That's Incredibles

It was a good week for Pixar's (NASDAQ:PIXR) superhero family as The Incredibles flew off the shelves faster than little Dash Parr can run circles around his family's dining room table. Five million DVD and VHS copies were sold on Tuesday. At least one more DVD was sold on Wednesday; that's when I realized what the nasty looks I had been getting from my sons were all about.

The record-breaking showing made mincemeat out of Disney's (NYSE:DIS) Bambi, which had set the bar earlier this month when it sold a million copies on the first day of its retail reintroduction. It's not as if Disney minds being bucked. It stands to reap half of the profits that The Incredibles generates as Pixar's partner. That relationship will end after Pixar delivers Cars next summer. Disney's announcement of its new CEO has some wondering whether Disney and Pixar will get back to the negotiating table now that Steve Jobs' nemesis Michael Eisner is out of the picture. I don't see that happening on terms that would be beneficial to both parties.

That will be just fine for Pixar, a winning Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter recommendation. Maybe Pixar will someday deliver a theatrical dud, but it's batting 6-for-6 so far, and all of them have been homers. (OK, maybe A Bug's Life was more like a ground-rule double, but that's still a 3.666 slugging percentage that would make Barry Bonds blush.)

So why did Pixar's latest release fare so well on the retail front? It was a multiplex blockbuster, yet it didn't topple DreamWorks Animation's (NYSE:DWA) Shrek 2 or even Pixar's own Finding Nemo. While those two sold briskly, the key here is, well, time.

With every passing month, more and more couch potatoes are migrating to the DVD format -- and DVD owners buy more films than VCR owners do. Feature animation is an easy sell, especially since kids are likely to relish the replay value of the better-rendered offerings. That's why Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, and even Fox (NYSE:FOX), now that it topped the box office this past weekend with Robots, all deserve investor interest for their recent and future animated projects.

Things will get even more interesting later this year, when HD-DVD and Blu-ray are introduced as upgrades to the traditional DVD disc. The rollout will persuade many DVD owners to once again upgrade some of the titles in their collection. In other words, it pays to draw -- as long as you draw well.

Some more recently drawn headlines:

• Disney did have a good showing with Bambi earlier this month.
• Yet Pixar isn't happy to see Disney making sequels off its creations.
• Iger may help smooth things over, but his legacy will have to start elsewhere.
• Talk about it all and then some in our Pixar discussion board.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz owns all of the Pixar releases on DVD. Yes, he owns shares of Pixar, too -- and Disney. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.