:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(999x0:1001x2)/elio-062025-d4bde5bcaee4486ea110e9fe305bfc03.jpg?w=1920&resize=1920,1267&ssl=1 "9 Easter Eggs You Might Have Missed in ‘Elio’")
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NEED TO KNOW
- Elio tells the story of a boy taken by aliens and mistakenly identified as Earth’s official ambassador
- The Pixar film includes several nods to past and future films in the universe
- Elio, which premiered on June 20, stars Yonas Kibreab, Remy Edgerly, Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Brandon Moon and Jameela Jamil
Elio is loaded with plenty of hidden Pixar Easter eggs!
The animated film, which hit theaters on June 20, is Pixar and Walt Disney Pictures’ latest film. Elio tells the story of an 11-year-old boy scientist named Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab) as he struggles to fit in with the rest of his classmates. He discovers how to get transported to space and becomes friends with the aliens, including his best friend Glordon (Remy Edgerly).
However, his adventure with the aliens takes a turn when he finds himself accidentally getting identified as Earth’s official ambassador.
“The cosmic misadventure introduces Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination and a huge alien obsession,” the film’s synopsis reads. “Mistakenly identified as Earth’s leader, Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions, and somehow discover who and where he is truly meant to be.”
In addition to Kibreab and Edgerly, the animated film also stars the voices of Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Brandon Moon and Jameela Jamil.
In true Pixar fashion, the film’s creators included several Easter eggs while making Elio. Here are the nine Easter eggs you may have missed while watching Elio.
The Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story
Disney/Pixar
By now, many Pixar fans are aware of the famous Pizza Planet Truck that is in nearly every Pixar movie. The truck, which is a rusty yellow 1978 Gyoza Mark VII Lite Hauler pickup truck, made its debut in Toy Story in 1995.
Production designer Harley Jessup confirmed that viewers will once again be able to spot the yellow car in Elio.
“The Pizza Planet makes an appearance,” Jessup told Gold Derby.
References from Coco
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
In addition to physical Easter eggs, the Elio creators also took inspiration from the beloved 2017 film Coco.
“We were trying, because it is his Hispanic family, we’re trying to add a couple things from Coco,” lighting art director Ernesto Nemesio told Gold Derby. “There’s a couple of Easter Eggs in his house where there’s some posters that Frida Kahlo painted in Coco that are in the background.”
The Pixar lamp
Disney/Pixar
One of the movie’s Easter eggs is literally written in the stars!
Pixar’s signature logo, a luxo desk lamp, was featured in the night stars.
“There might also be a Luxo lamp outline in the stars. I think somebody tried to fit those in,” animation supervisor Travis Hathaway told Gold Derby.
The A113 number
Disney/Pixar
Just like the Pizza Planet Truck, the number “A113” is shown in nearly every single Pixar movie. Two of Elio‘s directors, Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian, confirmed to ScreenRant that the movie also includes the numerical phrase.
However, the directors got creative with it, as the number actually appears as “Area 113” embroidered on the back of Elio’s camouflage backpack. In addition to it being a nod to the famous phrase, it also pays homage to the real, highly classified Area 51 Air Force base.
Nods to Pixar’s next movie, Hoppers
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Pixar movie if it didn’t tease the next film the studio has planned. In Elio, viewers can specifically find an Easter egg for Pixar’s next film Hoppers, which is set to hit theaters in spring 2026. The space movie features a scene with a lizard that will be a main character in Hoppers.
“There are a few Easter eggs — or more than Easter eggs — where with our next film, a full-on character shows up,” Hathaway told Gold Derby.
Meanwhile, Sharafian told ScreenRant, “We do have a hint toward our next film. It’s in the universe somewhere. It’s a character, and it’s for the film Hoppers. It’s onscreen for a pretty long time and kind of featured, which is rare. Normally, it’s not featured like that.”
One of Elio’s shirts
Disney/Pixar
In addition to other Pixar nods, the animators also highlighted a few references to the team who helped make the movie. One of those insider references is a striped blue shirt that Elio wears.
“Our lighting [director] has a Zoom screen with this striped blue shirt, and we put that shirt on Elio,” visual effects supervisor Claudia Chung told Gold Derby.
The Luxo ball
Another classic Easter egg in the Pixar universe is the Luxo ball, a yellow ball with a blue stripe in the middle and a red star on the front.
In Elio, the ball may be slightly harder to find, as it’s a stamp on a water bottle on Elio’s desk.
A Star Trek cameo
Disney/Pixar
In addition to physical objects in Elio, there is also a voice Easter egg. As viewers see in the movie, Elio roams around an air and space museum where he learns about NASA’s Voyager and other galaxies in a narrated description.
The narrator is none other than Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Kathryn Janeway on the Star Trek: Voyager series.
A radio referencing the film’s directors
Disney/Pixar
Another insider reference the creators implemented was the name they gave a radio Elio uses. The film’s producer, Mary Alice Drumm, revealed that they combined two of the directors’ names, Shi and Sharafian, to put on the radio.
“When you’re making a movie … you’re tracking the directors all the time,” Drumm explained at a panel for the film in London, per Dexerto. “It was like ‘Where’s Domee and Maddy?’ Then it started being ‘Where’s Domad?’ So the radio at the beginning – I don’t know if you could see it – it’s a ‘Domad’ radio.”
