Entertainment
Millennials Can Finally Scar Their Kids For Life Thanks To Disney+’s Latest Rollout
By Robert Scucci
| Published
As of May 25, 2026, The Brave Little Toaster (1987) is finally available to stream on Disney+. Years ago, I wrote about how Disney+ was bizarrely missing the title from its streaming catalog despite hosting its much crappier sequels, The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue (1997) and The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (1998). To anybody who grew up with the original film, this always felt strange because Disney had long treated The Brave Little Toaster like part of its extended family while simultaneously keeping the actual movie locked away.
The reason came down to rights issues and the complicated history behind the film itself. While Disney distributed the movie on home video and eventually absorbed much of the talent that helped create it, the original film was produced independently by Hyperion Pictures. Disney had stronger ownership and distribution control over the direct-to-video sequels, which is why those movies hit Disney+ years before the original ever did. For years, the streaming rights surrounding the 1987 film appeared to be tied up in older licensing agreements that left it in limbo.
A Cult Classic Disney Couldn’t Fully Claim
The Brave Little Toaster has always occupied a weird space in Disney history because the film’s DNA is deeply tied to the company even though it wasn’t fully born under the Disney banner. The project was spearheaded by former Disney employees, including future Pixar co-founder John Lasseter, and many people have referred to Hyperion Pictures as a proto-Pixar operation because of the talent involved. Disney originally passed on fully backing the film after executives reportedly questioned whether audiences would connect with a story centered around talking appliances.
Despite its rocky production history and extremely limited theatrical release, The Brave Little Toaster refused to disappear. The film found its audience through VHS rentals and syndication on the Disney Channel throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s, becoming one of those formative childhood movies that traumatized an entire generation with air conditioners having mental breakdowns and horrifying junkyard death songs. Disney eventually released the movie on DVD in 2003, but for years, streaming remained the one place fans still couldn’t easily find it.
While I’m no lawyer, I’m pretty good at basic math. I can’t find anything publicly stating that Disney officially secured the rights, but Disney+ has been going heavy on throwback additions and has more money than God. So, I’m operating under the reasonable assumption that Disney either renegotiated the streaming rights with Hyperion Pictures or simply bought them outright, knowing longtime fans of the movie would finally be able to stream it at home alongside the other two movies that only belong to the Brave Little Toaster franchise by name (they’re terrible).
We Can Finally Pay It Forward, And Scar Our Kids For Life
On its face, The Brave Little Toaster is basically an early version of Toy Story. Here, we have talking appliances who come to the horrifying realization that their “Master” has abandoned them, prompting them to set out in search of him after their Jack Nicholson-sounding air conditioner friend has a life-ending mental breakdown.
They trudge through treacherous terrain. Toaster (Deanna Oliver) experiences a disturbing nightmare sequence in which a clown rises out of a fire with smoke billowing through his gritted teeth, prompting him to “run” before he falls into a bathtub and gets electrocuted to death. The gang eventually ends up in a repair shop where the owner guts other appliances alive for parts before the film culminates in the third-act junkyard sequence, where every single character we’ve grown attached to faces certain death while hoping to be rescued before they’re crushed into submission.
As terrifying as The Brave Little Toaster may be, and trust me, this movie made me ugly cry when I was a child, it also tells an incredibly wholesome story about found family, resilience, and the power of friendship in a way that no Disney or Pixar film has really achieved since. It proves that hope can exist in a world full of pain if you refuse to let the elements beat you down. The film resonated with an entire generation of kids who all have kids of their own now.
Modern life has only gotten more complex and difficult since 1987, and even as adults, we could all learn something from The Brave Little Toaster. And that message is simple: don’t give up. Ironically enough, the film’s home-viewing legacy is almost as poignant as its original messaging. If you’re dealt a bad hand, you need to persevere. Only then can you reemerge from the ashes like a phoenix, or, like the horrifying clown demon in the film, look around, and say to yourself, “everything’s going to be okay.”
As of this writing, and hopefully forever, The Brave Little Toaster is streaming on Disney+.
Entertainment
NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for May 29, 2026
The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult if you have a sensitive nose.
Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
Mashable Top Stories
Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
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Yellow: Seas
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Green: Bad odors
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Blue: Found in an estate
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Purple: Acronym
Here are today’s Connections categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
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Yellow: Oceans
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Green: Sources of distinctive smells
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Blue: Kinds of rooms in a mansion
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Purple: What “PA” might refer to
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections #1083 is…
What is the answer to Connections today
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Oceans: ARCTIC, ATLANTIC, INDIAN, PACIFIC
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Sources of distinctive smells: AMMONIA, BO, DURIAN, WET DOG
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Kinds of rooms in a mansion: BILLIARD, DRAWING, POWDER, READING
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What “PA” might refer to: FATHER, PENNSYLVANIA, PROTACTINIUM, PUBLIC ADDRESS
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today’s puzzle.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
Entertainment
Jimmy Kimmel gleefully roasts Trump over record low approval rating
The midterms are getting closer, and — according to some polls — Donald Trump’s approval rating is lower than ever before.
“He is now down to 34 percent. He has the same approval rating as Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” says Jimmy Kimmel in the monologue above from Thursday night’s show. “Not only is Trump at his lowest point, he’s also two points behind JD Vance. I don’t have a joke for that, I just want to make sure he knows he’s two points behind JD Vance.”
Kimmel goes on to bring up White House spokesman Davis Ingle’s official response, in which he pointed to Trump’s win in the 2024 election as “the ultimate poll.”
“OK, yeah,” says Kimmel, “but now it’s May of 2026 and everybody hates him.”
Want more of the best of late night? Sign up for Mashable’s Top Stories newsletter.
Entertainment
New X-Men ‘97 Trailer Promises More Of The Best Superhero Show
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
It’s an open secret that the MCU has been very hit or miss for a few years now. There has been the occasional banger like Deadpool & Wolverine, but there have also been stinkers like Eternals. Even movies that seemed like safe, summer blockbusters (like The Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four) couldn’t withstand the might of James Gunn’s Superman. Amid all this disappointment, though, one of the biggest Marvel hits had nothing to do with the MCU. X-Men ‘97 was a breakout hit, pleasing older fans of the original X-Men: The Animated Series while pleasing younger fans who just wanted to see mutants kicking butt and taking names.
Recently, Marvel released the first trailer for X-Men ‘97 Season 2 along with a release date: July 1. The trailer does an excellent job of teasing what fans can expect, including a plot that spans millennia and the surprising motivation of Apocalypse, this season’s Big Bad. We also get plenty of cool action sequences and even glimpses of beloved characters, including everyone’s favorite Merc With a Mouth. Ready to scope out the trailer and dive right into our analysis of why Season 2 is going to be even bigger and badder than Season 1? Don’t worry, bub: we’ve got you covered!
An Uncanny Trailer
So, what actually happens in this trailer? A little bit of everything, really. It begins with Rogue remembering Gambit, her fearless Cajun lover who died during what was arguably Season 1’s most jaw-dropping moment. An unknown man provides Rogue with evidence seemingly proving Gambit is alive, and you likely won’t have to wait very long to see him. The ending of Season 1 highly implied that, as in the comics, the dead Gambit would be coming back as one of the Horsemen of Apocalypse.
Speaking of Apocalypse, Bishop clarifies exactly what has happened to the team. According to him, “the X-men are scattered through time. In the past, from the start of Apocalypse’s reign, to the future, at the height of his rule.” Later, we see him teaming up with Forge and vowing to do his best to bring the team into the present day. This may (wittingly or unwittingly) be a way of foiling Apocalypse’s plans. At one point in the trailer, he vows, “I must strike them at their most vulnerable … the 1990s.”
Cable seems to be his usual pessimistic self about the team’s chances, telling the X-Men, “You fight a battle that cannot be won. Against the dawn of an age that cannot be stopped.” Beyond this, the trailer is mostly cool Easter eggs (more on that soon) and fun action sequences. The latter includes Jean Grey manifesting some psychic Wolverine claws for Cyclops to bounce his optic blasts off of, Morph changing into Deadpool to fight some Brood, and glimpses of exotic locations such as the Savage Land. Fittingly enough, the ultra-popular Wolverine gets the final tagline of the trailer: “we’re back, baby!”
What Are The Coolest Easter Eggs?
While the X-Men ‘97 Season 2 trailer clocks in at a little under two minutes, it goes through more Easter eggs in that time than Wolverine goes through cigars in a year. Let’s start with the costumes. While this may or may not be related to the season’s time-travel shenanigans, we see plenty of outfits from different eras of the comics. A little over 30 seconds in, for example, and we see Cyclops and Jean Grey wearing costumes from the early days of X-Factor. Later (possibly much later, given her longer hair), Jean and Cyclops are wearing the black and yellow costumes from Grant Morrison’s seminal New X-Men comics.
Other characters appear in those uniforms, including a mysterious character who may or may not be Xorn. Speaking of vintage characters, we see several heroes from the popular Generation X comic. There’s also a quick glimpse of Quentin Quire, wearing his iconic “Magneto was right” t-shirt. We briefly see Emma Frost as well as Cerebra, the sentient version of the mutant-finding Cerebro. There’s also one point of interest that’s less of an Easter egg and more of a mystery: a giant X-Men uniform draped over a tree, implying that it was worn by someone who is naturally huge or that can change shape, like Ant-Man turning into Giant Man.
What Comic Stories Are Getting Adapted?
One of the coolest parts of X-Men ‘97 Season 1 was that it wove several familiar comic book storylines into an otherwise original tale. What classic comics stories can we expect to see in Season 2? Based on this trailer showing Jean Grey and Cyclops in a dystopian future, it looks like we’re definitely getting a version of the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries. While it’s not as conclusive, the fact that some X-Men are in Egypt during “the start of Apocalypse’s reign” may mean that we are getting an adaptation of Rise of Apocalypse, the miniseries where Apocalypse gets his powers and begins his whole “survival of the fittest” thing.
The biggest surprise is that, based on some cave etchings of various X-Men and some mystery character rising into the sky, we are getting an adaptation of “The Twelve.” This was a storyline where a weakened Apocalypse had captured twelve very specific mutants, intending to absorb all their powers and become unstoppable. Notably, this was the comic where Apocalypse made Wolverine a horseman and gave him his adamantium back, which restored him to normal (more or less) after he got all the metal ripped out of his body by Magneto (a comic event replicated in X-Men ‘97 Season 1).
Streaming For A World That Fears And Hates Them
X-Men ‘97 Season 2 will begin streaming on Disney+ on July 1. Based on this trailer, we’re getting something even bigger and more ambitious than Season 1 that will satisfy fans who have been waiting a long time for more of this awesome show. Incidentally, you won’t have to wait this long in the future. Disney confirmed that they have already completed Season 3 and begun work on Season 4, allowing them to release a new season each year for the next couple of years.
That’s right, fellow geeks, the dream of the ‘90s is alive on streaming. And regardless of how bad the MCU has gotten and whether Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars flop, we now have a reason to utter the classic comic phrase that has always meant the world to everyone who didn’t get out much in high school: “make mine Marvel!”
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