The father is getting drunk, and so are his children. It is the end of the day, and they are celebrating. The children are bringing their work to their father for his approval. When he approves, they drink. They are very talented children. He is a very encouraging father. They drink often.

The father's name is John Lasseter. Though not a particularly famous man, he is the creator of famous things. He's created the movies Toy Story and Cars, for instance, whose fame among children is as everlasting as the millions of small plastic products they've spawned. And he's also one of the creators of Pixar, the animation studio, which means that he's created ... well, this. He's created a place where he encourages the young and the talented, and where the young and the talented become his progeny. He's created a place where his approval is never withheld and yet where his approval, once granted, sets off riotous celebrations. He's created a place where, on a Friday afternoon, he sits in front of a monitor, in a small room at Pixar's headquarters, studying the verisimilitude of cars that talk and slap each other five, while the animators who have given them life line up to hear whether they've succeeded in bringing them to life. They're sitting on couches in the office, and they're spilling outside the door, and when Lasseter calls their names, they take their place on a leather chair in the middle of the office and wait for his judgment, with bottles of alcoholic beverages in their hands.

It's their final day of a year spent working on the movie that Lasseter is directing for release this summer — Cars 2 — and outside the little office, a party has already started. Inside, however, they're all still working, when a tall young woman with limp hair and emphatic eyewear submits, for Lasseter's approval, a few seconds of film in which the character of the rusty tow truck, Mater, spits out the spicy food he's been eating because it's too strong for him. Lasseter approve...