{"slug":"finding-nemo","type":"movie","title":"Finding Nemo","year":2003,"releaseDate":"2003-05-30","franchise":"pixar","genres":["Animation","Family","Adventure","Comedy"],"creators":["Andrew Stanton","Lee Unkrich"],"url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo","hook":"One waiting room in Sydney holds more Pixar cross-references than most entire films — including a comic book advertising a movie that was still a year away.","intro":"*Finding Nemo* hides almost nothing in the ocean. The reef is beautiful and largely literal; the trench, the jellyfish, the EAC are all doing story work rather than winking. Then Marlin gets to Sydney, the film cuts inside **P. Sherman's dental practice at 42 Wallaby Way**, and the density of hidden material jumps so sharply that the waiting room has become one of the most-freeze-framed rooms in animation.\n\nThe reason is structural. Everything in that office is a *human* object, and human objects are where a studio can bury references without breaking the world — a toy on the floor, a mobile over a chair, a comic in a kid's hands. So the room quietly fills up with Pixar's own back catalogue: a Buzz Lightyear figure, a plush from *Monsters, Inc.*, a statue from the 1989 short *Knick Knack* going green under the tank algae, and, in the hands of a bored boy, a **Mr. Incredible comic** eighteen months before *The Incredibles* existed in cinemas.\n\nOutside the reference layer there is a sadder one. Pixar animator **Glenn McQueen** died during production, and the film carries a dedication to him after the credits — the same surname the studio would later give the hero of *Cars*. This guide covers the tank, the office, the street outside it, and the two things that play once the credits are done.","identifiers":{"tmdbId":12,"tmdbUrl":"https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/12","imdbId":"tt0266543","imdbUrl":"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266543/"},"counts":{"eggs":10,"confirmed":3,"community":7,"theory":0,"sources":11},"postCredits":{"status":"yes","verdict":"Yes — Finding Nemo has 1 post-credit scene.","scenes":1,"description":"Yes — stay to the very end. A dedication to animator Glenn McQueen appears after the credits, followed by a short gag in which the tiny green fish from the sharks' meeting is menaced by the anglerfish and simply eats it instead. A separate scene right after the film's title card resolves what happened to the Tank Gang.","detail":"**Yes, Finding Nemo has a post-credits scene** — and it also has a scene at the very start of the credits, so the film gives you two reasons not to leave.\n\nThe first arrives immediately after 'The End'. Dr. Sherman is complaining to his assistant Barbara about the AquaScum 2003, the automatic tank cleaner he installed, and discovers the tank is empty. The film then cuts to the **Tank Gang** — Gill, Bloat, Peach, Gurgle, Bubbles, Deb and Jacques — bobbing in the harbour, each still sealed inside his or her own plastic bag, having escaped the office but not the bags. Gill's flat 'Now what?' is the punchline the entire escape plot has been building to. From there the credits proper roll, scored with Robbie Williams' cover of *Beyond the Sea*, with characters from across the film swimming through the titles.\n\nAfter the credits finish, two things play. First a dedication card to **Glenn McQueen**, the Pixar supervising animator who died of melanoma in October 2002 during production; the studio later named Lightning McQueen in *Cars* after him. Then the actual stinger: the small green fish who was dragged along to the sharks' support-group meeting is drifting in the dark when the **anglerfish** looms out of the black towards it — and the tiny fish eats the anglerfish. It is about four seconds long and it is the only genuinely post-credits gag in the film.\n\nIs it worth staying for? The Tank Gang scene, yes, unequivocally — without it their entire storyline has no ending, which is precisely why *Finding Dory* went back and gave them a proper one in its own post-credits scene thirteen years later. The anglerfish gag is a small bonus rather than a reason to sit through eight minutes of credits, but it is the last laugh in the film.","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo/post-credits"},"eggs":[{"id":"a113-divers-camera","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-a113-divers-camera","title":"The diver who takes Nemo is carrying an A113 camera","description":"Pixar's signature hides on the underwater camera used by the scuba diver — the model designation reads **A113**. It is the number of the first-year character animation classroom at **CalArts**, where John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter studied, and it has been smuggled into essentially every Pixar feature since *Toy Story*. The placement is unusually pointed here: the number sits on the piece of equipment that documents the film's inciting abduction.","scene":"The diver's camera during the sequence where Nemo is caught off the reef","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["visual","reference"],"difficulty":4,"difficultyName":"Deep Cut","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"CalArts — Vulture Video Tackles the Meaning of 'A113'","url":"https://blog.calarts.edu/2016/05/24/vulture-video-tackles-the-meaning-of-a113/"},{"label":"Wikipedia — List of Pixar film references","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pixar_film_references"}],"motifs":["a113","recurring-hidden-signature"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"pizza-planet-truck-through-sydney","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-pizza-planet-truck-through-sydney","title":"The Pizza Planet truck drives through Sydney during Gill's escape plan","description":"The delivery truck from *Toy Story* makes its obligatory appearance out on the street beyond the dentist's window, passing by while **Gill** lays out the escape plan. Disney's own D23 keeps a running index of where the truck is buried in each film, which is the closest thing this joke has to an official rulebook — it has turned up in nearly every Pixar feature since 1995, with *The Incredibles* the long-standing exception.","scene":"Through the dentist's office window, during Gill's escape-plan monologue","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["visual","callback"],"difficulty":4,"difficultyName":"Deep Cut","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"D23 — Where to Find the Iconic Pizza Planet Trucks in Pixar Films","url":"https://d23.com/where-to-find-the-iconic-pizza-planet-trucks-in-pixar-films/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Pizza Planet Truck","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Pizza_Planet_Truck"}],"motifs":["pizza-planet-truck"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"mr-incredible-comic-tease","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-mr-incredible-comic-tease","title":"A boy in the waiting room is reading a Mr. Incredible comic","description":"The kid slumped in the dentist's waiting room is holding a comic book starring **Mr. Incredible** — and *The Incredibles* would not reach cinemas for another eighteen months. The cover art echoes imagery later used to promote the film, which makes this one of Pixar's cleanest examples of a next-film tease planted in advance. The studio had already done it in reverse: **Nemo** himself shows up as a toy in *Monsters, Inc.* two years before his own movie.","scene":"The dentist's waiting room — the boy reading in one of the chairs","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["reference","foreshadowing"],"difficulty":4,"difficultyName":"Deep Cut","verification":"community","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Finding Nemo Trivia","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Finding_Nemo_Trivia"},{"label":"Eggabase — The Incredibles Comic in Finding Nemo","url":"https://eggabase.com/movies/finding-nemo/the-incredibles-comic/"}],"motifs":["sequel-tease"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"buzz-lightyear-on-the-waiting-room-floor","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-buzz-lightyear-on-the-waiting-room-floor","title":"Buzz Lightyear is lying on the waiting room floor","description":"Down by the toy chest in the waiting room sits a **Buzz Lightyear** figure, discarded among the practice's communal toys. It is a small joke with a sharp edge given what the film is about: the toy that spent an entire movie insisting he was not a toy, abandoned on a dentist's carpet, in a film whose villain is a child who destroys things she is given.","scene":"The dentist's waiting room, near the toy chest on the floor","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["cameo","visual"],"difficulty":3,"difficultyName":"Freeze Frame","verification":"community","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"SlashFilm — Finding Nemo's Dentist Office Is A Pixar Easter Egg Gold Mine","url":"https://www.slashfilm.com/809840/finding-nemos-dentist-office-is-a-pixar-easter-egg-gold-mine/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Finding Nemo Trivia","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Finding_Nemo_Trivia"}],"motifs":[],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"monsters-inc-mobile-and-plush","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-monsters-inc-mobile-and-plush","title":"Boo's mobile hangs in the office, and Mike is a plush toy","description":"Two objects tie the practice back to *Monsters, Inc.* A mobile hanging in the office mirrors the one over **Boo's bed**, and among the waiting-room toys is a stuffed **Mike Wazowski** — the plush version of the toy Boo gives Sulley. Pixar's habit of moving props between films is why these read as more than coincidence: the studio treats its own set dressing as a shared prop warehouse.","scene":"Hanging in the dentist's office, and among the waiting-room toys","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["reference","callback"],"difficulty":4,"difficultyName":"Deep Cut","verification":"community","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"SlashFilm — Finding Nemo's Dentist Office Is A Pixar Easter Egg Gold Mine","url":"https://www.slashfilm.com/809840/finding-nemos-dentist-office-is-a-pixar-easter-egg-gold-mine/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Philip Sherman's Dentist Office","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_Sherman%27s_Dentist_Office"}],"motifs":[],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"knick-knack-statue-under-algae","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-knick-knack-statue-under-algae","title":"A Knick Knack souvenir is quietly rotting in the tank","description":"Among the tank ornaments is a statue lifted from **Knick Knack** (1989), the early Pixar short about a snowman trapped in a snow globe trying to reach a Miami souvenir. In the tank it sits under a layer of algae, and there is a blonde sunglassed mermaid on a rock marked **Sunny Atlantis** nearby — the same joke, aged. Putting a short film about a figurine desperate to escape its glass container inside a tank of fish desperate to escape their glass container is not subtle, and it is not meant to be.","scene":"Inside the dentist's fish tank, among the ornaments","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["reference","callback"],"difficulty":5,"difficultyName":"White Whale","verification":"community","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"SlashFilm — Finding Nemo's Dentist Office Is A Pixar Easter Egg Gold Mine","url":"https://www.slashfilm.com/809840/finding-nemos-dentist-office-is-a-pixar-easter-egg-gold-mine/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Philip Sherman's Dentist Office","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_Sherman%27s_Dentist_Office"}],"motifs":[],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"luxo-jr-in-the-waiting-room","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-luxo-jr-in-the-waiting-room","title":"Luxo Jr. is in the room too","description":"Pixar's mascot lamp — the star of *Luxo Jr.* (1986), the short that became the studio's logo — turns up among the waiting-room objects, keeping the tally of self-references in a single dentist's practice at roughly one per surface. The Luxo lineage is the studio's oldest running gag, and it is the one they most often plant somewhere you have to actively look for.","scene":"The dentist's waiting room, among the toys and furnishings","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["callback","visual"],"difficulty":5,"difficultyName":"White Whale","verification":"community","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"SlashFilm — Finding Nemo's Dentist Office Is A Pixar Easter Egg Gold Mine","url":"https://www.slashfilm.com/809840/finding-nemos-dentist-office-is-a-pixar-easter-egg-gold-mine/"}],"motifs":["luxo-ball"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"dentist-diplomas-are-jokes","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-dentist-diplomas-are-jokes","title":"The dentist's diplomas award him a Toothless Grin and receding gums","description":"The framed qualifications on P. Sherman's wall are gag certificates. Among the accolades are a **Toothless Grin Award** and a **Gums Most Likely to Recede** citation — the kind of background text that never gets a camera push and exists purely for whoever pauses. It also does quiet characterisation work: the man about to hand a wild-caught clownfish to Darla is decorated for outcomes no dentist should be proud of.","scene":"Framed on the wall of the dentist's office","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["visual","meta"],"difficulty":4,"difficultyName":"Deep Cut","verification":"community","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"SlashFilm — Finding Nemo's Dentist Office Is A Pixar Easter Egg Gold Mine","url":"https://www.slashfilm.com/809840/finding-nemos-dentist-office-is-a-pixar-easter-egg-gold-mine/"}],"motifs":["blink-and-miss-signage"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"glenn-mcqueen-dedication","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-glenn-mcqueen-dedication","title":"The film is dedicated to the animator whose name became Lightning McQueen","description":"After the credits, *Finding Nemo* carries a dedication to **Glenn McQueen**, a Pixar supervising animator who died of melanoma in October 2002, aged 41, during the film's production. Three years later the studio gave his surname to the lead character of *Cars*. It is the rare Pixar easter egg that is not a joke at all — and once you know it, **Lightning McQueen** stops being a pun about speed and becomes a memorial that has been running for two decades.","scene":"After the credits, before the final gag","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["meta","trivia"],"difficulty":3,"difficultyName":"Freeze Frame","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"Wikipedia — Glenn McQueen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_McQueen"},{"label":"MediaStinger — Finding Nemo (2003) extra scenes during and after the credits","url":"https://mediastinger.com/finding-nemo-2003-extra-scenes-during-and-after-the-credits/"}],"motifs":["in-memoriam-dedication","crew-tribute"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"tank-modelled-on-stantons-childhood-dentist","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo#egg-tank-modelled-on-stantons-childhood-dentist","title":"The tank is based on the one Andrew Stanton stared at as a kid","description":"The central set of the film's second half came from the director's own childhood. **Andrew Stanton** grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts, and the fish tank in his own dentist's waiting room — and the obvious question of whether the fish in it wanted out — is the seed the whole Tank Gang subplot grew from. It reframes the office scenes: the most reference-dense room in the movie is also the most autobiographical one.","scene":"Not on screen — the origin of the dentist's tank","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["trivia"],"difficulty":5,"difficultyName":"White Whale","verification":"community","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"North of Boston — Finding Rockport","url":"https://northofboston.org/blog/finding-rockport/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Philip Sherman's Dentist Office","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_Sherman%27s_Dentist_Office"}],"motifs":[],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null}],"faq":[{"question":"How many easter eggs are in Finding Nemo?","answer":"We have catalogued 10 documented easter eggs and hidden details in Finding Nemo. Most of them are concentrated in P. Sherman's dental practice, which hides a Buzz Lightyear figure, a Mike Wazowski plush, Boo's mobile, a Knick Knack statue, Luxo Jr., gag diplomas and a Mr. Incredible comic book — plus the A113 camera out on the reef and the Pizza Planet truck passing the window."},{"question":"Where is A113 in Finding Nemo?","answer":"A113 is the model designation on the underwater camera carried by the scuba diver who catches Nemo off the reef. The number is the first-year character animation classroom at CalArts, where several Pixar founders studied, and it has been hidden in nearly every Pixar feature since Toy Story."},{"question":"Where is the Pizza Planet truck in Finding Nemo?","answer":"It drives past outside the dentist's window during Gill's escape-plan monologue. Disney's D23 maintains an index of the truck's appearance in each Pixar film — it turns up in nearly all of them, with The Incredibles the long-running exception."},{"question":"Is the Mr. Incredible comic in Finding Nemo a real teaser?","answer":"Yes. A boy in the dentist's waiting room is reading a Mr. Incredible comic roughly eighteen months before The Incredibles opened, and its cover echoes imagery later used to promote the film. Pixar had done the same thing in the other direction by putting a Nemo toy in Monsters, Inc. two years before Finding Nemo."},{"question":"Why is Finding Nemo dedicated to Glenn McQueen?","answer":"Glenn McQueen was a Pixar supervising animator who died of melanoma in October 2002, aged 41, while Finding Nemo was in production. The film carries a dedication to him after the credits, and Pixar later named Lightning McQueen in Cars after him."}],"publishedAt":"2026-08-19","updatedAt":"2026-08-19","source":{"name":"The Things You Missed","page":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/finding-nemo","api":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/api/titles/finding-nemo","methodology":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/about"}}