The Brave Little Toaster

The Brave Little Toaster is a 1987 animated adventure film adapted from the 1980 novella by Thomas M. Disch. The film was directed by Jerry Rees and the titles were created at Walt Disney Pictures. The film is set in a world where household appliances and other electronics have the ability to speak and move, but pretend to be lifeless in the presence of humans. The story focuses on five appliances— a toaster, a desk lamp, an electric blanket, a vacuum tube antique radio, and a vacuum cleaner—who altogether go on a quest to search for their original owner.

The film was produced by Hyperion Pictures along with Kushner-Locke Company. Many of the original members of P•I•X•A•R were involved with this film, including John Lasseter and Joe Ranft. While the film debuted mainstream on the Disney Channel and thus received only a limited theatrical release on June 19, 1987, The Brave Little Toaster was popular on home video and managed to garner two direct-to-video sequels a decade later (The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars and The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue).

Plot
A toaster, an electric blanket named "Blanky", a gooseneck lamp named "Lampy", an antique radio, and a vacuum cleaner named "Kirby" awaken in a cottage in the woods, carrying out their daily routine of work and play. They hear a car outside and excitedly think it might be their Master who's coming back. When Blanky looks out the window up in the attic he at first really does believe the Master is coming and has a daydream; but then he realizes that the car left, and is obviously not the Master's. Disappointed and weepy, he goes to get a picture of the Master and begins to cry, much to Kirby's annoyance. Kirby tries to grab the picture from Blanky, causing ruckus among all the appliances, and eventually causing the picture frame and glass to break. The picture itself is still intact. The appliances soon come face-to-face with an air conditioner, who acts sarcastic and cynical, and tells them that the Master isn't coming back, despite their delusions that he is.

But when the Toaster suspects that the Air Conditioner is acting this way because the Master never played with him like he did to themselves, he reacts by ranting furiously and overheating, destroying himself in the process. Soon the gang hears another car approaching, but when they look out the living room window together, they find that it's just a real estate man putting up a "For Sale" sign. Now they know that the Master is gone for good. After an intervention of hopeless depression among the appliances, the Toaster aggressively decides that they should go to the city and find the Master. The rest of the gang hesitates at first, but soon they agree that together, they can succeed. After coming up with some funny modes of transportation, the Toaster use an office chair for Kirby to pull, and a car battery named the Junko to provide power for himself and the others as they travel.

That night, after journeying a while across the countryside, the appliances camp in a clearing of thick brush, not before arguing amongst one another first. Blanky tries to snuggle up with someone but no one will let him do so, so he eventually goes to sleep by his lonesome self. The next day, the appliances come to a flowery meadow and a lake where they meet a bunch of animals, some of which are fascinated by their reflections in the Toaster's chrome. The lake critters then put on a show when trying to capture a meager worm. Afterward, the Toaster becomes so overwhelmed by the animals ogling themselves in him that he runs off into a field of tall flowers.

He loses them but soon encounters a lone yellow flower. The flower mistakes its reflection in the Toaster as another one of its own kind, and despite the Toaster's explanation that it's just a reflection, the flower hugs him. Alarmed and confused, the Toaster runs away from the flower, only later to find it shedding a petal in sadness. The Toaster leaves, feeling guilty. Meanwhile, the animals are frolicking around the other appliances, and the Toaster returns. A group of mice, at first seeming to befriend Blanky, try to pull him down into a hole, and try to eat his picture of the Master. The Toaster yanks him out of the hole, and he gets his picture back. Shortly afterwards the appliances say goodbye to the animals and continue their journey, soon traveling into a dark forest.

When they seek to find shelter, Blanky warmly provides a tent for them. Later in the night, the Toaster thanks Blanky for letting them all camp underneth him, and he snuggles with Blanky too. This leads Lampy to have a talk with the Toaster about what warm feelings are. Lampy is reminded of the time his bulb burned out and the Master replaced his bulb, leaving Lampy with a "glowing" feeling. When Lampy and the Toaster finally go to sleep, the Toaster dreams of his memories spent with the Master; but the memories are quickly destroyed when an evil fireman clown attacks him with knives and water.

Toaster then falls into a bathtub of water, one of his worst fears. Just as he is electrocuted underwater, he wakes up in fear and a dangerous violent storm wakes the others up. Blanky gets blown by the wind up into the trees, and the gang can't see him in the darkness. Lampy tries shining his light, but his bulb goes out. He tries to reenergize himself with the Junko, but he/she has gone dead, leaving the appliances without a power source. To recharge it, Lampy acts as a lightning rod and allows a bolt of lightning to strike him, thus recharging the Junko. But he gets seriously damaged, and his bulb breaks (much to the horror of the Toaster, the Radio, and Kirby).

The next day, the appliances continue to search for Blanky. They find him up in a tall tree nearby. Kirby devises a plan and rescues him, but not without explaining that he only did it so everyone could keep moving. As they continue their journey, they come across a waterfall in their path. Kirby loses his nerve at the sight of it, but the appliances calm him down using "carpet-sweeping therapy." He refuses to admit he needed help, however, and instead of offering his thanks he offers insults. When the appliances try to cross the waterfall's gorge by having Kirby swing the Toaster, Lampy, Radio, Blanky and the office chair on his cord, the Toaster fails to hold up the cord's far end after experiencing vertigo, and he lets everyone fall.

The cords snap off, and Kirby looks down in shock. All alone, he eventually musters up the courage to jump into the waterfall after his friends. One by one, he saves them all. When he brings them ashore, the Toaster walks away sadly because he believes it's his fault for getting the gang lost. He stares at his reflection in a pond and splashes it away. He comes back to help pull Kirby along, because the chair and the Junko are lost. But as they struggle Kirby falls back into a mud hole and starts to sink. He goes under, and the Toaster, Blanky and Lampy do too. Just before the Radio is about to do the same, he plays a song as an S.O.S. signal to call for help. A man named "Elmo St. Peters" heard the Radio's signal, then pulls him and the other appliances out and throws them in the back of the big, red Monster Truck. He drives them out of the swamp and takes them to his Parts Shop, where they glimpse the gutted parts of all kinds of appliances before being dropped off in a back room.

Once there, they meet a hanging lamp who gives Lampy a new light bulb to replace his burnt out one, after he pretends to agree to Radio and tell him that Elmo is quite an amusing fellow and he tells Lampy to use his light bulb in good health, (while he still can). Later, the gang watches in horror as Elmo takes a blender apart and sells its motor to a man named Zeke. When the Hanging Lamp pretends to tell the Toaster and his gang that they never quite know what Elmo is going to do (and that he is so spontaneous), they desperately want to know how to escape, but until they find a way, they are trapped in the Parts Shop, forever. Just as the worn-out appliances are about to haunt the Toaster, a ding from a bell from Zeke returning makes them go back to their places, leaving the five appliances behind. Elmo comes back and tries to take Radio apart to sell his tubes to Zeke, after he requested for them. Using one of Lampy's sudden ideas, the gang manages to scare Elmo and knock him out cold. As they get Radio back, a blow-horn calls out a jailbreak as another refrigerator breaks down the door, tosses aside Elmo's dog, Quadreped, and escapes the shop with the other worn-out appliances. Quadreped quickly climbs up Elmo's Monster Truck and drives away, as the worn-out appliances gleefully returned to their masters' homes. Eventually, Elmo wakes up and finds his place a mess, as Zeke peeks into his private room, telling him that he was just wondering if he got some radio tubes. Now, the Toaster, Lampy, the Radio, Blanky, and the Kirby are riding their way to the city in a baby carriage they got in the Parts Shop. They see a city of twinkling lights at night, and ride toward it.

Meanwhile, Rob, the Master, is living in an apartment in the city with his mom, and is packing his things to go to college. His girlfriend Chris comes by to take him to his old summer cottage and pick up the Toaster and his gang so Rob can use them at his college dorm. Shortly afterwards, his appliances arrive at the apartment, but after entering, find that the Master isn't there. So, they decide to wait for him. They also meet up with their old friend, a black and white television named "T.V.", who was taken away from the cottage long ago, possibly along with Plugsy, a purple ginger jar lamp. He and the Cutting Edge Appliances who let them inside Room A113 are jealous of the Master's choosing the Toaster and his friends over them. After trying to tell the gang what "(on the) Cutting Edge of Technology" means by singing their song, they toss them into a dumpster outside, hoping the Master will take them to the dorm instead.

At the cottage, the Master can't find the appliances anywhere and gets annoyed. However, he manages to fix Air Conditioner, who comes back to life happily. The Master and his girlfriend sadly return to his mom's apartment in the city; meanwhile his appliances are being carted away in a garbage truck. At Ernie's Disposal, a junkyard, the appliances are dumped off, and they watch in horror as a Giant Magnet picks up old cars and drops them on a conveyor belt headed for a compactor machine, that crushes them to pieces. At the apartment, the Master sees a commercial for Ernie's Disposal, advertised as "Ernie's Amazing Emporium of Total Bargain Madness," on the T.V., and has Chris drive him over there.

Once there, the Master finds the picture of himself that Blanky had dropped. His appliances then see him as they are hanging from the Magnet, and they are determined to escape the conveyor belt and compactor, irritating the Magnet. After a few times of running from the Magnet and just missing the Master, the Master eventually finds Radio, Kirby, Blanky, and Lampy. But just as he's picking them up the Giant Manget picks him and his appliances up and drops them on the conveyor belt. He screams for his girlfriend Chris, who cannot see him. But the Toaster can see him. Just as the compactor is about to crush the Master, the Toaster jumps into the compactor's gears and manages to stop it. Later, Chris tells Rob he scared her to death, and she carries away some junkyard parts. Back at the apartment, Rob fixes the Toaster, against Chris' suggestion that he should just get new appliances. He puts the Toaster and the other appliances in Chris' car, and they head off to college. The appliances are happy that they have completed their mission and found the Master, and they can't wait to have more adventures at the Master's college.

Cast

 * Deanna Oliver as the Toaster, a gallant toaster and inspiring leader of the five appliances.
 * Timothy E. Day as Blanky, an electric blanket with an innocent, childlike demeanor.
 * Tim Stack as Lampy, an easily-impressed yet slightly irascible gooseneck desktop lamp, and Zeke, a customer wanting Radio's tubes from the appliance shop.
 * Jon Lovitz as the Radio, a vacuum tube-based dial-meter alarm antique radio whose picked up personality parodies from loudly pretentious radio singers and announcers, including the unseen radio announcer named Walter Winchell (voiced by Jerry Rees).
 * Thurl Ravenscroft as Kirby, a very low-pitched, individualistic upright Kirby vaccuum cleaner who dons a cynical, cantankerous attitude towards the other appliances.
 * Wayne Kaatz (Timothy E. Day, young) as Rob ("the Master"), the original human owner of the five appliances. Rob appears as a child in flashbacks for the first half of the film, but it is revealed that he has reached late adolescence and is departing for college. He has his own car named "the Sedan".
 * Phil Hartman as the sarcastic, Jack Nicholson-inspired Air Conditioner, who resides in the cabin with the five appliances. He loses his temper in an argument with the appliances and explodes, and is revived by Rob near the end of the film. Hartman also voiced the Peter Lorre-inspired Hanging Lamp, a pendant lamp who lives in the appliance parts store, who doesn't believe in the Toaster's optimism, after years of having been terrified to watch not only the mutilations, especially those of the countlessly disabled Junkshop Appliances, including the Joan Rivers-inspired Mish-mash (voiced by Judy Toll), but also the deaths, especially one of the Blender, whose motor was brought from Elmo to Zeke.
 * Joe Ranft as Elmo St. Peters, one of the major antagonists of the film. He owns a spare parts shop, where he disassembles broken machines and sells the pieces. He has his own Monster Truck and a dog named Quadruped.
 * Colette Savage as Chris ("the Mistress"), Rob's tomboyish girlfriend.
 * Jim Jackman as Plugsy, a ginger jar lamp who possibly once lived in the Cottage with the Toaster, the Radio, Lampy, Blanky, the Kirby, the Air Conditioner and T.V., but now he is ally to the Computer (voiced by Randy Bennett), a Tandy Color Computer who is the leader of the Cutting-Edge Appliances, who reside in Rob's apartment. While they were benevolent in the original novel, in the film, they are sometimes mischevious to the Toaster and his gang.
 * Jonathan Benair as T.V., a black and white television who once lived in the Cottage with the Toaster, the Radio, Lampy, Blanky, the Kirby, the Air Conditioner and possibly Plugsy, but now he's moved to Rob's apartment and he is an old friend of the five appliances.
 * The Giant Magnet, the T.C. and the Crusher are the voiceless villains, who live at Ernie’s Disposal. They make a career of sending the worn-out Junkyard Cars to their demise. The Giant Magnet and the T.C. pursue the Toaster and his gang, and the Crusher attempts to eat them.
 * Jim Cummings as the Evil Clown, who appeared in Toaster's nightmare, trying to kill him.