A new article shared by Cartoon Brew details the story of how Tom the Lizard went from being a throwaway gag to becoming the viral spokesanimal for Pixar’s Hoppers.
How Tom the Lizard Became a Viral Meme
While speaking at View Conference, Hoppers director Daniel Chong and producer Nicole Paradis Grindle reflected on the production of the film. Before opening up the talk to audience questions, the pair shared the story behind the now-famous side character, Tom the Lizard.
“Months before Hoppers came out, one of our characters from the movie, Tom the Lizard, went viral with a little clip and it became a meme,” Chong recalled. “And it all started with this little stupid video that we produced.”
The video clip, featuring Tom repeatedly tapping the “lizard” emoji button on a smartphone while a robotic voice said the word, was originally pitched for the film’s announcement at D23 last year. Disney politely turned down the pitch.
Chong admitted that he doesn’t blame Disney for saying no, as the clip didn’t use a beaver to promote the movie, and Tom is only a side character in Hoppers.
Regardless, the filmmakers found the clip too funny to abandon, so Grindle arranged for the team to produce it on the side, between work on Hoppers. When Disney later saw the finished product, it was decided to attach the clip to the end credits of Pixar’s Elio.
At the time, the filmmakers assumed almost no one would see it, but someone did stay until the end of the film, recorded the clip on their phone, and uploaded it to YouTube. Another user reposted the video to TikTok, where it went viral.
A flurry of memes, dances, remixes, tattoos, cosplay, and unofficial merchandise followed the viral clip, with even one fan creating a website that mimicked Tom’s lizard-button spamming experience. “This is a marketing dream, guys,” Grindle told the audience with a chuckle.
After Disney saw Tom’s popularity, he was incorporated into the promotional campaign for Hoppers, making appearances in public and at Pixar Animation Studios, as well as interviewing the cast. An official Fortnite skin of Tom the Lizard was even released later.
All of this helped boost awareness of the film ahead of its release in theaters. “In a world of known IP and franchises, we found a little hack to help Hoppers, our original film, boost its profile with audiences before it came out,” Grindle explained.
However, she cautioned that a marketing department wouldn’t be able to naturally create this viral phenomenon. “Creating a meme can’t really be planned,” she said, but added that the experience “definitely opened up Disney and Pixar’s marketing eyes to a new possibility on how to build awareness for original films.”
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