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Some little animated birdies told us that Disney and Pixar are about to announce that they're pushing back Cars, the last movie in their current deal, from the 2005 holiday season to the summer of 2006. Said birdies also note the movie's production will still be wrapped in time for the original release. Are the Pixar folks simply tired of taking all of the holiday animation dollars, and are looking for a season where they can vacuum up even more box office cash before marching their DVD armies through at Christmastime? Is Disney stalling to prolong their association with the Pixar money machine? Has Michael Eisner worked a secret side deal with Steve Jobs to digitize him into a Disney mainframe so that he can control the Mickey Mouse Empire FOREVER, unless he's erased by a ragtag team of hackers, moments before he engineers a massive crash at Space Mountain? We really hope the press release addresses that last question. We've already lost interest in the Cars story.

UPDATE: Here's the press release, which predictably ignored the "digitized, power-mad Eisner" angle. Pshaw.