Pixar Nearly Passed on Tom the Lizard. An End Credits Clip Made Him Hoppers' Breakout Star
A rejected Hoppers promo became Tom the Lizard's viral launchpad, pushing Pixar's side character into the film's marketing push.
Tom the Lizard was never meant to be the face of Hoppers. But according to the Pixar team behind the film, a joke clip that almost went unused ended up turning a minor character into the movie's most unexpected attention grabber.
Speaking at View Conference, Hoppers director Daniel Chong and producer Nicole Paradis Grindle said Tom's rise started with a short video the team made on the side. In the clip below, Tom repeatedly presses the lizard emoji on a smartphone while a robotic voice says the word. Chong said the bit was first pitched for the film's announcement at D23 last year, but Disney declined it.
Chong said he understood that decision because the movie was not being promoted with one of its beaver characters, and Tom is only a supporting player in Hoppers. Even so, the filmmakers thought the idea was too funny to drop. Grindle said the team went ahead and made it between work on the film itself.
From tossed pitch to marketing boost
Once Disney saw the completed short, it was placed at the end of Pixar's Elio. The filmmakers expected very few people would actually stay through the credits to catch it. Instead, someone recorded the clip on a phone and uploaded it to YouTube. Another person shared it again on TikTok, where it took off.
Chong said Tom went viral months before Hoppers was released, and Grindle described the response as a marketer's dream. The character quickly inspired memes, dances, remixes, tattoos, cosplay and unofficial merchandise. One fan even built a website that recreated the experience of hammering the lizard button.
After Disney recognized how much attention Tom was getting, the character became part of Hoppers' broader promotional campaign. He appeared in public, showed up at Pixar Animation Studios and was used to interview members of the cast. An official Fortnite skin based on Tom was also released.
Grindle said the surge helped raise awareness for Hoppers ahead of its theatrical debut, especially as an original film trying to stand out in a landscape dominated by established franchises. At the same time, she warned that this kind of reaction cannot simply be manufactured. Her takeaway was that the moment gave Disney and Pixar a new sense of how an original movie might break through, even if the spark comes from a side character no one expected.
