Over the next decade, the Pixar studio, located in Point Richmond, California, would lead the computer animation industry both technically and aesthetically. Lasseter directed the studio's first short film, 1986's Luxo, Jr, which starred a desk lamp and its precocious child. Two years later, another of the studio's shorts, Tin Toy, also directed by Lasseter, would tell the tale of a destructive baby and a nervous wind-up toy. The short subject would make history as the first computer animated film ever to win an Academy Award. The short subject sprang from Lasseter's love for toys (he still has his entire Hot Wheels car collection from childhood), which was taken to greater heights with Toy Story.

A Bug's Life. © Disney Enterprises, Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All Rights Reserved.

A Bug's Life
Now, both Pixar and Disney hope that computer generated lightening indeed strikes twice with A Bug's Life. In the film, a misfit ant named Flik (voiced by News Radio's Dave Foley) tries to save his colony from a group of greedy grasshoppers, led by the villainous Hopper (Kevin Spacey). Flik recruits a group of insects he thinks are mercenaries, but instead turn out to be inept performers from a flea circus.

"Part of what makes a great movie is character growth," says Lasseter, who co-directs A Bug's Life with Andrew Stanton. "With Flik, he grows quite a bit, but more importantly, everyone around him, because of his influence, also grows a tremendous amount. In your own life, you don't realize all the people that you come in contact with - your friends, your loved ones - how much you affect them. It's a really apt emotional core to the film that fits with everyone's everyday lives."

Flik, star of A Bug's Life is described as "an original thinker out-of-step with the rest of the more traditionally-minded bugs." Sound like someone we know? © Disney Enterprises, Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All Rights Reserve

In addition to Spacey and Foley, Bug's Life also features a stellar voice cast that includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the ant Princess Atta, Denis Leary as Francis, a male lady bug with a "chip on his wing," Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith from Lost in Space) as Manny, the praying mantis magician, the late Roddy McDowall as the ant Mr. Soil, and Phyllis Diller as the Queen of the ant colony.

There is another member of the cast that many outside animation circles may not recognize. Joe Ranft, a veteran Disney story man, provides the voice of Heimlich, the always-hungry caterpillar. During the early days of production on Bug's Life, Ranft provided the voice for Heimlich on the film's temporary soundtrack. Lasseter remembers, "In creating the character Heimlich, Joe, who is just a very funny person, did this hilarious, high-pitched, German, mama's boy voice. We were just cracking up."

While casting the voices, the filmmakers searched for another, "permanent" Heimlich, but none seemed to match Ranft's performance. Then, Lasseter brought a rough-cut, "story reel" home to show his wife and five sons. "Every time Joe said Heimlich's line, my wife giggled," he says. That's all it took, Lasseter told Ranft the next day that he had the part.