There's no question that Steve Jobs has worked some real magic with Apple. Only about two years ago the company's stock price was in the gutter (assuming you can find twelve dollars in the gutter), Apple's idea of a home computer was the (shudder) Performa series, and following the loss of a billion dollars in a year, many people thought the term "beleaguered" was a compliment. "Three seconds from a horrible imploding death" might have been a more accurate description. Now, though, even despite supply problems that seem to plague Apple no matter how well things are going, the company's got a butt-kicking product line, a stock price hovering near its all-time high, a solid reputation with the press, a slew of commercials in heavy rotation, and market share on the rise. And while all that obviously isn't due to the work of just one man, we doubt anyone will deny that Apple's comeback couldn't have happened without him.

The only problem is, Steve doesn't just run Apple-- he's got another company too. For those of you who may have forgotten, Steve's little movie house is called Pixar, and it's cranked out a couple of modest successes called Toy Story and A Bug's Life. And, possibly due in part to Steve spending so much time over at Apple, there are some who point to Pixar's recent performance and are toying with the "beleaguered" tag, too. Pixar has had a tough time in recent quarters; last July they announced that video sales of A Bug's Life were much slower than expected, and we seem to recall some lower-than-expected earnings reports in there somewhere, as well.

But fear not! The mere presence of The Steve appears to be righting wrongs and restoring the balance of goodness. Pixar's just announced their third quarter's financial results, and the sun is shining and the birds are singing: Pixar pulled in $79.2 million, up from just $2.5 million in the same quarter a year ago. In terms of sheer profit, Pixar made $32.3 million, or 63 cents a share-- which, according to a CBS MarketWatch report, pretty much blew away the analysts' prediction of 29 cents a share. Chalk up another win for Steve's Mighty Street-Beating Ray. And with Toy Story 2 just around the corner, there's every indication that Pixar will be riding high for some time to come. Which means Steve can concentrate all of his powers of goodness on fixing Apple's availability problems. We hope.