 In the dentist`s office, there is a Buzz Lightyear action figure lying on the floor.
During the credits, Mike Wazowski (from Monsters, Inc. (2001)) can be seen doing a little deep-sea diving.
Boo`s fish mobile from Monsters, Inc. (2001) is hanging in the dentist`s office.
The boy in the dentist`s waiting room is reading a "Mr. Incredible" comic book, a reference to the forthcoming Pixar film The Incredibles (2004).
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# The Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story (1995) and Luigi, a car from the upcoming Pixar film Cars (2006), can be seen driving by the dentist`s office.
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# According to the DVD, the names of the nine boats seen in the Sydney harbor are: Sea Monkey, Major Plot Point, Bow Movement, iBoat, Knottie Buoy, For the Birds, Pier Pressure, Skiff-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, and The Surly Mermaid
The coloration of Gill`s face simulates the characteristic lines around the mouth of voice actor Willem Dafoe.
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# The seagulls ("Mine, mine") were modeled after the penguins in the claymation Wallace and Gromit short Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers (1993).
The group of fish making impressions sing a snatch of song as they make an impression of a boat firing its cannons; "I`ve a whale of a tale to tell...” This song was originally sung by Kirk Douglas in the Disney production 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), which features a character named Captain Nemo.
When the fish tank turns dirty, they show a shot of a sunken ship. On the front of the sunken ship is the mermaid covered in scum from Pixar`s Knick Knack (1989), which is also shown before the movie begins.
Co-writer Bob Peterson doubled as the voice of "Mr. Ray" the Schoolteacher.
Had the biggest opening weekend for any animated film upon its US release (30 May 2003).
Afraid that kids would try releasing their pet fish by flushing them down a drain, a company that manufactures equipment used by water filtration and sewage treatment plants released a warning the Thursday after the film came out saying that, even though drains do eventually reach the ocean, before it got there the water would go through equipment which breaks down solids, and went on to say that in real life the movie would more appropriately be called "Grinding Nemo".
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# The DVD commentary is not incorrect about lobsters in Australia. While it is true that Australia has lobsters, the lobsters in "Nemo" are clawed lobsters. Australian lobsters, indeed most of the world`s lobsters, are actually spiny lobsters. However, since the lobsters seen discussing Marlin`s quest have New England accents and use words such as "wicked," it is likely that they are from near Massachusetts; emphasizing the point that Marlin`s story is known all around the (sea) world.
Dedicated to the memory of Glenn McQueen (1960-2002), a Pixar animator.
The waiting room in the dentist`s office was modeled after the waiting room in a real dentist`s office in Emeryville, California, where Pixar Animation Studios has its headquarters.
Darla is named after Pixar producer Darla K. Anderson.
One of the boats is named Jerome`s Raft, after Jerome Ranft, a Pixar art department sculptor.
Cameo: [Rove McManus] the Crab threatened by Dory. Rove was the biggest late night talk show host in Australia at the time, with his show "Rove Live" (2000).
The scene where the seagulls attack mimics several of the shots in Alfred Hitchcock`s The Birds (1963). The music that accompanies Darla`s entry is a pastiche of `Bernard Herrmann``s score for Hitchcock`s Psycho (1960).
Dory manages to refer to Nemo as Fabio, Elmo, Bingo, Chico, and Harpo.
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# Albert Brooks was always `Andrew Stanton``s first choice to voice the part of Marlin. Although Brooks had done several episodes of "The Simpsons" (1989), he found voice work for a feature length cartoon to be substantially different in that he had to do it in isolation, and not alongside any other actors. He didn`t particularly enjoy the experience
Work first began on the movie in 1997. Physical production actually began in January 2000 with a crew that ultimately comprised 180 people.
The waving strands on the anemones on the seabed move about using the same computer program that animated Sully`s hair in Monsters, Inc. (2001).
The look and feel of the underwater world was essential to the film`s success. To that end, the production crew were all exposed to visits to aquariums, diving stints in Monterey and Hawaii, study sessions in front of Pixar`s own 25 gallon fish tank and even a series of in-house lectures from an ichthyologist.
The animation team fluctuated between 28 and 50.
Willem Dafoe modeled his voice for Gill on a tough prison inmate character he had played in Animal Factory (2000).
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# `Andrew Stanton` pitched his idea and story to Pixar head John Lasseter in an hour long session, using elaborate visual aids and character voices. At the end of it, the exhausted Stanton asked Lasseter what he thought, to which Lasseter replied, "You had me at `fish`".
For the jellyfish sequence, Pixar`s Ocean Unit created an entire new system of shading which they called "transblurrency" - see-through but blurred, much like a frosted bathroom window.
There are up to 200 turtles in the background of the turtle drive sequence.
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# As "research" the key figures of the production crew had to get SCUBA certification and go to the Great Barrier Reef on the insistence of John Lasseter.
One of Gill`s scars on his face is in the same place as Tony Montana`s from Scarface (1983) on his face along with his other indentations (see also The Lion King (1994)).
In the same way that Dreamworks pokes fun at Disney characters in Shrek (2001), Disney/Pixar does the same thing here by letting Dory in some of her not so bright moments shout, "Pick me! Pick me!" like Donkey in "Shrek" at the time of departure from Shrek`s swamp. Similarly, Dory/Donkey singing and Marlin/Shrek forbidding them to sing.
Bruce the shark yells "Here`s Brucey!" through a hole he has hacked through a boat. This scene is modeled after Jack Nicholson`s famous "Here`s Johnny!" after he hacks a hole through a door in The Shining (1980).
One of the dentist`s patients is "little Davy Reynolds" - a reference to David Reynolds, one of the film`s writers.
To see how realistic they could make it appear, the art team were asked to make exact copies of actual underwater and above water shots. Ultimately the results were simply deemed "too realistic" for a cartoon.
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# According to the DVD, there are some references to Massachusetts in the film as one of the creators is from Rockport, Massachussetts (a small town on Cape Ann, about one hour north of Boston). In the dentist`s office are two "lighthouse lamps" modeled after the twin lighthouses on Thatcher Island (just off the coast of Rockport). Also in the dentist`s office is a framed picture on the wall of "Motif Number One", a very frequently photographed (by tourists) building on a dock in downtown Rockport. Finally, while various sea creatures are relating Marlin`s quest across the ocean (which eventually reaches Nigel the Pelican) one step is a group of lobsters that speak with Boston accents and slang ("wicked daahhk")... even though the DVD wrongly says that there are no lobsters in the oceans around Australia.
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# In the tank gang in the dentist`s office, the germophobic purple and yellow fish is the only one never mentioned by name. His name was later revealed to be Gurgle.
Claimed the all-time first day USA record for home-release sales with 8 million copies sold (80% of which were on DVD).
As of January 2005, it is the bestselling DVD of all time in the world with 22 million copies sold.
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# Though never mentioned in the film, it is revealed by the directors in the commentary that Crush and his crew of thrill seeking turtles are headed for Hawaii. Also mentioned in the commentary is that the young turtles` shells are modeled after Hawaiian shirts.
In case you missed it - Deb`s reflection/alter ego is Flo, as in "ebb" and "flow", like the tide.
Rendering a frame which lasted about 1/24th of a second in the film can take up to four days because of the complexity of the underwater environment with sunlight coming through the water and hitting fish scales.
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# One musical theme that Thomas Newman composed for the score did not end up in the final film but still appeared both in one of the trailers and on one of the DVD menus.
Dory Lane and Marlin Drive are intersecting streets in the Bay Area suburb of Redwood City, just across the bay from Pixar`s home.
The names of the two main Turtles are also the names of citrus soda brands popular in the United States (Crush and Squirt).
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# Director Andrew Stanton originally planned to reveal the fate of Marlin`s wife gradually through flashbacks seen periodically as the story unfolded. After a few early in-house screenings, he found that Marlin came off as too much of a worrywart, and decided to reveal the entire back-story up front, thus making Marlin more appealing by establishing the reason for his over-protectiveness.
Originally, the whale that swallows Marlin and Dory approaches them from the front. This version of the scene appeared in an early trailer. The final version, with the whale coming from behind, was inspired by an early animation test showing a whale emerging from the murk of the ocean behind a small fish.
Animators studied dogs` facial expressions, paying particular attention to the eyes, to animate the expression of the fish.
John Lasseter considered Danny Elfman to score the film. When he turned it down Hans Zimmer was asked, but he turned it down as well.
Andrew Stanton claims he modeled the voice of his character Crush, the green turtle, on Sean Penn`s stoner dude character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
Danny Elfman was set to score but dropped out. Some promotional posters still say, "Music by Danny Elfman".
Pixar developed a very realistic look of the surface water, but had to make it look more fake so people wouldn`t think it was real footage of the ocean surface.
In Latin the word nemo means `nobody` or `no one`.
According to the commentary on the DVD, one of the boats` names is "For the Birds", a reference to a Pixar short subject under the same title, For the Birds (2000).
EASTER EGG: on the Bonus Features menu on disc 2, highlight the return symbol, then press down, and a green fish will appear. Select this to see a commercial for the Aquascum 2003.
A stuffed toy of Nemo appears on a couch in Boo`s room Monsters, Inc. (2001).
Andrew Stanton is a fan of "Monty Python`s Flying Circus" (1969) and included a couple of references. The shark is called "Bruce" (from a sketch about the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolloomooloo where everyone was called Bruce (it`s also the nickname of the animatronic shark used in Jaws (1975))). The krill say, "Swim away, swim away," (from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)). Bruce also tells Anchor and Chum to `Swim Away! Swim Away` when the under water `balloons` (as Dory calls them) are about to blow up. Also, Marlin forbidding Dory to sing mimics the scene at the Scottish castle in Holy Grail.
William H. Macy was the first choice to voice Marlin.
Jacques the Shrimp`s character is partly based on the German born actor Fritz Feld, whose trademark was to "pop" his mouth by slapping it with the palm of his hand to indicate his "superior" annoyance.
Ranked #10 on the American Film Institute`s list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Animation" in June 2008.
Nigel`s line, "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta eat," is a reference to the line, "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly," in the song "Can`t Help Lovin` That Man" from the Broadway musical ‘Show Boat’.
`Bruce` the great white shark was named after `Bruce` the animatronic great white that was used in making the movie Jaws (1975).
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