Hey, brother! Ben of all the Pixar easter eggs out there I don't think one has consumed my mind more than the postcards seen in Toy Story 3 and Up Today, I'm peeling back yet another layer of the postcard Ben. A layer that may reveal that Carl has lost his mind. OK the first thing we need to do is establish that Carl lives in the United States of America and not some made-up Pixar country. Let's look at the postcard but not at the address how about this little label on the side which says made in the USA from Salt Lake City and the Postcard a stamp from the Yellowstone National Park post-office and if you squint really hard at this part, you can tell what's on the other side of the postcard which is Old Faithful. Then later the movie Muntz asks Carl How are things back stateside as in United States side of America and then he mentions that he was friends with President Roosevelt? We'll come back to that in a minute, but USA. Its important the Carl lives in the US because of how we address letters in the US. Name. Street address. City. State. Zip Code. The postcards are addressed to Carl and Ellie and lists their address and it looks pretty good until you get to the state P.D. P.D. is not the abbreviation for any state or US territory So what is P.D.? The most common usage of the abbreviation P.D. in the US is Police Department. Ridiculous right? I mean when would Carl have ever been at the police station or even in a court? Oh my God! Carl is in court at the beginning of the movie for assaulting somebody and then he just gets sentenced to a nursing home. Is that a normal punishment shouldn't he actually be in jail? He just gets to go right back home after he's in court. Shouldn't he go deeper into the courthouse after that? Why does he get to leave? It is at this moment, the moment of the sentencing where Carl has lost everything: his wife, his home, his freedom. That Carl's mind in an act of self-preservation removes Carl's conscious from reality and instead starts playing out in his mind the story we see unfold. This is the moment Carl goes crazy. I mean let's look at what happens to Carl after he leaves court I mean things do start to look up for him. The first thing he does is lift his house off the ground with balloons. Now, I know this is kind of the premise for the entire movie and I'm not even saying he couldn't do it. I'm just saying he couldn't do it with that many balloons. Pixar has actually admitted that they only animated about 20,000 balloons. And it should have taken a couple million. But hey for crazy Carl's imagination 20,000 more than enough. Once in the air, he gets caught in a storm can't steer the house, gets knocked out and wakes up Exactly where he was going! I mean how convenient Carl that you land another continent away, exactly where you were trying to go, that's too convenient! And who happens to be stowing away in his house after he lands a child. Just like the kind he and Ellie couldn't have. His imagination is providing for him all the things his actual life didn't and I mean a child exactly like the kind they couldn't have I mean for Carl and Ellie who grew up admiring adventurers and collecting fake badges they made themselves Russell is their dream child he's an adventurous spirit, and he actually collects real merit badges, and then there's Kevin Wild unpredictable and unattainable to everyone except apparently Carl Sound familiar? I mean heck when you first meet Ellie You're not exactly sure what gender she is kind of like the same mistake Russell makes by naming the female bird, Kevin. Even Kevin's color scheme looks familiar kind of like the house I mean I see what you're doing there Carl's mind. Carl is shown to be the boxy square one. Kind of like the house and Ellie is the free spirit who can go anywhere like the bird, completely different. But hey those colors obviously go together. Oh, and in his perfect version of Carl's life Ellie nay Kevin can have kids but that's not all. Who does Carl happen to meet after he lands? Why his childhood hero of course Charles Muntz? And I mean not just his hero, his idol Carl lived his whole life just trying to make Ellie happy and the first thing they connected over as kids was Charles Muntz. He was the catalyst for Carl's entire life. I say this because we have a way of idealizing our heroes of overlooking their flaws and Exaggerating their accomplishments. We observe everything they do with an inflated sense of grandeur And this is important because a lot of things about Charles Muntz don't add up. First confirmed by the dark of the film Muntz is 23 when he leaves for Paradise Falls and 92 when he meets Carl. I'm not saying 92 year old people can't be really really impressive. I'm saying they can't be THIS impressive. This guy has been living in an insanely dangerous jungle away from modern medical attention for 68 Years! Since 1934 when current medical standards probably weren't as great as they are today. By the way we know it is 1934 in the film based on the ambulance that picks up Carl at the beginning of the movie and the cover of this Life magazine which came out in December 1933. Presumably at least a month has passed by the time they're looking at it. Also can we circle back to how old Muntz was when he left uh 23? Are you kidding me look at all the stuff in his blimp remember? He's been here since he was 23 so everything in the blimp he found prior to that. Plus, he says most of the collection is in museums around the world but he kept the best for himself. By the definition of most that means what we see in the blimp which is already way too much for 23 year old to have found in the 1920s. That's less than half of what he's actually found and if he actually found that many crazy different things there is no way anyone would actually discredit his finding of Kevin. The amount of success he's had versus the amount of discrediting he gets is not believable. Unless you're imagining through the eyes of a small child who grew up idolizing Muntz exaggerating his accomplishments and downplaying his accusers. Carl, you crazy old man. And there's more after Carl recognizes the skeleton of a giant Somalian Leopard Tortoise Muntz replies Oh, yeah, found it on Safari with Roosevelt. Got into a habit of playing Gin Rummy with him in the evening oh did he cheat. Oh he was so bad. I'm calling BS Muntz based on his age he must have been born in 1911 and Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919. Which means the oldest he could have been while spending time with the ex-president of the United States is 8. And with that in mind, here's a couple more things: one how does a less than eight year old get to go on Safari with the ex-president of the United States and then become part of his regular Gin Rummy game every evening, a game during which Muntz says Theodore Roosevelt is cheating? Apparently against a little kid and finally even if you are a little kid on Safari with the president and you find a giant Somalian Leopard Tortoise in what world are you the one who gets to keep it and not the president? I think it's much more likely that crazy Carl grew up idolizing Muntz and Roosevelt. Two of the greatest adventurers of the time and is blurring the lines a little bit here of course they went on Safaris together and found giant tortoises that's just what happens, right? And if that is still not enough for you. There is one final clue and let's return to the postcard because P.D. is not the only thing suggesting that Carl is sitting locked up in a police department somewhere. There is another little nugget of the real world leaking through his imagination, the name of the town. Shackleton. As in town where people are in shackles like a jail. Ben, Carl is crazy. So Ben my question of the day is of course Do you think Carl is crazy and this is all just his imagination? Let me know down in the towel section below. And I will see you in another life brother. These socks are amazing! oh oh Gosh, oh gosh You guys while grinding. I ran into freaking Raikou. Oh, gosh. I don't know what to do [ìwe] [uh-uh-uh] Shift! I bet it's gonna run. That's what it always does is runs, but oh my gosh. Oh my gosh it ran. What just happened? oh Whoa, whoa, whoa hold the phone!
