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FILM NOTES
Pikachu's Vacation premiered in 1998 as the short accompanying Pokémon: The First Movie, produced by OLM under the Pokémon Company banner and distributed to American theaters by Warner Bros. as part of the franchise's first major theatrical push in the West. Coming at the height of Pokémon's initial global explosion, the short offered a gentler counterpoint to the feature's darker themes, showing Pikachu and friends at play rather than in battle. For many young audiences of the era, this was their first extended look at Pokémon behaving as characters rather than combatants, cementing the short's place as a beloved curio of early franchise history.
This cell pairs Squirtle and Pikachu, two of the earliest and most recognizable faces in the Pokémon roster, brought together in a moment of shared screen time from the vacation story. Squirtle, the small Water-type prized by collectors for its calm design and status as a starter Pokémon, appears alongside Pikachu, the franchise's mascot and enduring symbol of the series worldwide. As a 35mm animation cell, this piece preserves a hand-crafted frame from the actual production process, a physical artifact from the transitional period when Pokémon animation was still made through traditional cel methods before the industry's shift to digital.
