The next Pixar animated series is at bat on Disney+. After Pixar’s Inside Out spinoff series Dream Productions went inside the mind of anxiety-stricken hockey player Riley Andersen, Win or Lose is taking a swing at another sport: baseball. Pixar’s first original series — and its first sports-themed production — centers on the Pickles, a softball team of underdogs who prepare for a big championship game. You can meet them in the just-released trailer below.
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Told from eight different characters’ perspectives, Win or Lose “reveals what it actually feels like to be in the shoes of each character — the insecure kids, their helicopter parents, even a lovesick umpire — with incredibly funny, very emotional and uniquely animated perspectives,” according to the synopsis.
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“We consider Win or Lose a major, first-of-its-kind tentpole series,” Pete Docter, the chief creative officer at Pixar and director of the Pixar films Monsters, Inc., Up, Inside Out, and Soul, said in a statement. “One that really showcases what I think makes our studio great: bold, imaginative storytelling; laugh-out-loud humor; and characters that we can all relate to.”
The eight-episode series is directed, written and executive produced by Carrie Hobson and Michael Yates, members of the Pixar senior creative team whose credits include 2022’s Turning Red, 2022’s Lightyear, 2024’s Inside Out 2, and Dream Productions. The producer is Pixar veteran David Lally, an executive producer of Pixar’s SparkShorts short film series.
While Win or Lose is an eight-sided sports story, the series is “not so much about softball as it is a comedy about love, rivalry, and the challenges we all face in our struggles to win at life,” Docter said when previewing the series first announced during Disney+ Day 2020.
As said in the new Win or Lose trailer: “Everyone is chasing the feeling of a win. But if someone wins… somebody has to lose.”
Will Forte (The Great North) voices Pickles Coach Dan, leading a voice cast that includes Lil Rel Howery (Vacation Friends), Melissa Villaseñor (Saturday Night Live), Flula Borg (The Suicide Squad), Jaylin Fletcher (Snowpiercer), Ian Chen (Fresh Off the Boat), Rosie Foss (Criminal Minds), Kyliegh Curran (Young Jedi Adventures), Josh Thomson (The Office), Jo Firestone (Joe Pera Talks with You), Milan Elizabeth Ray (The Wonder Years), Izaac Wang (Good Boys), Chanel Stewart (Barbie), Erin Keif (Hello From the Magic Tavern), Orion Tran (Little Bird), Rosa Salazar (Alita: Battle Angel), and Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul).
“I played softball growing up,” said writer-director Hobson. “Inspired by that experience, we felt fast-pitch softball was the perfect backdrop for the show. There are so many facets to playing sports that I love — it can bring out the best and worst of a person, the calmest person can lose their temper.”
She continued, “And when it comes to winning and losing, the consequences are nothing, and yet, they’re everything. We really felt like [softball] was the best arena for the themes we loved.”
Added Yates, “Carrie and I were officemates on Toy Story 4. We were both story artists on the film, and we would talk about a lot of things going on in the film, as well as things going on in the world — current events, news. We would always have different reactions or different interpretations of the same meeting. One of us would say, ‘That went great!’ and the other would say, ‘No! It was terrible, what are you talking about?’ We realized that our own experiences that we bring to the table change our perception of an event. We wanted to tell a story that illustrated all of that.”
All eight episodes of Pixar’s Win or Lose are streaming Feb. 19 on Disney+.
