In fact, it goes back to a specific scene in a specific cartoon.

Pushing deeper, beyond the fancy, flashy, or … robotic, I guess the show that brings me to my point of wanting to save “worthless” cars goes back to a specific cartoon. I’ve always thought my love of cars arrived from shows and films like Transformers, GOBOTS, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Back to the Future, and all the other great shows that featured a car as part of the cast. There wasn’t a dislike in the house, but my dad is no wrench, and my mom was happy to drive whatever we could afford. I didn’t grow up in a household with a strong love of the automobile infusing daily life. Worthless from The Brave Little Toaster, probably the darkest kids movie Ive ever seen, with running themes of depression, abandonment, and suicide. Still, what compels us to buy what someone else might consider a shitbox? I think I may have found the answer, and it all circles back to a cartoon from 1987. I love searching for them, buying them, complaining about them, and smiling and driving them when it all works together properly. Everyday the appliances wait, broken-hearted, for their beloved master to return for them. They live in a cabin in the woods, which hasn’t been visited in years.

The story is about a vacuum cleaner, a radio, a lamp, an electric blanket, and of course, a toaster.

Of course, that thought flits on the breeze like an annoying gnat that wants my attention… and I have no mind to give it a proper thought. The Brave Little Toaster became a traditional 2-D feature in 1987. Do you ever think it would be nice to have a modern car to use on a daily basis? Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to say goodbye to my car from 1991, my car from 1986, and the car from 1984 that hasn’t had an engine in (let me check my notes) about nine years.

Worthless brave little toaster