The Cutting-Edge Appliances, also known as the Apartment Appliances, are minor characters in The Brave Little Toaster. They are an assortment of modern appliances that live in the apartment with Rob's mother and serve her up, even on his departure to college.
Members
The Cutting-Edge Appliances include:
- The Tandy Computer named "Tandy"
- The Two-Face Taft-Peirce singer Sewing Machine named "Taft-Peirce"
- The Marconi Entertainment Complex named "Marconi"
- The Western Electric Phone named "Western"
- The Panasonic F.M. Radio named "Panasonic"
- The (New )Toaster
- The (New )Blender named "La Mean Cuisine"
- The Torch Lamp
- The Lux Vacuum Cleaner and Nozzle
- The Hamilton Beach Hand Mixer named "Hamilton"
- The only Cutting-Edge Appliances who are planned for the film, but never released, are the Rice Cooker, the Can Opener, the (New )Waffle Iron, the Twisting Stuffer, the Meat Cleaver and the Medical Vaporizer named "Vapormatic".
Appearances
The Brave Little Toaster
The Cutting-Edge Appliances are a group of transistorized appliances that were considered at the time highly-advanced and at the forefront of technology. They are highly egotistical as they take great pride in their latest features, which far outrank the abilities of any appliance that preceded them. As a result, they have a low opinion of any appliance that is not as advanced as they are. They served Rob's mother in the latter apartment in the city.
When Rob prepares to go to college, he wants to take his old appliances from his childhood with him for use in his dorm. After leaving to his family cabin with his girlfriend Chris, the Appliances are disgusted at Rob's preferences. They would prefer to be serving him in order to impress him with their mechanical advantages.
Later that day, the old appliances Toaster, Lampy, Blanky, Radio and Kirby arrive in search of the Master and are greeted by Plugsy. Shocked at their presence, he and the rest of the Appliances agree to dispose of the gang in order to be taken by Rob instead. They welcome them into the apartment room and are courteous at first but quickly take advantage of their presence and prepare to make their move. When Plugsy changes channels on T.V., who is another old appliance from the cottage that tries to tell his friends where the Master went, the gang gets stunned and finds out that he and the other Appliances tricked them, which is why they have led the gang into a trap. The Appliances demonstrate their technological superiority to them as they sing the song "Cutting Edge" and then, upon finishing it, they toss the gang out the window and into the dumpster. After that, the Appliances await Rob's return.
The gang is taken to Ernie's Disposal and the Master comes home disappointedly, having to realize that the old appliances are not at the cottage. Despite their absence, he still does not want to take his mother's appliances with him, still preferring the "oldies but goodies". Plugsy overhears this and is bitterly to blame. It can be assumed that the other Appliances were equally upset at this discovery. Rob eventually recovers his trusty appliances from Ernie's Disposal, thanks to T.V.'s intervention, and the old appliances go to college with him as opposed to the Cutting-Edge Appliances.
Examples of Technology
The Cutting-Edge Appliances sing about their technology, the following is a list of their features mostly mentioned in Cutting Edge or visibly shown.
- Tandy is a Tandy Radio Shack Zilog Z80 color microcomputer system with a built-in high-contrasted color pixel C.R.T. and printing keyboard, a couple of tape drives and an add-on numeric keypad and light pen. He is also a fancy, handy-dandy apparatus for word/accounting processing and graphic displaying capabilities.
- Marconi is a Marconi automated home theater entertainment complex system/stereophonic sound record player/high-resolved video projector mainframe combo unit that contains dual audio woofers and a set of L.E.D. bulbs which he synchronizes with the music he plays and features an ability to receive frequency broadcasts from an antenna tree.
- Taft-Peirce is a Taft-Peirce electric singer sewing machine that is a user-friendly contraption.
- Hamilton is a Hamilton Beach handheld mixer that is equipped with a couple of powerful motors that makes mixing much easier.
- Western is a Western Electric 2500 touch-tone landline push-button telephone uses fiber optics contained in plastic to allow instantaneous and high quality phone calls.
- Panasonic is a Panasonic F.M. radio cassette tape recorder that includes pairs of radio dial meter control knobs and attachable double amplifiers and headphones.
- La Mean Cuisine is a foodstuff blender that can grind, chop, blend, grate, cream, mince, beat, whip, crush, shred, liquify and puree ingredients.
- The toaster oven can bake in a compact space and toast four slices of any kind of bread at once.
- Lux is an Electrolux lightweight model cyclonic vacuum cleaner that has the powered floor nozzle attached through a long, snaky hose to him, so the user can clean hard-to-reach spots more simply.