Disney Saved The Best Kid Movie Of The 80s Stream It For The First Time Ever

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 26 seconds ago

Nearly 40 years after it debuted, The Brave Little Toaster is available to stream on Disney+. For generations, the animated classic was lost media. The last time it was released for home media was in 2003, with a bare-bones DVD release, but before you congratulate Disney on restoring a lost classic, you should know, it’s their fault that it was locked away for decades. In 1987, most kids first came across the film on Disney VHS or on the Disney channel, but it’s not actually a Disney movie. Well it is, but…it gets complicated.

Millennials Can Rejoice: The Brave Little Toaster Is On Streaming

The Brave Little Toaster follows a group of appliances, a toaster, a blanket, a radio, a lamp, and a vacuum cleaner, as they leave a summer cabin to find their young master, Rob, who hasn’t come by in years. Going through forests, down a waterfall, and since it was the 80s, into swampy quicksand, they risk life, limb, and low battery to reach their master. What they don’t know is that it’s been so long that the now college-bound Rob and his girlfriend are trying to find them.

If it had been made 10 years later, The Brave Little Toaster wouldn’t be as traumatic a story as it is. Other appliances come across as deranged, starting with the air conditioner, voiced by Phil Hartman, that sets itself on fire, and culminating with a repair shop of old, busted appliances. A literal nightmare sequence of the Toaster includes insane clown firefighters and a giant tub of water. Not even the catchy musical numbers can fully offset the deranged nightmare visuals. Even then, it’s a favorite of Millennials for a reason, and you will have to wipe off a tear at the ending.

Disney Kept The Toaster In The Vault For Decades

Which raises the question, if The Brave Little Toaster is such a great, beloved film, why has Disney kept it trapped in the vault for decades? John Lasseter, the man who helped create Toy Storywanted to turn the film into the first fully 3D CGI animated feature, over a decade before Buzz and Woody. The pitch was received so well by Disney executives that they fired Lasseter.

That gave an opening for two Disney employees, Tom Wilhite and Willard Carroll, to take over the film at their new company, Hyperion Pictures. Disney owned the rights to the film, and co-financed it alongside CBS and TDK (an electronics company), with a total budget of only $5.6 million, which was very, very low for a full animated feature.

Traumatize A New Generation

Disney had the home video and television rights, which is why they purposely moved the Disney Channel debut of the Brave Little Toaster to before its opening weekend in theaters. You think the movie release window is small now in the age of streaming, this was simply unheard of. If Disney wasn’t going to see any money from theaters, it wasn’t going to let anyone get money from a wide release.

On May 26, 2026, Disney finally released The Brave Little Toaster onto Disney+, and immediately, it landed in the top ten on the service. Those who were raised on Toaster and friends can now share the adventure with their own kids, or, and this is truly painful to type, grandkids. It’s one of the best animated films of the 80s and once you see it, you’ll know exactly where John Lasseter got the idea for Toy Story.

The Brave Little Toaster is finally streaming on Disney+.

The sequels have been streaming for years, but we don’t talk about those.