A Gentle Farewell

Pixar’s beautiful new short Carl’s Date offers one final look at the bond between Up’s beloved characters.

- By Karen Idelson -

Carl Fredricksen and Dug the dog are ready to tug at your heartstrings again. And all we can say is, good luck keeping your eyes dry through their new journey, Carl’s Date, which follows this pair of opposites as the lovable aging grouch tries to imagine the next phase of his life.

The memorable short will premiere in front of the upcoming Pixar feature Elemental this month. Written and directed by longtime Pixar contributor Bob Peterson and produced by Kim Collins, the short is based on beloved characters established in the studio’s Oscar-winning 2009 pic, Up, and then further explored in the popular Dug Days shorts that appeared on Disney+ in 2021. Of course, the two creatives were already very familiar with the characters and their story. Collins produced and Peterson wrote and directed that series. Peterson also co-wrote and co-directed Up

In a kind of life imitating art moment, Peterson and Collins see Carl’s Date as the story that ties up all the loose ends and “puts a bow” on the series. This is due, in no small part, to the death of Ed Asner, whose vocal performances delighted and surprised Peterson with the subtleties the actor was able to deliver in his portrayal of Carl. Asner recorded dialog for the short in the spring of 2021, only months before he passed away in August of that year.

Homage to Asner

“After grieving his loss, I felt a wave of thankfulness that we actually recorded him for this extra Dug Days short,” says Peterson. “We only had one session with him, so we tailormade [the short] around the session we had, and I was amazed at the nuances he got just from reading through the script and performing it for the first time. We really looked for takes that would honor him as best we could and would tell the story with Ed Asner’s humor and heart and gruffness. It was all in there and it was fun finding the best of it.”

Collins found that when animation began after Asner’s death, they knew they wanted it to be filled with the same humor and charm that existed in the previous short films and movie. They wanted another signature performance.

“I think to the that idea of honoring [Ed Asner] carried forward when we went into animation, and you want the team with all the different animators to be able to balance honoring him because he’s gone at that point, but at the same time not wanting to bring that sort of sorrow and to just really have it truly be Carl,” says Colins. “That is how people will always think of Carl Fredricksen, and I think that’s what I remember, just in the animation, as well.”

The animation on Carl’s Date took place during the pandemic from about 2021 into 2022 with a small crew of 30 to 35 people on the project. There were about 10 animators on the short. The crew would meet on Zoom to discuss what they were doing, and the story stayed mostly true to Peterson’s original draft.

Between the time the characters were introduced in Up and the production of this last short, enormous technological leaps were made throughout animation and at Pixar specifically. Collins and Peterson worked to ensure they updated the short to take advantage of what’s possible, while also remaining true to the Carl and Dug everyone knows and loves.

“One of the big surprises and things that came out of the technological redo was just how fluffy Dug’s fur was,” says Peterson. “I wanted [Dug] to just come alive so I could pet him and hug him. In the Dug Days series, we were also really happy with a blue jay and a squirrel that were in there. The fluffiness of the tail and the feathers were just amazing. We were also very happy with the advances in lighting. You have a character in a room, and you want it to glow. You want the light to bounce all through the room the way it would if you were in that room. Fortunately, we were able to make that happen. You get this stylized yet sort of lush look to things that I hadn’t played with before.”

While this looks to be the final installment of Carl’s journey, we asked if this meant Dug’s story would end here too. Peterson instantly slipped into Dug’s voice: “I do not know this. I do not know these words. I do not know this.”

For now, at least, audiences will be able to simply savor the beautiful friendship of Carl and Dug onscreen together for one last time.

Carl’s Date premieres in theaters with Elemental on June 16.