3. Lifted
Plays Before: Ratatouille
Cuteness Level: Mike and Scully taking their Scaring Test in Monsters University Lifted takes a clever conceit (an alien taking a drivers license test, only it is actually a human abduction by tractor beam test) and turns it into the funniest short Pixar has made. The alien taking the test is proven to be incompetent: he smashes the human (who looks a lot like the human protagonist from Ratatouille) into his wall, his ceiling, his bedside table, and the tree outside his window before he can get him into the spaceship. When the tractor beam pulls up the human from behind, his rear end dangles out the window (some probing humor perhaps?) and the alien proceeds to slam him into the window again. The alien finally manages to get him into the spaceship only to drop him yet again. The alien who is administering the test is not amused with the failure of the test-taker, but he is ultimately sympathetic and allows him to drive the spaceship away. It is at this point that the UFO smashes into the house leaving only the human's bed surrounded by a huge crater. During the credits sequence you hear a perfectly placed Wilhelm's Scream as the human falls into the abyss, classic comedy. But Lifted isn't all story no style, it uses beautifully rendered computer graphics that capture the night on the plains perfectly as well as having a realistic take on an alien abduction (as weird as that sounds). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY1_HrhwaXU Handling a clever concept with even cleverer execution, director Gary Rydstrom makes Lifted an incredibly funny five minute adventure into the world of standardized abduction testing.