You know, we hadn't seen much buzz on the Disney-Pixar saga in the past couple of days, and what with all the Jobsian drama that particular plot thread had pumped into our pulsing veins recently, we have to admit that we were starting to feel the first sick proddings of withdrawal. Faithful viewer N Gray had pointed out a Reuters article about Roy Disney and Stan Gold's goal to get at least a fifth of Disney's investors to vote against CEO Michael Eisner and three of his crony yes-men board members at March 3rd's annual investors' meeting, which is interesting and keeps the plot building as Eisner's imminent doom draws nigh, but Steve doesn't appear in the article and neither does Pixar, so, frankly, it's not going to do much to keep us from seeing babies crawling across the ceiling.

Really, the closest thing we have to a new and vaguely on-topic development in the Disney ruckus is a spinoff plot involving an unsubstantiated rumor that, following that surprise Comcast bid for Disney, Pixar may soon face a buyout offer from, of all international megaconglomerates, Sony. Faithful viewer Pedro Henriquez tried to help us ride out our jones by telling us that, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, Pixar's stock had spiked almost seven percent yesterday following rumors that Sony was looking to buy Steve's Little Animation Company That Could, and that helped us a little, but not much-- like maybe keeping the shakes down long enough to get to the methadone clinic.

"But AtAT," you protest, "a buyout of Pixar would be huge! If Steve's alleged behind-the-scenes involvement in the unEisnering of Disney was indeed prompted by his desire to fold Pixar into Disney proper and run the whole shebang, a Sony buyout throws the World's Second-Largest Monkey Wrench right into those big turny gear-looking things!" Well, okay, sure-- assuming there were any chance whatsoever that a buyout could ever take place. But you have to admit, folks, the prospect of a Pixar-Sony merger is tough to take seriously for anyone who remembers the Sony-Apple rumors from a few years back. Whispers that Sony was about to make a play for Apple hit the streets and stock prices did weird things-- for a few minutes. Practically before anyone could even say "Mac VAIO," Sony's guy-in-charge stepped up to deny any and all rumors of an Apple takeover bid, and even went so far as to say that Sony wouldn't even entertain an offer if Apple extended one.

Now, couple that with the fact that the reason Sony's boss was so quick to deny the Apple buyout rumors was reportedly because he thinks Steve's a jerk and could never stomach the thought of working with anyone so fundamentally lacking in humility, and you might start to get a sense of why we figure that a Pixar-Sony merger is about as likely to happen as a Celine Dion-Lemmy from Motörhead duet album of classic Hebrew folk songs.

Then again, whereas Sony's CEO pushed a grandmother and three baby carriages into heavy traffic in his desperate rush to get to a microphone to deny the Apple buyout rumor, as far as the Pixar thing goes, Sony's only comment is that it refuses to comment on rumors. Hmmm... If Steve himself didn't own 60% of Pixar's stock, we'd almost think there was a chance something might happen. Almost.