The Blue Umbrella (theatrical; 6:46)
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This played in theaters before Monsters University (to which the short is not related), and is available on the DVD of that movie, as well as the Pixar Short Films Collection volume 3. For the first minute or so, before the titular umbrella actually appears, I thought it seemed pretty boring, because nothing really was going on. But then it starts raining, and suddenly everyone's using umbrellas as they walk along the city sidewalks. Most of the umbrellas are exactly the same, gray and boring. But there's one blue umbrella. Um... I guess all the umbrellas had faces, but only the blue one seemed to have a personality. Actually, all the inanimate objects seem subtly anthropomorphic, but the humans don't notice. Anyway, before long the blue umbrella spots a red umbrella- the only other one that displays a personality- and it seems kind of like love at first sight. But of course, they don't talk to each other (what with being inanimate). And they have no control over where they go, because of course they're each being carried by a different human, who don't seem to know each other. And then things get pretty bad for the blue umbrella, but I don't want to go into any detail. The film does, however, become rather magical, in a subtle way, and it has a happy ending. There's no dialog at all in the film, but there is some nice music, and it really is quite romantic. Definitely a good little story.