The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue

Plot

Rob McGoarty, the owner of the appliances and whom they refer to as "The Master", is working in a veterinary clinic where he tends to injured animals. One night, while working on a thesis, his computer accidentally crashes due to being caused by a terrible computer virus from an old TLW-728 prototype supercomputer named Wittgenstein. The appliances, along with the rat Ratso who found Wittgenstein, then seek to help Rob by finding Wittgenstein to reverse the effects of his computer virus, hence recovering the master's thesis. Meanwhile, in a dual plot of the film, Mack, Rob's lab assistant, plots to sell the injured animals Rob had been tending to as part of his courses to a place called "Tartaras Laboratories", the same place that Sebastian, an old monkey Rob is tending to, was sent to when he was just a baby. When the appliances find Wittgenstein, they discover him abandoned, all alone and run-down and broken in the basement due to being infected by a computer virus, the same one that affected Rob's dorm room computer and the one in the vet clinic's lab when Wittgenstein try to contact them earlier. The miserable supercomputer reveals that he is living on one rare vacuum tube, named the "WFC 11-12-55". The name of the tube is a reference to the producer and screenwriter, Willard F. Carroll (WFC), and his birthdate, November 12, 1955 (11-12-55). The appliances learn that unless they find a replacement quickly, Wittgenstein's tube will blow and lead to his apparent death.

In an attempt to revive Wittgenstein to his superior state, Radio and Ratso go to the college's storage building to find the hard-to-find WFC 11-12-55 tube. When they come back with the last apparent tube for miles, however, Radio and Ratso (after an argument with the tube) accidentally break it, and it seems that all hope is lost. Wittgenstein does his best with all his might, but the virus causes him to blow his remaining tube with a big explosion and apparently "is a goner". Ratso then blames Radio, and guilt-ridden over condemning the animals to their doom at Tartarus Laboratories, Radio gives up his own tube which turns out to be the very rare tube they had been looking for, thus killing himself (?). Knowing that they were given a final chance to save the animals, the appliances replaced the tube in the nick of time. With the boosted power of the new tube, Wittgenstein wakes up, miraculously regenerates the other smashed tubes connected to himself, and destroys the computer viruses within him, allowing him to be completely revived to as good as new. By the end of the film, the appliances restore Rob's thesis and stop Mack from selling the injured animals and have him arrested with some help from Wittgenstein, Rob and his girlfriend Chris (later referred to as "The Mistress"), two guard dogs, and the police. After discovering the appliances in the truck, they assume that Mac had also planned to sell Rob's stuff as well, although Rob is surprised that Radio isn't here. Later, they discover Wittgenstein in the basement along with Radio. Later, Radio's tube is replaced with a new one Chris found in Nome, Alaska (hence his revival), Wittgenstein is sold to a museum and will be modernized with current technology, Rob proposes to Chris, and all is well.

Cast