The Clouds are characters featured in the 2009 Disney/Pixar animated short Partly Cloudy. They are anthropomorphic clouds that help the storks deliver babies to their respective parents.
Background[]
Most of the clouds in Partly Cloudy resemble typical clouds seen in the sky in real life - albeit possessing anthropomorphic features located on the top of them as well as having anthropomorphic characteristics, making them humanoid clouds. The baby each stork receives varies depending on which cloud they land on. For instance, normal white clouds show a cheerful personality and make babies that many storks can handle, such as human boys and girls, kittens, puppies, or other docile and gentle creatures (such as chicks). Storks that land on gray clouds (specifically storm clouds) such as Gus are also capable of helping them deliver offspring to their respective parents. However, the babies that storm clouds make for them are not cute and cuddly, consisting of dangerous animals (crocodiles, bighorn sheep, porcupines, sharks, or electric eels), making it hard for storks to deliver them.
In order for clouds to create babies, they form them into a baby shape made of puffs and then use a small dose of lightning onto the completed creation; once done so, they would brush the wisps out of the puffs to reveal an adorable baby underneath the cloud[1]. Once a cloud creates a baby, they would occasionally wrap them in a bag for a stork to deliver to their correct parents. In spite of this, they are occasionally shown to provide support to storks who have trouble delivering dangerous baby animals to their parents, such as the case of Peck approaching Claudia who gives him football equipment to wear in order protect him from any injuries the baby animals that Gus gives him.
Development[]
The idea of creating the cloud characters was inspired by Peter Sohn remembering the "Look Out for Mr. Stork" sequence from the opening of the 1941 film Dumbo. However, Sohn forgot about this idea until years later when he was working at Pixar to pitch in an idea of creating a story about storks getting babies from clouds, so he pitched the idea to John Lasseter and the other directors at Pixar. When Sohn pitched in the idea, the creative team became astonished with the concept - albeit without a story at the moment. Sohn later decided that the characters that would appear in Partly Cloudy were clouds, storks, and the babies the storks receive from the clouds.[2]
Role in the short[]
As the storks fly in the sky, they land on the clouds who happily give them delivery bags, including babies they give them. Some of the clouds that create cute and cuddly babies include kittens, puppies, or human boys or girls. However, a lonely cloud named "Gus" creates a baby crocodile while waiting for a lone stork named "Peck" to help him on his assignment, which he was able to deliver the offspring to its parents. Later, when a baby bighorn sheep keeps headbutting Peck with his horns, he sees a nearby cloud named "Claudia" showing a stork a baby puppy that she created, as it happily interacts with her just as Peck began to think that he would prefer this cloud rather than Gus. In order to avoid hurting Gus' feelings, Peck decides to deliver the baby bighorn sheep to his parents, followed by a baby porcupine which Peck delivers.
Later, after Gus creates a shark offspring that frightens Peck, he sees Claudia from a distance again who created a bunch of baby chicks that play follow the leader with a stork as she watches them happily playing along. Peck sheepishly decides not to ask Gus and instead gets help from Claudia, which he was seeing earlier. This, however, only made Gus upset, discarding the incomplete shark, as he begins to emit thunderstorms in anger. Feeling sad that Peck deserted him, Gus begins to cry while raining. However, Claudia provides Peck a delivery bag of football equipment - consisting of a football helmet and a football pad. Peck later returns to Gus who puts on the football equipment Claudia gave to him so that he can protect himself from injuries, just as he feels happy to have Peck back with him, albeit Peck himself receiving injuries from the electric eel that Gus gave to him.
Trivia[]
- In the 2015 Disney/Pixar film Inside Out, one of the incidental characters that Bing Bong encounters in the Cloud Town section of Imagination Land are anthropomorphic clouds which have a striking resemblance to the ones from Partly Cloudy.
- The air elements (such as Gale Cumulus or several other incidental air elements) that appear in the 2023 Disney/Pixar film Elemental resemble the cloud characters from Partly Cloudy. Both Partly Cloudy and Elemental were directed by Peter Sohn.
References[]
- ↑ Partly Cloudy book by Disney Press (pg. 4)
- ↑ "Partly Cloudy – Director’s Commentary Review". Pixar Post (December 6, 2012).