Fun Facts

1. A Bug's Life marks the second time a Theme Park Attraction has been released before the film. Inside the Tree of Life at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom, there is a 430-seat theater which shows a a 3-D movie, "It's Tough To Be A Bug," featuring the characters from "A Bug's Life," and features a whole new arsenal of in house effects along with the animation effects from Pixar. It is the most 4D Disney movie ever. They show butterflies flying around the theatre.
   REPORTED: Kevin D 22 MAR 97
   CONFIRMED: Ghost Host 13 JAN 98
   The first was Sleeping Beauty Castle in 1955 before the movie in 1959.
   CONFIRMED: DisneyMan 23 JUL 98
2. In the trailer at the Disney Store, one of the bugs, (I believe it's Francis the ladybug) says "We're gonna knock 'em dead!", which is the slogan for Raid bug spray.
   REPORTED: Chris Berndt 01 NOV 98
   Francis the ladybug is definitely the bug that says "we're gonna knock 'em dead." However, I believe that the actual slogan is "knocks bugs dead" or something closer to that than what Francis says.
   UPDATE: ToPoLiNo 28 NOV 98
   The Raid slogan was actually "Kills Bugs Dead."
   UPDATE: PerrysburgGuy 22 JAN 02
3. In the shot of the trailer (where the bug light hangs from) there is clearly a Pizza Planet truck parked next to it, one not unlike that in "Toy Story"!
   REPORTED: David Dill 08 NOV 98
4. In the bug city, one of the "buildings" is a box with the name "Darla" on it. She is someone who worked on the film. Her name was in the credits.
   REPORTED: ToPoLiNo 27 NOV 98
5. When Flick enters the Bug City, the camera shows what appears to be a city skyline. On the left hand side of the screen, on one of the bug buildings is a billboard promoting Disney's The Lion King broadway show, complete with the lion icon.
   REPORTED: Richard 29 NOV 98
   
6. When Dot was running through the "forest" [the grass] she slides down a stalk of grass. This is very similar to a scene in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," where two kids slide down a stalk of grass like a slide. If you compare them closely there might be even more similarities between the two movies. The settings are very similar.
   REPORTED: OLaF 27 NOV 98

7. If you look closely at the side of the tailer in the trailer park you can see a truck from Pizza Planet. The Pizza Planet truck came from Toy Story.
   REPORTED: anon 04 DEC 98
8. When Flik is walking into the "city", there is a Lion King poster from the Broadway Show. It appears on one of the cardboard "buildings". It also appears a second time, I think when he is leaving.
   REPORTED: Angelo Villagomez 22 JAN 99
9. There is a quick clip in one of the trailers in which the bugs are on a "train". This train is made of animal cracker boxes, in the style of "Barnum's Animals" - but instead, the boxes say "Casey Jr. Animal Crackers"... the name of the train in "Dumbo".
   REPORTED: Cay 15 NOV 98
   Casey Jr. is the train from Dumbo. it is a clear reference to that movie
   CONFIRMED: OLaF 27 NOV 98
   CONFIRMED: Laurie W 13 DEC 98
   The train/cookie boxes for P.T. Flea's circus are Casey Jr. Cookies - The train from Dumbo..... It also says "est 1957," but Dumbo was released in 1941..... maybe something else hidden in there somewhere.
   CONFIRMED: Jim Loring 26 APR 99
   This is something I noticed while watching A Bug's Life. It is really cool. The circus bugs in that movie travel in an old cookie box that says on the side it once held Casey Jr. Cookies. As any Disneyphile knows, the CIRCUS TRAIN in DUMBO is called CASEY JR. also! Clearly this is a hidden reference to that movie. I find that in the most recent disney movies there are references to older disney movies. For example, in A Bug's Life Hopper says "It's the whole Circle of Life thing." ( a Lion King Reference). In Mulan, Mushu says to Mulan "Wake up Sleeping Beauty!" and in the new version of The Parent Trap, the twins refer to their dad's girlfriend as "Cruella DeVil." All coincidences? I think not.
   CONFIRMED: anon 22 JAN 01
10. On the Casey Jr Circus Train, on the top corner of the box, it says "Now With More Sugar"!
    REPORTED: John Hamilton 21 DEC 98
11. There is an error in A Bug's Life. When Hopper is flying away with Flick, Tuck and Roll pull on Hopper's antennae and pull one of them off, but in the very next shot we see Hopper flying flying away with both of his antennae !! ÊWatch the movie again very carefully and see for yourself !!
    REPORTED: Isaac 06 MAR 01
12. As Flic is flying away from the ant island on a dandelion, he smacks into a rock a la George Of The Jungle.
    REPORTED: John Hamilton 21 DEC 98
13. In the bloopers at the end, Woody from 'Toy Story' makes an appearence as the guy holding the marker.
    REPORTED: John Hamilton 21 DEC 98
14. This is just another hidden reference to "Toy Story." Right as we see the shot of the "bean can bar" starting to roll, you'll notice that there's a Pizza Planet cup sitting up on top of the bean can.ÊÊ
    REPORTED: Susie Swearingin 06 JUL 00
15. Did you notice that the Bug City is supposed to be New York City looking south at Times Square? The Lion King on Broadway is right in Times Square just as in the movie.
    REPORTED: Chris Berndt 06 DEC 98
16. You can't understand anything the pill bugs say. However, there is one section (easier to hear with captions on) where they say Ruben Kincaid. He was the manager for the Partridge Family.
    REPORTED: Rochelle Kenney 25 AUG 99
17. Canadian computer animator Glenn McQueen, who co-supervised the digital animation of PIXAR Inc.'s "A Bug's Life", o credited Canada's National Film Board and a Toronto-area community college for his inspiration. McQueen was senior animator at Pacific Data, where his work on a children's television special, "The Last Halloween", earned him an Emmy Award. Now he is working on the "Toy Story" sequel: "Toy Story II".
18. McQueen wasn't the only Canadian contributor to "A Bug's Life". Comedian Dave Foley provided the voice of insect character Flik, an ant.
19. My wife and I were watching "A Bug's Life" last night when I suddenly saw a hidden TIGGER! It is about one hour and twenty one minutes (1:21) into the film. Flik and the troop are making their way up the tree and in one scene, the tree looks like Tigger's face! I have attached a screen capture of this with a general out line of the Tigger face that I see. It looks like the bugs are supposed to be the stitching that makes his mouth!
    REPORTED: Joseph Powers 23 DEC 01
20. "A Bug's Life" was the first animation film to be done entirely using digital technology
21. The 96-minute film's most difficult scenes took more than 100 hours per frame to render compared to the average shot that required about 15 hours, because of the complexity of the backgrounds that included rocks, blades of grass and leaves in the 130,000-frame film.
22. Did you happen to notice that 'Dim' the rhino-beetle, is the very same exact bug in Lion King? The part where Timone & Pumbaa are singing 'Lion sleeps tonight', and Pumbaa wanders off to follow a bug. They do a close up on it and there it is, a rhino-beetle.
    REPORTED: Jammie 10 JUN 99
23. When the "bar" gets rolling during, watch the outside of the can when it stops. It reads "LOW-FAT LARD".
    REPORTED: Susanne Bayes Koenig 29 APR 00

Video

1. Release with four different covers - Flick, Dot, Francis, and Jeimlich. There is a limited "Hopper" as well.
2. First time ever that a VHS, wide-screen VHS and a DVD version of an animated feature have all be released simultaneously.
3. First time that a film has been digitially reformatted to fit the video screen. The use of digital technology also allowed PIXAR to more easily "reframe" the movie to a television ratio of 1.33 to 1 from the wide-screen ratio of 2.35 to 1

Geri's Game

Although we are meant to believe that there is only one character playing both parts in "Geri's Game", there is in fact one scene in the movie where we see one Geri in the background while looking under the arm of the other Geri in the foreground (i.e. both Geris are visible at the same moment in time). This occurs somewhere around the time of the fourth piece capture by the second Geri (the one not wearing the glasses).
REPORTED: Cesar Mugnatto 23 OCT 00

In "Geri's Game", the sun is shining originally from behind the first Geri (the one with glasses) and casts his shadow onto the chessboard. Somewhere in the middle of the film and continuing almost to the end, the sun changes direction so hat now the shadows are cast in the opposite direction. However, at the very end, the sun has returned to its starting position and is now casting a shadow as it did in the beginning of the film.
REPORTED: Cesar Mugnatto 23 OCT 00

Geri's Game won the 1997 Oscar for best animated short and was rereleased as a short before the cenima relase of "A Bug's Life." Director is Jan Pinkava
REPORTED: TR Shaw 27 NOV 98

Geri's Game is the latest of a long string of animated shorts by pixar that includes "Tiny Toy Stories."
REPORTED: TR Shaw 27 NOV 98

Before A Bug's Life, there was a short called Geri's Game about an old man playing chess. The box that the pieces came out of has "Pixar Shorts" written on it. This is obviously a reference to the company.
REPORTED: ToPoLiNo 27 NOV 98

In "Geri's Game", preshow to "A Bug's Life": The box with the chess pieces in it is knocked over, but when they show the ground again the box is gone.
REPORTED: Josh Welch 08 JUN 99

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