Those of us old enough to remember when Saturday morning cartoons were still a thing—Hey kids, there was once a time when people watched shows on “TV networks”!—will recall the interstitial bits that the networks played between the actual shows. ABC’s Schoolhouse Rock was perhaps the most beloved and effective, but every network had its variation on the theme, often with a public-service or educational component, most likely to get the FCC off of the networks’ backs for selling sugared cereals to youngsters. And if these short-form items were silly or vaguely entertaining, so much the better.
That kind of feels like the vibe Disney+ is going for with the Forky Asks a Question shorts, albeit with a welcome Pixar twist. The premise, as directed by Pixar stalwart Bob Peterson (The Good Dinosaur), finds the popular supporting character from Toy Story 4—the newly-sentient piece of plastic cutlery with googly eyes, voiced by Tony Hale—innocently wondering about concepts that are brand-new to his innocent consciousness. In the first, he wonders “What Is Money?,” assisted quite naturally by piggy bank Hamm (John Ratzenberger); in the second, he tries to understand “What Is a Friend?” while ascribing awareness to a coffee mug with a happy face on it.
At only two minutes each, the segments aren’t really long enough to build the kind of comedic momentum or emotion that you can find in the best of the Pixar short films. As a result, they are mostly a showcase for Hale to have fun with the character of Forky, whether that means his desperately short attention span or his complete obliviousness to the way the world works. Nearly everything that works in Forky Asks a Question comes down to Hale’s line readings: the dramatic pauses he takes when finally having an epiphany about what you can do with money; giving the coffee mug the name of “What? No!” because that’s what Bonnie’s mother repeatedly says while holding it and talking on the phone. Technically, I suppose, the shorts answer the question posed in the title just enough that they might be considered “educational” for some curious youngster, but Schoolhouse Spork it is not.
Which, honestly, is just fine. Disney and Pixar might be using this opportunity to pass the Toy Story torch on to its next generation of viewers, and Forky is appealing enough that it’s easy to see this concept stretching on indefinitely. Each episode delivered at least one big guffaw over the course of its two minutes, which is more than you’d expect from two minutes of comedy. Think of it as a palate cleanser between episodes of whatever else you’re watching on Disney+.
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