov. 2; no 'Nemo' Blu-ray (2 UPDATES)". Big Screen Animation. Archived from the original on January 18, 2013. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
10. ^ Bryko (August 11, 2013). "D23 Expo Round-Up: 'Toy Story of Terror', New Cars Toons on the Way". Upcoming Pixar. Archived March 19, 2015 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved August 11, 2013.
11. ^ Labrecque, Jeff (March 13, 2014). "Lightning McQueen revs his engine off-road in Pixar's new Radiator Springs short – EXCLUSIVE". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
12. ^ Landy, Tom (October 21, 2011). "High-Def Digest Attends Virtual Roundtable with Pixar's Rob Gibbs". bluray.highdefdigest.com. Archived June 5, 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
13. ^ "Klay Hall Planes". Girl.com.au. Archived June 5, 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved June 5, 2021.

External links

• Official website
• Mater's Tall Tales Archived 2013-04-26 at the Wayback Machine on Disney.com
• Cars Toons at IMDb