Ha! Ha! sincker!  That is pretty funny but, not surprising.

First off, I feel that type of antic is just part of the Hollywood game; they deal with it just like they have to deal with the paparazzi and tabloids.

Secondly,  99% of viewers woudn't even recognize that character on the tarmac is supposed to be anyone famous. Only insiders who know the industry or people who visit here get the connection. They spoof presidents and others all the time in satire and so forth so who really cares if it is a jab at Lasseter or whether he is hot under the collar over it. He'll get over it or not.

Is this supposed to further fuel the competition between PIXAR and DREAMWORKS?  I doubt it but, if it does, than all the better for the movie-goer. Better competition should bring on better movies.  

I don't think it was crazy offensive, but I don't see the reason for it. Disney doesn't take cheap shots in their animated films like that. Everything I've heard about Katzenberg has been especially greedy and snake-like. If Seinfeld didn't know that already, he must not be paying any attention.

what else is knew with dreamworks  Lord farquat was Eisner... All the disney references in Shreks...    Disney and Pixar are always targets because they are the leader in the field...  and unfortunately   dreamworks has to resort to it...  I  have always known seinfeld to be a class act guy it could of been a misinterpertation we may never know.

Oh please... its a joke.  Get over it.  Artists caricature their peers all the time.  Disney himself was caricatured (and not always in a positive light) by his own studio many times in his life.

There was an old episode of Tiny Toon Adventures that caricatured Roger Ebert in a pretty vicious way.  This Lasseter thing is nothing.  He should feel honored that people are thinking of him, if anything.  

It's fair game. Dreamworks has a tradition of making fun of Disney. Shrek is a great example. I don't think a joke about a particular person is anymore harmful. It's just a silly reference that makes animation and Disney geeks giggle or say, "Hey wtf?!" But who cares. The movie was okay. I liked it, but it did seem very cliche.

It's harmless, but it's also classless.  Seinfeld should be better than that.  Otherwise it's just another joke that bombed in a movie that should've been better.  I'm sure Lasseter will be eager to help performers who might be screwed over by Katzenberg in the future...

Ummm, couldn't that guy in the shirt pass for a few other folks, too? Why, even Jim Hill?

C'mon, Jim - you reported Pixar including a Thomas Shumaker-like character in The Incredibles:  http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2005/08/21/664.aspx

This sort of stuff happens all the time.  Lasseter isn't staying up nights fretting about his Bee Movie "appearance".

Wow that Seinfled is realllllllllllllllllllllly funny.....

That "gag" is probably the only thing he added to the script...

once again he proves how unfunny he is...

He is better at helping his wife steal other people's ideas for books...

Neither one has an original thought in their body...

Well, the joke is on Dreamworks. They still can't put out an animated feature equal to Pixar's excellent films. Maybe they should stop spending their time littering their movies with dated pop culture references and write an actual story.

Considering how poorly Bee Movie did at the box office, it's not like anyone really saw it anyway.

Much ado about nothing.

Errr, CapnSkip, Jim has a beard and isn't as fat as John.... O_o.

But anyway the people at Dreamworks are a bunch of douchebags. They're cruel and uncreative. Plus their animation tends to look... really bad. I mean, compare Bee Movie to Ratatouille. Rather, you can't.

Dreamworks will undoubtedly keep pulling crap stunts like the ones Jim has outlined above in the future, but since nobody really cares now, it's unlikely that people will ever start caring.

Kudos to John Lasseter.

How many people even saw Bee Movie ?  Who was still awake by the time that scene came on ?

Capn' Skip said it : "Ummm, couldn't that guy in the shirt pass for a few other folks, too?"

Yes,  "fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt" describes quite a few people in the animation industry  (I'm one of them, so I should know).   If that was supposed to be a real swipe at JL it wasn't a very distinctive caricature ... sort of ambiguous and bland.  Yeah, I suppose it sort of looks like Lasseter .   Kind of ... if someone tells you ahead of time that's who it's supposed to be.  Lame.   Did they lose their nerve after putting it in the movie so they made it ambiguous enough that they could deny it was really supposed to be JL ?   Dude, then why even bother ?  

Sniffles, your last paragraph is totally spot-on.

I think that they did lose their nerve, but decided to go ahead with an ambiguous version of Lasseter because... well, because they're just kind of really stupid.

I mean, the joke in the movie (at least from Jim's description, since I've never actually seen Bee Movie) seems very forced and lame.... you'd have to be desperate for laughs to put something like that in...

The people at Dreamworks are just stupid.

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Take it like a man!

Bigshots take shots all the time. It's all part of the deal. I spent twenty years taking shots at Eisner. Actually, I think he was flattered by it.

Hey Jim,

There's another Lasseter moment in the new Goofy short "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater". There is a framed caricature of him on the old TV next to a photo of Uncle Walt. It's only on screen for a few frames.

John has a really good sense of humor so I'm pretty sure he wasn't offended by it. He may even view it as an honor to be commemorated in a movie like that.

Yawn. Sigh. Next?

"He may even view it as an honor to be commemorated in a movie like that." ---

A movie like what? I thought it was... a B-movie! Boring and mediocre. It felt too infused with one person's sense of humor—Seinfeld, I'm assuming, though I never saw him in anything else—so that it could possibly only appeal to one type of person. And, yes, way too many dated pop culture jokes.

I did wonder what the fellow was doing on the tarmac, but I thought it was just another flower gag. Till now I didn't think to see any resemblance to John Lasseter. For a dig or caricature, it's an extremely poor one. Not subtle and pointed, or even meaningful.

Lasseter and Pixar should return the favor in a future film...by putting a picture of Katzenberg's face on a dart board. And tell them it's all for laughs.

Seriously, Katzenberg needs to get over the fact that Eisner didn't give him Frank Wells' spot. Ok, Eisner's jerk. Ok, we know you resent him. But he's gone now. Instead of picking on John Lasseter, maybe Katzaberg should spend time making a decent animated film...which he hasn't done since 2001.

megankoumori said:

...which he hasn't done since 2001.

And even that point is arguable.

"But anyway the people at Dreamworks are a bunch of douchebags. "

Not everyone, and it seems like the "douchebags" you know over there have gone on to browner pastures.

The team behind Kung Fu Panda are, actually, really wonderful people with good pedigrees in the business.  I saw Kung Fu Panda - twice - and appreciated that it had characters you could actually like and sympathize with, and told the story with broad humor that didn't have to go to the outhouse to find it (for once).  

The animation business isn't what it was 20 years ago.  You don't work for a company and then retire with the gold watch.  You essentially do gigs, and if you're lucky and know the right people, you do several gigs in a row.  In this business, lifers are a rarity.   So, if you think all Dreamworks Animation folks are douchebags, maybe you're talking about Pixar or Disney douchebags as well, and just don't know it.

As for the Bee Movie, I didn't see it.  I don't think Jerry Seinfeld is funny, never have.   Also, he strikes me as so mean-spirited, comparing the woman his wife (whom he met the day she returned from her honeymoon) plagiarized to Nazis, and now this garbage.  I'm not remotely surprised.

Eh. But the really good people are the ones who get alot of gigs with Disney and Disney alone. ;-)

"The animation business isn't what it was 20 years ago.  You don't work for a company and then retire with the gold watch.  You essentially do gigs, and if you're lucky and know the right people, you do several gigs in a row.  In this business, lifers are a rarity.   So, if you think all Dreamworks Animation folks are douchebags, maybe you're talking about Pixar or Disney douchebags as well, and just don't know it."

One billion percent correct! All you have to do is perform a little "cross-Pollinating" over at IMDB and you'll see how true fabshelly's statements are.

BaaaaaaaHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

the movie sucked anyways and Seinfeld is annoying too.  

Who cares?

I mean really, I would hope John  wouldn't get offended by this.

Meh.

From the way you built this up, Jim, I thought the movie contained some really nasty, vicious jab at Lasseter.  Instead, we get a possible caricature of Lasseter being referred to as "a fat guy in a flowered shirt."  Hardly a cutting remark.  I'm sure Lasseter hears worse from people at his own company.  If you want to see a piece of animation that really rips into a Hollywood director, check out "Joel" in front of the "Shoemakers" in the New Batmans Adventures episode "Legends of the Dark Knight".  This is little more than a mild slap on the shoulder, nothing I would be surprised to see in a Pixar film.

"Eh. But the really good people are the ones who get a lot of gigs with Disney and Disney alone. ;-)"

I think you're joking.

I *hope* you're joking!  

'Cause there's some truly brilliant talent out there, working anywhere they can.

I agree with the comments of others, this was built up to be some big thing, and it's actually pretty weak.  I find it especially cowardly that they didn't keep his same hair color and so forth.  PIXAR has had more unflattering caricatures of Lassetter than this.