A Year in Shorts Day 13: "Boundin'"

The Pixar short is as beloved a tradition as the Pixar movies themselves. If Pixar movies are a delicious gourmet meal, then their shorts are a great appetizer to warm up your taste buds. But all shorts aren’t created equal, and for every classic like Bao, there’s also a run-of-the-mill short like 2003's Boundin.’


(via Wikipedia)

Released in theaters and shown before The Incredibles (although it was actually released a year earlier to qualify for the 76th Academy Awards), Boundin' was written, directed and narrated by the late Bud Luckey. Luckey was an animator and character designer for Pixar, probably best known for his role as Rick Dicker in the aforementioned Incredibles.

Boundin' is a fairly simple short, telling the story of a self-conscious sheep who gets a lesson in confidence from a wandering jackalope. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times, I'm sure.

As far as Pixar shorts go, Boundin' is fairly average. The animation is pleasant to look at if nothing spectacular. The character designs are cute if a little simplistic. And the music coupled with the rhyming dialogue are nice to listen to, but nothing particularly memorable. It's all perfectly fine, just not up to the studio's usual high standard. The Cars of Pixar shorts, if you will.

Still, it's only five minutes long and there's nothing wrong with an average short to warm up your palate. Besides, having sat through Olaf's Frozen Adventure, I know it could be a lot, lot worse.

No, really, it's fine Disney. I love sitting through twenty minutes of nonsense after sitting through thirty minutes of trailers before I get to watch "Coco". Please, continue to waste everyone's time!!!

(via Wikipedia)


Boundin' didn't win the Oscar that year, losing instead to Adam Elliot's Harvie Krumpet, which I have not seen. It sounds pretty interesting an unique though, so I'm sure it deserved it at least a little bit more.


As always, you can keep up with the Oscar Baiting fun here on Letterboxd!


Boundin' is available to watch on Disney +


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