Presto

Plot synopsis:
Vaudeville-era magician Presto DiGiotagione is famous for a hat trick wherein he pulls his rabbit Alec Azam out of his top hat. A hungry and irritated Alec is locked in a cage, unable to reach his carrot. After Presto returns from eating a meal, he begins practicing his act with Alec, revealing that his top hat is magically connected to a wizard's hat kept backstage with Alec, so that when Presto reaches into the top hat, his hand appears out of the wizard's hat, allowing him to grab Alec and pull him out of the top hat. He intends to feed Alec the carrot, but realizes that he is late for the show and rushes off to the stage without doing so, much to Alec's chagrin. Presto tries to start the performance, but Alec becomes reluctant to cooperate until he is given the carrot. Presto then spends the rest of the show trying to catch Alec through the opening between his top hat and the wizard's hat.
Alec cleverly turns the hat's magic against his master in multiple humiliating ways, each of which elicits increasing applause from the audience, who believe it is part of Presto's act. Presto's finger is stuck in a mouse trap and is hit in the face by an egg, caused by a backfired attempt to aggravate Alec. Presto responds by antagonizing Alec, turning the carrot into a flower. An unimpressed Alec sucks Presto's head into a ventilation pipe offstage, which spikes Presto's hair and turns his face red. When Presto lunges at Alec through the hat, Alec directs Presto's hand into the podium's drawer and closes the drawer, painfully restraining the hand while he looks through Presto's sleeve for the carrot. Presto runs toward Alec, but instead is poked in the eye by his own hand. Presto drops his hat, and when he grabs the wizard hat, he accidentally strips his slacks down to underwear, to Alec's amusement. Furious, Presto tries to attack Alec, but in an act to defend himself, Alec puts an offstage ladder into the wizard hat, and Presto is hit between his legs. Presto attempts to hit Alec with it, but it misses and hits a backstage door, and Presto ends up hitting his chin on the ladder. Presto antagonizes Alec again, covering the carrot with a cloth before smashing it into a pulp with a piece of the ladder. Alec then furiously retaliates by aiming the opening of the wizard's hat towards an electrical socket which Presto's fingers go into, shocking Presto into dancing wildly to bluegrass music.
Now at his wit's end, Presto storms backstage to catch Alec, but he accidentally releases a weight holding down some stage props, and his foot gets caught in a rope that lifts him up to the fly space above the stage. When his foot comes loose from the rope, he falls, along with suspended scenery. Alec, realizing that Presto will be crushed, uses the magic hat to save him, earning the audience's wild approval for both himself and Presto. Presto gives Alec the apparently restored carrot, as well as second billing on the posters advertising the show, and they are rewarded for each show they do, with roses for Presto and carrots for Alec.

Tags: entertaining

Review:
The same holds with Presto, the team's latest short cartoon which played before each screening of Wall-E.
In it, a hungry rabbit, upset his magician owner will not give him the carrot promised to him, decides to sabotage the show in a variety of increasingly humorous ways until he gets it.
What makes this simple premise shine is the clever slapstick gags, great characters and the overall sweet tone throughout the film.
The absence of dialogue actually makes the whole thing funnier, as their are no corny lines to ruin the enjoyment like in most non-Pixar cartoons.
For the theatrical release of 'WALLE (2008),' Pixar Studios continues that lovely time-honoured tradition of preceding the main feature with an amusing animated short.
Not only that, but they've developed one of their best, second only to the mini-masterpiece that is 'Geri's Game (1997).' A hilarious throw-back to the classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons  such that we can almost envision Bugs in a starring role  'Presto (2008)' concerns itself with the art of magic.
When an uptight stage magician, Presto DiGiotagione, neglects to feed his hungry rabbit, Alec Azam, the malnourished pet mischievously decides to exact revenge on his owner, with the help of two magic hats and no shortage of dangerous backstage implements.
Each time Presto attempts to pull the rabbit from his top hat, his hand emerges clutching all sorts of painful contraptions, from mouse traps to live electrical wires to an entire ladder.
His performance already in tatters, the red-faced magician tries even harder to convince the rabbit to cooperate, his every action only making matters worse.'Presto' was directed by Doug Sweetland, a long-serving animator at Pixar, in his directorial debut.
Entirely wordless, as most of Pixar's shorts are, the film relies on terrific visuals and sound effects to provide the humour, though this effort is notably less reliant on sound effects than the previous 'Lifted (2006)' {which, appropriately, was directed by sound effects whiz Gary Rydstrom}.
Working with a simple scenario, 'Presto' begins with relatively minor sight gags, gradually upping the ante until all hell breaks loose on-stage, and the hapless magician finds himself strung high above the ground.
To go with Pixar's most perfect movie, we're treated to a 5 minute short before the picture starts.
Presto is beautifully animated, looking just as good as a full length animated picture would, and also, like the movie it was shown with, Wall-E, it has no dialogue, yet still comes off brilliantly.
It induced more laughs than any other full length film I've seen this year.Presto is a magician.
Rebelling against Presto, the rabbit refuses to be pulled from the hat and tries to make the magician look bad.
Chaos ensues, as do many belly laughs, which have never been produced in me to this magnitude from a cartoon.This was one of Pixar's best shorts.
As any fan of Pixar's animated films know, when they send a new feature out, they include a short cartoon with it.
But PRESTO is wholly one, concerning a stage magician, his carrot-hungry rabbit and a piece of real magic: a top-hot that is connected to a dunce cap.
And, as is traditional, he intends to pull out the rabbit, but the rabbit, who resembles the rabbit in the TRIX cereal commercials, is upset that he is not getting any carrot, and sabotages the act in various amusing ways using the logic of the set-up.A very amusing cartoon, and Pixar is to be commended for continuing to develop animation talent in its short subjects..
I have always loved Pixar, and Presto- shown before the enchanting WALL-E- is one of my favourites ever from them.
Pixar films and shorts always have had amazing animation and Presto is no exception.
Presto has some great and very funny humour, not through dialogue, but through slapstick and visual gags.
In fact, for me Presto is one of the funnier Pixar short films, the slapstick and visual gags are not just funny and there are plenty of them but also very clever.
Like last year, I went to a special showing of the Oscar-nominated animated short films.
In this review I'll make my predictions, though if it's anything like last year's choices, I'll probably once again pick the wrong shorts as my favorite for the award.PRESTO is a cute little short about a rabbit who is hungry yet his master, a magician, is unwilling to let him eat.
But, being so very hungry, the rabbit decides to use a bit of prestidigitation himself and soon a battle ensues between bunny and magician--with hilarious results.
In many, many ways, the film looks like a CGI version of an old Tex Avery cartoon--with lots of good old fashioned violence and silly mayhem.Overall, this was probably my second favorite of the nominated films.
There certainly wasn't much depth to it but you can't fault the Academy for selecting it as a nominee--it's state of the art and clever.Unlike the four other shorts that were nominated, this one actually received a very widespread release--being shown before the full-length film, WALL-E.
It's my second favorite of the nominees, as I slightly preferred THIS END UP--though I must admit its animation wasn't quite as good as PRESTO's.
PRESTO, on the other hand, is a very typical Pixar release--a real crowd pleaser instead of an innovative or risk-taking film.UPDATE: LA MAISON EN PETITS CUBES was the winner this year.
It's a great Looney Tunes style short that pits a rabbit against his magician, all for a carrot.
Not just chuckling, but laughing and since you can't see the original Looney Tunes I used to love, it was a refreshing change to have a short cartoon do that for me.
Unusually for a Pixar short, Presto is a rather fast and frenetic cartoon.A magician is preparing for his stage show and has a nice juicy carrot for his rabbit.The rabbit is salivating but the magician is just teasing him with it.
The hungry rabbit causes chaos with the show especially with the magic hats.Inadvertently with all the bedlam and the magician getting injured with the tricks going wrong, the show wows the audience..
A magician, his magic top hat and his desperately cute and hungry rabbit.PRESTO is a Pixar featurette before WALL-E and has brought back the classically hilarious "short," popularized by Warner Bros.
and Bugs Bunny cartoons all those decades ago.The protagonist, being a rabbit, made me feel somehow like a person from the 40s or 50s might have felt when that other cheeky rabbit careened across the silver screen for the first time, with that sense of amazement and wonder at watching something so guttingly funny.Presto the Magician is onstage for his act, but his rabbit wants to be fed, so refuses to be pulled from Presto's magic hat until he gets his fix of carrot.
The myriad ways in which he confounds Presto's attempts to drag him from the hat are – once again, when speaking of Pixar – absolutely ingenious..
The newest animated short from Pixar is something of a cross between a Disney cartoon and Wile E.
"Presto" is wickedly clever, and the madcap hijinks are guaranteed to have the viewer convulsed with laughter.This is a five minute short, so the story is simple.
The short gets a lot of mileage out of this, but the short never repeats any of the gags.It's a given that a Pixar film is going to have great animation, and "Presto" is no different.
But director Doug Sweetland is a master of slapstick comedy, and with no dialogue (like all the Pixar shorts), he manages to get everything he can out of each gag.If you want to laugh, see "Presto!" It's hysterical..
Presto is another excellent Pixar animated short.
This is the second of five Oscar-nominated animated shorts I've watched from last year.
A magician's bunny just wants a carrot but his master keeps taking it away from him so during the performance with the master on stage with his own hat and the bunny at the side hidden by curtains holding the sorcerer's hat that serves as the connection between where the magician's hand goes, the bunny does all kinds of tricks of his own on his master while the audience thinks it's all part of the act...Reminiscent of the wacky stuff done by Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, and Frank Tashlin in the '40s, Presto provides non-stop slapstick that gets more outrageously funny with each gag before the crescendo that satisfyingly comes.
How can a magician and a little rabbit cause so much hilarity and mayhem in just a few minutes while also making you actually care for both characters?
Following on from the equally magnificent "Lifted", "Bounding" and "One Man Band", Pixar has cemented themselves as not only the masters of creative story telling on the feature-length screen but also the short-length one.
Alec refuses to tow the rope for the whole of the magicians act, and pulls the magician into many comic situations.I think what I love most about this is the way the animators built the personality of the rabbit.
After watching the teasers and trailers of the upcoming movies the lights went out and i thought at last...but it wasn't the movie that i was waiting what started(wall*e)but this short animated film called presto....
Concerning the cg quality...well...its pixar what we are talking about so its flawless,well maybe a little less good than the films they have......nah.....its as great as every pixar creation.......so for the lucky ones that come across to this great short of the pixar studios be prepared to at least five minutes of non stopping laugh and even cry because this short can make that possible..
Presto (2008) *** (out of 4) Animated short from Pixar, which was originally shown in front of Wall-E.
This film runs a short five-minutes and while it's not as attractive as the main feature it's still a nice little gem.
There's some very funny stuff here as the magician has to do battle with his partner including a very good sequence where the rabbit keeps pulling tricks of his own.
This short animated film tells the story of a magician and his rabbit.
They have to perform a magic trick on stage, but the rabbit is not cooperating in the show because the magician has not fed him."Presto" is short but it is really funny!
because "Presto" the virtue to be the brilliant example of seduction.remembering the shows of circus, the magic from the top hat, the rabbits and the fables.
It's a Pixar short that hearkens back to the best of the old Looney Tunes cartoons.
Like I wrote in my comment of Pixar's latest short film Partly Cloudy (that is shown before Pixar's latest feature, he awesome Up), I do saw WALL*E on the big screen but for some reason Presto wasn't showed.
Anyway, I just finally saw it and well no wonder why all the praise, Presto is certainly one of the best Pixar short films, maybe not my most favourite but is not very far to be that.
5 minutes of non-stop laughing, is Pixar's Bugs Bunny (when the rabbit goes after the carrot, that is on a table, after its master, the magician Presto, took it out of its cage for the show the rabbit looks quite like Bugs Bunny) very hungry and later still very hungry and also very angry and not at all cooperative with its master during the show.
Included on the WALL-E (2008) DVD is another Oscar contender, albeit in the Animated Short category.
Actually, it proved surprisingly even more satisfying than the occasionally maudlin main feature: 5 near-perfect minutes of non-stop hilarity involving an egocentric magician and his come-uppance during a stage performance by the proverbial rabbit-in-the-hat (when it is denied food).
The magician, who was running a bit late, doesn't want to bother to feed the poor animal (as if it would take time!) and the little hungry bunny makes him pay the price by sabotaging his act.How he makes the magician pay, I won't spoil by saying (even though I put spoiler warnings on this.) Suffice to say, the gags are funny and brutal, at the same time.
This is a good old fashioned "slapstick" short film with great, colorful and detailed animation.
In fact, it is one of the best Pixar shorts I have seen, which says a lot since that company already has produced so many outstanding animated feature stories and shorts.Considering Doug Sweetland is behind this effort, it's no surprise that it excels.
Sweetland was the supervising animator on "Cars," and many of these great Pixar movies and shorts.
Then a series of totally over the top gags occur, making the usual rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick seem like kid's stuff in comparison.
While it's ingenious and clever and all that and a bag of carrots, it's also a good mini-homage to the spirit of Looney Tunes shorts.
As usual, I enjoyed the short film almost as much as the actual movie(in this case, the excellent WALL*E).
Even if the movie had not been what it was, I would still recommend seeing it just to see this wonderful little short about a famous magician, his reluctant rabbit, and a magical hat.
It was even presented like an old fashioned cartoon, and it sometimes felt like I was watching one.If you don't like movies about garbage heaping robots or Mac products, see WALL*E anyway to see this short.
Presto is Pixar's CGI short film which accompanies Wall-E.
It tells a simple story of a stage magician, his hat, and his rabbit.
Without giving too much away, the story hinges on two things: one, the magician wants the rabbit to perform before he is fed, and the rabbit is disinclined to cooperate; and, two, the hat is genuinely magical in that the interior of the hat is a portal to elsewhere.With these two bits of the machinery oiled and ready to go, Presto springs into action like - well, like a brilliantly executed magician's trick.
It is fast, it is furious, it escalates magnificently, it features wonderful acting by both the magician and the rabbit and a selection of violent cartoon slapstick which vies with the best of Tom and Jerry and the Roadrunner and, above everything else, it is hysterically funny.This is a terrific little film..
I thought it was a fun short film to watch for all ages and gives everyone a big smile on their face.
Presto was a great short film and shows Pixar's true abilities.
Pixar is one of the top animation companies out there and is getting better and better with every film..
Presto is a short Pixar movie that preceded Wall-E.
But no; Doug Sweetland's five-minute short is all we'll ever see about a stage magician having his magic hat trick ruined by hungry rabbit that refuses to work until he's had a carrot.It's a lovely piece of slapstick, a la Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, silent and all.
This short film started just before the main Disney Pixar film at the cinema, WALL-E.
Basically Alec the rabbit, that Presto stage magician will pull out of his magic top hat, has not been fed, and he refuses to go ahead with the act until he has eaten the near carrot.
So whenever Presto reaches into his top hat, which the other side comes out of another little wizard hat, the rabbit makes him pull out something else in a little clever revenge on his co-star.
Alec saves him though with the hat, and he falls out the other side safe, a huge applause from the audience, and as a thank you for saving him, Presto gives the rabbit his carrot, and the poster becomes both of them together.
It was nominated the Oscar for Best Short Animated Film (I think it should it won).
I am a bit surprised that this is one of the highest and most frequently rated Pixar shorts on here, not only because it doesn't have a reference to one of their feature films, but also because I thought there wasn't really that much to it.
Sure, the animation is nicely done as always, especially the rabbit, and here and there, there's even some wit to the duel between him and the magician, but all in all it was a rather disappointing 5 minutes sometimes even mounting in pointless over-the-top hubbub, especially towards the end.
He hasn't worked for Pixar in the 5 years since this short, so it may not look too likely.In any case, I don't think this film was quality-wise on par with the Japanese more melancholic entry, to which it lost the Oscar.
"Presto" is, in contrast to lots of other Pixar work, only one for younger audiences..
This was by far the best Pixar short film I have seen yet, and I loved all the ones before this!
The plot centers around a rabbit who works for a famous magician, Presto, who has two magic hats.
The rabbit who is assistant to the magician wants to a carrot.
a magician, a rabbit and a carrot.
Very cute and hilarious short from Pixar/Disney.
There will be spoilers ahead: This is an exceptionally funny short from Pixar which points up the perils for a magician who neglects to feed his rabbit before the show.
The only way the magician survives this short is the fact that he's a cartoon character!
I first saw this short when renting 'WALL-E' a few years ago and like 'BURN-E,' it was mostly forgettable to begin with but I vaguely remembered the scenario of the magician and his rabbit.While Presto is bumbling in an appealing way, Alec is adorable and hilarious at his attempts to grab a carrot.
The electricity bolts look cheap but the animation is up to Pixar's usual standards and I like the old-style opening and closing credits that make me think of earlier Disney cartoons.