Monstropolis Map?

[pitvipersnake]

Slightly random question.

Did Pixar ever produce an official map of Monstropolis? I know they have a map of Monsters' University on the MU website but did they do one for the city or do we just have to imagine it's layout?

[pitbulllady]

There WAS, actually, a map of Monstropolis in "The Monsters, Inc. Employee Handbook", which was a real book, made to look like a real employee's handbook that businesses provide to their employees, and it included a whole section on things to do, such as a restaurant guide, a guide to outdoor recreational activities(which included a paintball range, which is how I know that the monsters would be familiar with paintball)like hiking and fishing(there is a park just outside of the city), and other things that people do when they aren't working. If I can recall correctly, the overall layout and location of the city was on the southern tip of a large body of water. At the time I still had the book, which was either one of several books destroyed by a 100-pound angry Catahoula or lost during a movie-can't recall which-I was still thinking that perhaps Monstropolis was located along the Atlantic seaboard, perhaps a Mid-Atlantic state, but the layout and location did resemble that of Chicago, on the southern tip of Lake Michigan. I do know that there was a wharf/warehouse district and that shipping and commerce are very important to the city's economy. Dan Scanlon has stated, with regards to the campus of MU and the surrounding area, that while he based the campus itself mostly on the campus at Berkley, he based the neighorhoods around it, including Frat Row, on his hometown in Michigan, and that would be consistent with the MU campus being two hours away from Monstropolis, as indicated by the add for Harryhausen's Restaurant that appears in the school paper. One of the other restaurants I recall was "Dingoes On the Wharf", located in the wharf/warehouse district, which was an Australian Outback-themed restaurant(similar to our own Outback chain, probably) that featured exotic wild game from all over the world, showing that there are indeed hunters among the monster populace, just as there are here.

pitbulllady

[pitvipersnake]

Thank you for the information. That's very interesting.
I guess it makes sense that Dan Scanlon would base it on somewhere he knows. I never thought of a lake, I imagined that the docks and warehouse district would be on a river.

[pitbulllady]

I DOES seem like there was a river that flowed either into or out of the lake near the city, though. You get the impression that the city was a transportation/commerce hub. But yeah, Scanlon did base the area around MU on his hometown, which is located in the "Irish Hills" of eastern Michigan. He even designed the OK house on his own childhood home! With the terrain, and all those Midwestern accents, especially Don's "Yooper" accent and Randall's Indiana "Hoosier" accent, I really got a strong MI vibe from MU.

pitbulllady