110 Fun Facts About Monsters Inc

Who provides the voice of James P. "Sulley" Sullivan?

John Goodman's bear-like voice steered the animation: Sulley's lead animator took his cues from it and moved the giant like a footballer in training, quick despite his bulk.

Which comedian voices the one-eyed Mike Wazowski?

Billy Crystal treated the recording booth like a stand-up stage, spinning single lines into ad-libbed routines, and Mike's lead animator sat in on the sessions to study his gestures.

What do the monsters of Monsters, Inc. wrongly believe children are?

Toxic, the monsters think: a scarer who comes back with a child's sock stuck to him is shaved and showered, yet Boo's touch turns out to be harmless.

Boo thinks Sulley is a large version of which animal?

A cat: Boo calls the factory's most feared scarer "Kitty", and it is the word she greets him with when Mike's rebuilt door finally opens on her room.

What is the name of the monster city powered by children's screams?

Monstropolis was designed as a city monsters would really need: brick, stone and steel to bear residents weighing tons, with doors and telephones that work at any size.

By the end of Monsters, Inc., the factory has been retooled to harvest what from children instead of screams?

Laughter proves ten times more powerful than screams, so the scarers are retrained to be funny, and Mike swaps coaching scares for a microphone as the company's top comedian.

Waternoose banishes Sulley and Mike to which mountain range in the human world?

The Himalayas, where the Abominable Snowman, an earlier exile from the factory, welcomes the pair with yellow snow cones and insists they are lemon.

What special ability lets Randall Boggs sneak up on Sulley and Mike?

Camouflage lets Randall match any background, though not his glasses: at Monsters University he gives them up because they stay in view, which is why he squints ever after.

What is Henry J. Waternoose's position at Monsters, Inc.?

CEO Waternoose runs a firm his family has owned for three generations, and it is his dread of losing it in the energy crisis that pushes him into Randall's kidnapping scheme.

Grumpy scare-floor administrator Roz turns out to be what?

An undercover CDA agent, and its Number One: Roz had spent two and a half years at that desk investigating the factory, so her paperwork nagging was surveillance all along.

Mike's girlfriend Celia Mae, the front-desk receptionist, has what instead of hair?

Snakes: Celia's five have moods of their own, hissing and rattling when she is angry, and after the agents scrub her down each one turns up at work in its own little neck cone.

In Monsters, Inc., Mike says Sulley envied his looks since when?

Fourth grade, he says, yet the prequel has the pair first meet at college: its director tried versions where they met as children, then set the line aside and joked it was just an old monster expression.

In Monsters University, Mike joins which fraternity of misfits to compete in the Scare Games?

Oozma Kappa takes in students who flunked the scare program and meets in one member's mother's house, yet under Mike's coaching the misfits climb from last place to the final.

Expelled from Monsters University, where do Mike and Sulley start at Monsters, Inc.?

The mailroom, where their supervisor is the future Abominable Snowman, who warns the new boys that tampering with the post is punishable by banishment.

Which Oscar-winning actress voices Dean Hardscrabble in Monsters University?

Helen Mirren's dean founded the Scare Games as a student and won them four years running, so when Mike bets his place on the Games he is wagering against their inventor.

Which slogan does the Monsters, Inc. factory use in its television commercial?

We scare because we care, runs the advert, in which the company logo lands squarely over Mike's face; he is thrilled to have been on television all the same.

Who is the new main character of Monsters at Work, a scare graduate reassigned to the maintenance crew?

Tylor Tuskmon graduates as a scarer just as Waternoose's arrest ends scaring for good, so the job he trained for no longer exists when he reports for work and he is made a mechanic instead.

Which actor voices Randall Boggs in Monsters, Inc.?

Steve Buscemi came back for the prequel, which explains the grudge: Randall starts out as Mike's timid roommate and vows never to lose to Sulley again after a humiliating Scare Games defeat.

What food does Harryhausen's, the restaurant where Mike takes Celia on her birthday, specialise in?

Sushi: when Boo slips out of Sulley's bag at Harryhausen's the chef raises the alarm, and agents round up every diner in the place for decontamination.

Which veteran star of The Magnificent Seven voices Henry J. Waternoose?

James Coburn died in 2002, a year after the film opened, so Kelsey Grammer was announced as Waternoose for the prequel, only for the character to be cut from it altogether.

In Monsters, Inc., Mike claims his shouting at Sulley is part of what?

A company musical, Mike blurts out, inventing the title Put That Thing Back Where It Came From or So Help Me on the spot; the end credits show the company really putting it on.

Randy Newman won his first Oscar for Monsters, Inc. in which category?

Best Original Song went to "If I Didn't Have You" after years of losing nominations; Newman told the cheering room "I don't want your pity" and thanked the music branch for so many chances to be humiliated.

Monsters, Inc. lost the first-ever Best Animated Feature Oscar to which film?

Shrek took the new award even though Monsters, Inc. was the bigger draw worldwide, out-earning the ogre's film in cinemas by tens of millions of dollars.

Monsters, Inc.'s opening weekend broke the animated-film record held by which movie?

Toy Story 2 was Pixar's own film, so the studio beat its own record: Monsters, Inc. took more than $62 million in three days against the $57 million its predecessor had opened with two years earlier.

Which Oscar-winning Pixar short was shown in cinemas before Monsters, Inc.?

For the Birds has a gang of small birds mocking a gawky big one on a power line, until the wire snaps back like a slingshot and leaves the bullies without a feather between them.

The 2002 short Mike's New Car was the first Pixar short to include what?

Spoken dialogue was new for a Pixar short: Mike and Sulley bicker throughout as his new car gets the better of him, where every earlier short had managed without words.

Which actor voices the Abominable Snowman in Monsters, Inc.?

John Ratzenberger, Pixar's "good-luck charm", had a voice in each of the studio's first 22 features, from Toy Story to Onward; his yeti grumbles that he should be called the Adorable Snowman.

In Monsters University, Mike and Sulley are expelled from the scaring program after breaking what?

Dean Hardscrabble's prized scream canister holds the record-breaking scream of her own scaring days, and the pair smash it by accident when their exam-day roar-off gets out of hand.

In Monsters University, Sulley initially gets into which elite fraternity that rejects Mike?

Roar Omega Roar, the top house on campus, drops Sulley the moment he is thrown off the scare program and hands his place to Randall.

What does Mike later learn about his winning scare in the Scare Games?

Sulley had rigged the simulator's settings so that Mike could not fail; stung, Mike slips through a door to prove himself and lands in a cabin of summer campers, not one of whom is scared.

Which Firefly star voices fraternity president Johnny Worthington in Monsters University?

Nathan Fillion's Johnny invites the misfit team to a party only to have them drenched in paint and glitter, then spreads the photo of their humiliation across campus.

In Monsters at Work, what does the F stand for in MIFT, the company's repair crew?

Facilities: the Monsters, Incorporated Facilities Team are the mechanics who keep the factory's machines running, and the show drops a proud scare graduate among them on the very day scaring is abolished.

Monsters at Work introduced Roze, a new character who is Roz's what?

Twin sister Roze, voiced by the same actor, is handed Roz's old desk when Sulley and Mike take over the company, and is every bit as sour about Mike's late paperwork.

Which park opened the dark ride Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!, based on Monsters, Inc., in 2006?

Disney California Adventure built it on the bones of Superstar Limo, a ride that had closed within a year of opening: the old limousines were repainted as taxis for the trip through the film's story.

What pet name does Celia call Mike in Monsters, Inc.?

Googley Bear is her name for him and Schmoopsie-Poo is his for her, an exchange so sugary that Sulley joins in with a deadpan "Celia-Weelia".

On Tokyo Disneyland's Ride & Go Seek, the Monsters, Inc. attraction, what do riders use to hunt for hiding monsters?

Flashlights are fixed to every ride vehicle because the whole attraction is a game of flashlight tag: Mike cuts the power, the building goes dark, and whatever a beam lands on springs to life.

Approximately how many individual hairs did Pixar's animators have to simulate on Sulley?

2.3 million hairs were too many to animate one by one, so Pixar moved some 25,000 key hairs and let the rest copy their neighbours, and each still had to cast its own shadow or the fur looked flat.

Which actor screen-tested to voice Sulley in Monsters, Inc. but could not be reached with an offer?

Bill Murray was keen on the part after his test, but the director could never get hold of him to offer it and in the end took the silence as a no.

Mike's voice actor accepted the role partly out of regret at having turned down which earlier Pixar part?

Buzz Lightyear went to Tim Allen instead, and after seeing Toy Story the comedian admitted he had made a big mistake, so when Pixar came back with Mike he said yes at once.

At the end of Monsters, Inc., what hides Mike's face on the magazine cover he is so proud of?

A barcode blots him out completely, just as a logo did in the television advert, and both times Mike is simply thrilled to have been included at all.

Mike Wazowski is named after the father of which Muppet performer, who also voices Fungus?

Frank Oz's father lent his name to a latecomer: the first draft was about Sulley and the child alone, and Mike grew out of one artist's sketch of a round, one-eyed monster.

The title Monsters, Inc. was suggested by veteran animator Joe Grant as a play on which gangster film?

Murder, Inc. gave the pun to a man on his second Disney career: he had left the studio in 1949 and, to his own surprise, was brought back forty years later.

What colour are the spots on Sulley's fur?

Purple spots mark the finished Sulley, but an earlier design also put him in glasses, dropped because they made his eyes too hard to read.

In Pete Docter's first idea for Monsters, Inc., the monsters haunted whom?

A 30-year-old man who hates his job is sent his childhood drawings by his mother, and the monsters in them, each a fear he never faced, start trailing him to work and on dates.

How did Pixar record the toddler Mary Gibbs's lines as Boo?

By following her with a microphone: she would not sit still in a booth and ran all over the office, so the crew trailed her as she played and pieced Boo's lines together from her reactions.

Monsters, Inc.'s first cinema run made it the second-highest-grossing animated film to date, behind only which movie?

The Lion King stayed far ahead. The ranking rests on the 2001 run alone, because the larger total often quoted for Monsters, Inc. includes a 3D reissue that came 11 years later.

Which 2002 blockbuster beat the first-day DVD sales record that Monsters, Inc. had set weeks earlier?

Spider-Man had the calendar on its side: Sony broke with the usual Tuesday launch and put the disc on sale on a Friday, timed to Halloween promotions and a full first weekend.

A songwriter's failed lawsuit claimed Monsters, Inc. was copied from her poem with which title?

There's a Boy in My Closet was a one-page poem its author had mailed to publishers; she sued just before the film opened, and a federal court in Wyoming rejected the claim the following June.

In an early design, what was Sulley planned to have instead of feet?

Tentacles were meant to stop Sulley looking like "a guy in a suit", but they caused trouble in early animation tests and the team feared audiences would watch them instead of his face.

In Monsters University, Sulley steals which animal mascot from rival school Fear Tech?

A pig named Archie, six-legged and quick: Sulley swipes him to impress the top fraternity, and the chase crashes through Mike's dorm room, which is where he first introduces himself.

In the opening of Monsters University, what does a scarer give young Mike on his school trip?

His cap, a Monsters University one, is a reward for nerve: little Mike has slipped through a door behind him to watch a real scare, and the scarer is more impressed by the stealth than cross.

Before Monsters University, a scrapped sequel was in development under what subtitle?

Lost in Scaradise, written at Disney's Circle 7 studio without Pixar, sent Mike and Sulley into the human world to find Boo; it was scrapped when Disney bought Pixar and shut the studio down.

The Monsters at Work theme song reworks music from the first film in which form?

A cappella: series composer Dominic Lewis performed the theme himself, turning a Randy Newman tune from the first film into a piece for voices alone.

Which 2019 video game includes a world based on Monsters, Inc., with Mike and Sulley fighting at the player's side?

Kingdom Hearts III gives the pair a new story set after the film, and Pixar handed over its own character models so that Mike and Sulley would look right.

Which actress voices Celia Mae, the receptionist and Mike's girlfriend?

Jennifer Tilly's Celia turns the tables with her receptionist's microphone: she announces that Randall has just broken the all-time scare record, and the crowd that mobs him lets Mike and Sulley get away.

What was the production code name for Monsters, Inc., taken from a cafe near Pixar's studio?

Hidden City was a Point Richmond cafe where Pixar staff ate so often it served as their canteen, and the animators returned the favour: the cafe appears as Mike and Sulley walk to work.

The idea for Monsters, Inc. was born at a 1994 Pixar lunch that also seeded which other film?

Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life and WALL-E were all sketched out at that lunch, held because Toy Story was almost finished and Pixar needed to decide what it would make next.

After the September 11 attacks, what replaced the planned explosion of Harryhausen's restaurant in Monsters, Inc.?

A plasma dome was the late swap: the film reached cinemas only weeks after the attacks, and the filmmakers judged a building blowing up too raw for a family audience.

Which short film played before Monsters University in cinemas?

The Blue Umbrella began when director Saschka Unseld passed a broken umbrella lying in the San Francisco rain and felt so sorry for it that he wrote one a love story.

Which film ended Monsters University's run at US number one?

Despicable Me 2 opened to $83 million and pushed Monsters University from first to fourth in its third weekend, though the Pixar prequel still finished with more than $740 million worldwide.

In Monsters, Inc., which human item clinging to scarer George Sanderson sets off a 23-19 alert?

A sock is all it takes: hazmat agents tackle George, shave him bald and fit a neck cone, a gag the film keeps repeating on the same unlucky monster.

In Monsters, Inc., the banished Yeti who shelters Mike and Sulley is an expert at making which frozen treat?

Snow cones are his pride, and in the series Monsters at Work he gets to sell them at the factory after Sulley invites him back from exile.

Besides a workstation on the Scare Floor in Monsters, Inc., what do best friends Mike and Sulley share?

An apartment: the two are roommates as well as workmates, which is why a runaway toddler ends up hidden in their home for the night.

In Monsters, Inc., how do Mike and Sulley sneak the toddler back into the factory the next morning?

Dressed as a monster, she walks in beside them, and it is during this risky day at work that Sulley grows attached and gives her a nickname.

Early designs for Monsters, Inc. left Mike Wazowski without which body parts, added later after technical trouble?

Arms were added only after the armless version, which used its legs as hands, ran into technical trouble; the round, one-eyed look itself began as a concept sketch by Ricky Nierva.

How do Mike and Sulley prove Waternoose's kidnapping plot to the agents at the end of Monsters, Inc.?

A taped confession does it: Sulley lures his boss into the training simulator, where Mike records him admitting the scheme and plays it back.

A spoof of the Yeti from Monsters, Inc. turns up in the end credits of which later Pixar film?

Cars, released five years after Monsters, Inc., slips the Abominable Snowplow into its end credits as a wheeled tribute to the exiled monster.

Monsters, Inc. was the first Pixar feature not to be directed by which Toy Story filmmaker?

John Lasseter had been at the 1994 lunch where the monster idea was born, but he handed the director's chair to a colleague making his debut.

At the end of Monsters, Inc., Celia tells Mike that a box of what has arrived, with him on the cover?

Magazines with Mike on the cover arrive in the final scenes, a happy ending for a character who was missing from the earliest versions of the story.

Which star of The Office voices Frank McCay, the scarer who inspires young Mike in Monsters University?

John Krasinski voices the famous scarer nicknamed "Frightening" Frank, a tall, light blue monster with retractable claws and a head full of spikes.

In Monsters University, which campus figure stands in for a parent whom Scare Games teams must sneak past?

The librarian throws any team she catches making noise out of the building, so the misfits slip past her by using their voices as decoys.

Which Happy Days star voices Fritz, the scatterbrained boss of the maintenance crew in Monsters at Work?

Henry Winkler, forever the Fonz, plays the friendly tapir-nosed leader of the mechanics' crew that a would-be scarer is reassigned to.

In Monsters University, what sets fraternity brothers Terri and Terry Perry apart from their teammates?

Two heads share one body: Terri is a naively cheerful dance major, while Terry is a gloomier English major with a fondness for close-up magic.

The largest monster in Monsters, Inc., seen only as giant scaly legs at a crossing, makes the sound of which animal?

A chicken's crowing is how Ted answers Sulley's good morning before the light changes and he stomps across the road, shaking the street with every step.

Early plans for Monsters, Inc. had Sulley wearing which accessory throughout the whole film?

Glasses were abandoned once the animators found that Sulley's bare eyes were a clearer, more readable way to show his personality.

Sulley's voice actor and lead animator both pictured the Monsters, Inc. hero as a veteran player of which sport?

American football gave Sulley his style: a seasoned lineman whose athleticism lets him move fast despite his bulk, which kept the film from feeling sluggish.

The Yeti's look in Monsters, Inc. is based on the Abominable Snowman from which 1964 Rankin/Bass animated special?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer lent its mountain monster's look to a character who turns out to be the friendliest exile imaginable, happily making the best of his fate.

In Monsters, Inc., which unflattering nickname is given to accident-prone trainee scarer Thaddeus Bile?

Phlegm botches his simulator test in the opening scene, yet he is working on Scare Floor F by the end, with a skateboard added to his pratfalls.

Which actor, the voice of Sideshow Bob, was announced as Waternoose for Monsters University before the role was cut?

Kelsey Grammer was lined up because the original actor had died in 2002, but Waternoose survives in the prequel only as a figure in a photograph.

On a school trip in Monsters University, scarer Frank McCay gives young Mike which keepsake?

His college cap plants the dream: years later Mike enrols at the same school, determined to become a scarer himself.

In one Scare Games event in Monsters University, which glowing creatures stand in for a child's toys?

Sea urchins that cause painful swelling litter the course, and one fraternity is disqualified for coating itself in a protective gel.

When the Yeti is welcomed home in Monsters at Work, which new name replaces the "Abominable" in his title?

Adorable is the name he takes once Sulley brings him back; the series reveals he was exiled for stumbling on a letter about the kidnapping plot.

At Walt Disney World's Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor show, how can audience members submit their own jokes?

By text message, guests feed gags to the monster comedians, whose show is improvised around the audience rather than run from a fixed script.

Which Cheaper by the Dozen star voices Ms. Flint, who runs the scare simulator in Monsters, Inc.?

Bonnie Hunt became a Pixar regular: she had already played Rosie the black widow in A Bug's Life, and returned for the prequel as Mike's school teacher.

Monsters, Inc.'s score lost both the Oscar and the Grammy to the music of which 2001 film?

The Fellowship of the Ring beat it at both ceremonies, yet the Pixar film still made Oscar history when its end-credits duet ended its composer's long losing streak.

Mary Gibbs, the toddler who voiced Boo in Monsters, Inc., was the daughter of someone doing which job on the film?

Story artist Rob Gibbs was her father, and a tie-in book later gave the on-screen girl the same real name as her young voice actress.

Roz, the Scare Floor administrator in Monsters, Inc., is voiced by which Pixar writer who later co-directed Up?

Bob Peterson also gave Up its talking dog, Dug, and a dinosaur-like scarer with removable teeth on the same floor is named after him.

Which co-director of Monsters, Inc. went on to direct The Simpsons Movie in 2007?

David Silverman shared co-director duties on the Pixar film with Lee Unkrich, then took Homer and family to cinemas six years later.

During the making of Monsters, Inc., Pixar moved from Point Richmond to a new campus in which California city?

Emeryville became home in November 2000, reuniting 500 staff who had been split across three buildings; Steve Jobs co-designed the campus.

The director of Monsters, Inc. also performed with the orchestra on its soundtrack, playing which instrument?

Double bass was the instrument he learned as the son of two music educators, and he joined the studio orchestra again for the score of Up.

Which 1973 film about a con man saddled with a sharp orphan did the director of Monsters, Inc. cite as inspiration?

Paper Moon gave him the idea of an adult stuck with a kid who turns out to be the real expert, the dynamic that drives Sulley and his tiny stowaway.

Who directed the prequel Monsters University before making Pixar's road-trip fantasy Onward?

Dan Scanlon moved the heroes' first meeting to college even though it contradicted a line in the original, after its makers told him to do what was right for the story.

Unlike the films, the series Monsters at Work was produced by which studio rather than by Pixar?

Disney Television Animation made the show without Pixar's involvement, only the second time the studio had built a series on a Pixar film.

The chip programme behind which games console's processor was codenamed Waternoose after the Monsters, Inc. boss?

Xbox 360 processors were developed by Microsoft and IBM under the Waternoose codename, an odd tribute to a villain who ends the film under arrest.

Which short-lived Disney studio, mocked as "Pixaren't", drafted a Monsters, Inc. sequel that was never made?

Circle Seven Animation was set up to make Pixar sequels without Pixar, and it closed in 2006 without releasing a single film after Disney bought Pixar itself.

The portal doors on the Scare Floor in Monsters, Inc. open into which part of a child's bedroom?

The closet is every scarer's way in, an idea the director drew from his own childhood certainty that monsters were coming out of his.

In Monsters, Inc., what happens to the door of a child who is no longer afraid of monsters?

It is shredded in a woodchipper-like machine run by two janitors; one scarer's close call with a fearless child costs the factory its 58th door that week.

At the end of Monsters, Inc., what does Mike secretly do so that Sulley can visit Boo again?

Rebuilds her door, piece by painstaking piece: it had been destroyed on official orders to keep the girl safe, and Mike saves the surprise for the final scene.

After Randall is thrown through a door in Monsters, Inc., the people who find him mistake him for which animal?

An alligator is what the residents of a mobile home think has burst in, so they beat him senseless while Mike and Sulley destroy the door behind him.

In Monsters University, whom do Mike and Sulley scare to power a dead door from the human side?

Park rangers get such a fright that the energy powers the door from the wrong side, and it explodes just after the pair pass through.

In the simulator scene that opens Monsters, Inc., which blunder does trainee Bile make besides fearing the dummy?

Leaves the door open is the blunder that fails him; he then panics, slips on a soccer ball and lands on a pile of jacks.

In the Monsters University short Party Central, Mike and Sulley use door stations to steal what from a rival fraternity?

Its food and guests are hauled through the bedroom of a sleeping couple, who end the short begging to share their son's room.

Young Mike alarms scarer Frank McCay in Monsters University by doing what during a factory visit?

Sneaking through his door into the human world, Mike watches a real scare up close; Frank is worried by the recklessness but impressed by the stealth.

Sulley stumbles on Boo's active door in Monsters, Inc. after returning to the Scare Floor to fetch what?

Mike's paperwork was left behind as he headed off on a date, so Sulley went back after hours and found a rival's door still switched on.

As Mike and Sulley race for Boo's door in Monsters, Inc., what does Celia falsely announce to delay Randall?

A new scare record, credited to Randall himself, is her diversion: it buys the friends enough time to bring the girl's door down to the Scare Floor.

Which It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star voices Art, the furry arch-shaped misfit in Monsters University?

Charlie Day plays the furry oddball with a questionable past, who lets slip in one scene that he has been to jail.

The Monsters, Inc. dark ride Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! replaced which ride that had lasted under a year?

Superstar Limo cast riders as new celebrities touring Hollywood, and guests disliked it so much that it closed 11 months after opening.

In Disney's scrapped Monsters, Inc. sequel, what do Mike and Sulley find when they bring Boo a birthday present?

She has moved away, leaving the friends trapped in the human world and split over what to do next; the project ended when Disney bought Pixar.

Which cowboy band, the voices behind Woody's Roundup, won a Grammy for an album of Monsters, Inc. songs?

Riders in the Sky won the 2003 Grammy for Best Musical Album for Children with Monsters, Inc. Scream Factory Favorites, their second Pixar companion record.

The series Monsters at Work picks up how long after Waternoose's arrest at the end of Monsters, Inc.?

The next day is when the show begins, so a new graduate hired as a scarer arrives to find that the job no longer exists.