Dan the Pixar Fan

Attention Pixar fans! In case you missed the news, Disney·Pixar’s Turning Red debuts on all major digital platforms April 26th and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on May 3rd—just in time for Mother’s Day! The home entertainment release will include seven deleted scenes, three featurettes and audio commentary with Director Domee Shi.

You can find the full list of bonus content below. Will you be picking up a copy? You know I will! Even though it's included on Disney at no additional charge, I'm still a sucker for hard copies (Blu-Ray for me)—especially when it comes to Pixar home releases. Gotta get my fill of bonus material and I'm so happy a director audio commentary is included this time!

Bonus Features

• Audio Commentary – View the film with audio commentary by director Domee Shi, producer Lindsey Collins, and director of photography Mahyar Abousaeedi.
• Featurettes
  • Life of a Shot – Domee Shi and members of the crew describe the many-layered process and artistry involved in creating the hilarious Red Peony scene – from observing red pandas in a zoo to creating a storyboard to finalizing the animation and background lighting.
  • Build Your Own Boy Band – Step backstage to learn how 4*TOWN came to animated life. From creating each band member’s persona to writing and producing the songs to fine-tuning the details of their stadium performance, the filmmakers reveal how they designed the ultimate boy band.
  • Ani-Mei-Tion – Because Mei’s heightened emotionality is central to the story, it was important that her look and movement reflect that energy. Learn how Domee Shi led the animation team to incorporate hints of expressive anime to create Mei’s lovable, dynamic character.
• Deleted Scenes
  • Deleted Scenes Introduction – Director Domee Shi introduces scenes not included in the final version of Turning Red.
  • Intro Meilin – In this alternate opening, Ming and young Mei have their portrait taken in a studio…but Ming has her own specific vision for the photo.
  • Taming The Panda – Under her mother's guidance, Mei learns techniques to control her ability to magically turn into a red panda...to varying degrees of success.
  • The Debate – Mei runs for class president against frenemy Tyler, and the speeches get a little out of hand.
  • Fei And Christina Hang – Mei (formerly Fei) shares a banana split while having a heart-to-heart with Aunt Christina.
  • 4*TOWN Dilemma – Mei scores tickets to her dream concert, but her strict mother won't let her out of the house. What will she do?
  • Roping In Leo – Pleading with Leo for help with getting out of trouble, Mei learns a couple of his closely guarded secrets.
• Easter Egg - Robutton Deleted Scene – An alternate ending in which Mei, finding herself sitting next to her 4*TOWN dream-idol Robaire on a flight to California, has some feelings.

Hey everybody, welcome back! With Pixar’s newest feature film Turning Red now on Disney+ as of this past Friday (March 11th), I thought you might wanna check out a quick peek inside this new spring 2022 issue of D23 Magazine featuring this fantastic Turning Red cover and an article inside with some interesting behind the scenes insights.

For those of you not familiar, you get magazines like this in the mail four times a year (so every quarter) by having a D23 membership. If you’re not a member though and would like a copy of this—or really any edition—they’re pretty easy to find on eBay (link HERE).

So yah, we got Panda Mai on the front there and we got her three besties, Miriam, Abby and Priya on the back (in addition to the film’s logo). And since this is the Turning Red edition of D23 magazine after all, we got Mei Lee there as her human self on the contents page in celebration of the film—love that.

The Turning Red article is called "Red Panda Monium" by Bruce C Steele and it essentially just talks about the director’s real life inspirations for the film, a little about the film story and its themes, the voice casting process and how the film aims to be universal and relatable no matter what your specific background or heritage is (similarly to Coco in that sense, which is cited here).

One of my favorite quotes here is by director Domee Shi who says, "People who don’t share Mei’s background will relate to the film just as intensely. People are just drawn to good stories. Themes like growing up and family tie us all together. People can connect with that. Its universal themes are painted with a culturally specific brush." I really like the way she put that, I think Domee really nailed it there. Anyway, there’s some really good stuff in here for anyone who loves behind the scenes content like I do.

As far as what else you'll find in this issue of Disney Twenty-Three, there are articles surrounding Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, the upcoming DisneyNature film Polar bear, the new Disney Jr. show Alice’s Wonderland Bakery, the Kingdom Keepers Adventure novels, the Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser, the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind ride, the 30th anniversary of Disneyland Paris, the Disney Dream academy, the Disney ambassador program, Destination D23 2021 and a Winnie the Pooh character analysis. That's it!

You can check it all out in my video below. Enjoy! Hope you all really enjoyed the film as well. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts down in the comments :)

What’s goin on Pixar fans?! Today I'm excited to share some more Turning Red merchandise news for you all. We’re less than two weeks away from Turning Red’s premiere on Disney+ (March 11th if you didn’t know) and just this past Monday (February 28th), ShopDisney.com finally released a bunch from their line of Turning Red products including toys, plush, apparel, home and more. Now, not everything in their line has dropped here in the U.S. just yet, but thanks to ShopDisney U.K., we have a glimpse of what else will be coming. So yah, you’ll see below that we have some items the U.K. doesn’t right now and vice versa, but stay tuned as the U.S. site should be getting most of (if not all) the additional the Turning Red items the U.K. has right now.

Ok you ready to check it all out?! Let’s go, starting with ShopDisney U.S.

Alright now switching over to the ShopDisney U.K. site below…again, all this stuff should be available in the U.S. soon as well, so don’t worry.

Well that’s everything for now, guys! I hope you enjoyed this peek at all the ShopDisney Turning Red products currently available. For more details regarding each item, go ahead and visit ShopDisney.com, ShopDisney.co.uk or (if you’re lucky enough to still have one near by), be sure to visit your local Disney Store as well. Unfortunately, they all closed in my state last year, but I know there are some out there that are still open.

So what are you most looking forward to? Any must grabs? Can’t wait to hear what you have to say. As always I’m looking forward to reading all your comments below! And if you're interested, check out my video reveal below.

Hey everyone! Turning Red doesn't premiere on Disney+ until March 11th so, to pass the time and to get even more pumped for the film, I thought it'd be fun to check out all the new/upcoming toys from Just Play Toys in the meantime! This toy line was finally revealed earlier this week and I can finally share the news that Mattel is NOT producing the toys for Turning Red like we all thought originally—unfortunately. Apparently Mattel didn’t even pitch for it and the toy license for Turning Red ended up going to Just Play Toys (who already does a lot of Disney merch, so they’re certainly not new to the game), but yah it’s kinda sad there won’t be that consistency now with the other Mattel Pixar toys from the last few years. Like, yup that means no 7” scale Turning Red figures or Mattel Pixar minis, which is a bummer cause I’ve been picturing what those would look like for months now. Oh well, maybe one day Mattel will pick up Turning Red to at least produce a few 7” figures down the road like what they did with Brave, Inside Out and so many other Pixar films recently.

I know this is a bit disappointing to a lot of you, but I’m still excited to share what Just Play Toys and a few other companies have done here with these characters and maybe there will still be an item or few that will catch your attention. Anyway, here's your look at many, if not all, of Just Play’s Turning Red toys, plus some others (all coming in early March). Some of these products will be only at Walmart, some will be at Target and some on Amazon, so there is quite the mixture there as far as distribution. I'll put the basic info for each item below, but be sure to check out my video (also embedded below) for additional details. 

First up is the Many Moods of Red Panda Mei Animated plush. This is a 12” plush with movie phrases, music and motion when you squeeze her belly. This plush will retail for $24.99 at will sell at Target, Walmart and Amazon.

Next up is the Deluxe Meilin doll. This is a 6” articulated doll of Mei that can “transform” into her Red Panda self by putting her in the included fuzzy Red Panda outfit. This will retail for $19.99 and will be available at Target and Amazon.

And here is the next plush, this one is the 11” Red Panda Mei Concert Plush with sounds. Press her hand and she plays the 4-Town song Nobody like U”. If you didn’t know, 4-Town is a ficticious 90’s style boy band in the film who Mei and her friends are huge fans of. This plush will retail for $16.97 and will be sold exclusively at Walmart.

Next up, and I believe this is the last plush, is this small 8” inch Red Panda Mei plush which is a good size for those who might not want or have space for the much bigger jumbo 16” plush. This plush will retail for $7.99 and will be available to purchase at both Walmart and Amazon.

Moving along, getting into some figures here, here we have the Turning Red BFF collectible figure five piece set which features Mei, Panda Mei and her 3 besties: Abby, Miriam and Priya. This set will retail for $12.99 and will be available at Target and Amazon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Next we have Just Play’s version of mystery minis: the Turning Red collectible blind box mini figures featuring Mei, Panda Mei and their many emotions. There are 10 figures to collect in this series which is labeled Series 1, but we’ll see if a Series 2 actually happens. I would have liked to see more of a variety of characters here, but maybe that’ll happen in a second series. These are 2.25” tall, will retail for $4.99 each and will be available at Walmart and Target. There will also [probably] be blind box codes as well, so [possibly] stay tuned to those in a future unboxing video.

Almost done here...next up is this Turning Red Shrinky Dinks sets, which makes sense since Shrinky Dinks were very popular in the 80’s and 90s and this movie does take place in the 90s, so there’s that nostalgia factor. Now I don’t think these Shrinky Dinks are made by Just Play Toys, this would be from a different company from what I understand, but either way this will retail for $14.99 and will be sold exclusively on Amazon. 

Lastly there’s this Meilin reversible plush character head which is essentially a little throw pillow to add fun and and pop of color to beds, couches, chairs and more. This is another Amazon exclusive and will retail for $14.99.

Moving onto Funko...now these were revealed a little over a week ago so many of you have seen these already I’m sure, but I still wanted to include them here in this update. The three Turning Red Funko POPs we know are coming so far are Meilin Lee, Red Panda Mei (which is a larger 6” size POP) and then a Funko Shop Exclusive Flocked Red Panda Mei.

Also coming from Funko is this Panda Mei stylized collectible plush as part of their "Plushies" collection.

I also wanted to report that Boxlunch Stores have also been getting some Turning Red merch in, so be sure to keep checking the website and in-store for more as it’s just starting to trickle out. 

Lastly, I also spotted some non-toy Turning Red items at Target recently. There's an Imagine Ink book and a Grab & Go Play Pack (both I found in the Target Dollar Spot a few weeks back and figured I’d let you know about these releases as well). Speaking of books, don’t forget to check Amazon and/or your nearest Barnes and Noble as most of the official Turning Red books are out now or at the very least available for pre-order. Looks like a lot of good stuff! 

Also at Target are some clothing items for girls (a t-shirt and PJ set). 

Anyway, that’s all I got for now! I’m sure there will be more as this is just the initial wave of reveals (I'll add more here once I see it). So what do you guys think? Anything stand out as a must grab or are you waiting to see how much you actually enjoy the film before snagging stuff? Who’s looking forward to Turning Red’s premiere on Disney Plus on March 11th?