This Dido Music Video & Pixar's 'Up' Are Way Alike

My Tuesday sure took a turn for the fantastic when Bustle editor (and fellow fan of late '90s/early '00s pop music) Tanya Ghahremani told me about the epiphany she had while revisiting a certain artifact from the year 2001. In the middle of a YouTube deep dive, Tanya realized the music video for Dido’s “Thank You” is basically Disney Pixar’s Up . Now, before I actually fired up the video for the first time in what must’ve been a dozen years, I didn’t know what Tanya was talking about; my memory isn’t the steel trap I wish it was, and I certainly couldn’t remember anything about the vid beyond “Dido hangs out in a house.” But not two seconds after I hit the play button, I so got it. As many Tweeters and Redditors have pointed out, the Dave Meyers-directed “Thank You” vid more or less tells the story of what would’ve happened if Carl Fredricksen never tied that bouquet of balloons to his home.

In the “Thank You” vid, Dido — whose full name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, and yeah, that is one of the best names of all time — is evicted from her charming, candy-colored house. Her charming, candy-colored house that happens to be nestled between two colossal commercial buildings (sound familiar?). After she gets the boot, Dido stands in her former front lawn and watches a demolition crew tear down her former abode. The end.

I can't say for certain whether or not Pixar was actually inspired by Dido's "Thank You," but I can say this: The 2001 music video is essentially a balloon-less version of 2009 movie Up.

A few questions:

• Does “Thank You” by Dido exist in the Pixar universe?
• Does "Stan" by Eminem featuring Dido exist in the Pixar universe?
• Does MTV exist in the Pixar universe?
• Is Carl Fredricksen aware of the “Thank You” video?
• Did Carl, I don’t know, catch a minute of it playing on the grainy tube TV hanging behind the register at his go-to corner store one afternoon in the year 2001?
• Did Carl see that house and that eviction notice and that construction crew and that building sandwich in the "Thank You" video and mumble, “That will not be me”?
• Was Carl inspired to stock up on balloons and helium right then and there?
• Did Carl ever tell Dido *looks right* *looks left* thank you?

Aaaand now I can't stop imagining a version of the "Thank You" video where Dido teams up with a snipe, a Wilderness Explorer, and a talking dog. Who cares about cold tea when Dug's telling one of his classic squirrel jokes, amirite?!

Image: DidoVEVO/YouTube