11. Geri's Game (1997)
This short was aired before A Bug's Life in 1998 and is arguably one of Pixar's least memorable shorts, despite having won itself an Oscar. It is also the first Pixar short to solely feature humans. There is a distinct change from Pixar's usual emotive shorts by Lasseter, who wasn't around. In his absence, Geri's Game was written and directed by Jan Pinkava, who clearly knows the value of a good in-joke; Geri is the expert toy restoration man from Toy Story 2. Unfortunately, this short definitely falls short of the mark for me. There is no connection to the character and when you compare Geri here to Carl from Up, you can feel the distance in the audiences ability to relate to and fall in love with the characters. Granted, there's a whole 91 minutes more to grow love for Carl in Up, but Pixar have proved time and time again they only need 4 minutes to make you adore anything they lay their hands upon, be it a lamp or an umbrella. So that's no excuse in my books - points have been knocked off in amongst tough competition.