And you thought the Boston Red Sox were under a lot of pressure to perform.

Since 1995, Pixar Animation Studios has been 5-for-5. Five movies out, five hits. Tomorrow, "The Incredibles" joins "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life," "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo" in the Pixar lineup.

	Ric Francis, Associated Press Brad Bird, creator of "The Incredibles," says he played off family archetypes in creating the characters. For example, "Dads in the family are expected to be strong, so I made [Mr. Incredible] superstrong." Click photo for larger image.

The movie, being released by Disney, is about a family of undercover superheroes struggling to live a quiet suburban life but forced into action to save the world. Craig T. Nelson speaks for Mr. Incredible, Holly Hunter is his wife, Elastigirl, and Samuel L. Jackson is their pal Frozone, a superhero who can put his enemies on ice.

Since an unfortunate string of lawsuits, they've been forced into the Superhero Relocation Program, and Mr. Incredible is now Bob Parr, an insurance agent who keeps trying to find ways to pay his clients' claims. He's lured back into costume with a secret assignment, and his family eventually is drawn into the bravery business, too.

The concept was the brainchild of Brad Bird, the movie's director, writer and voice of character Edna Mode, a fashion diva who designs costumes for an elite superhero clientele.

"I had the idea about 12 years ago, but I have a lot of ideas," Bird says. "My brain is kind of like a big shop floor where various ideas are under different stages of assemblage. When I finished 'Iron Giant,' this was the one I wanted to do next, and lucky for me, Pixar loved my pitch and said, 'When do we start making it?' We started in earnest making it about four years ago."

In a phone call from Los Angeles, he adds, "These things are incredibly complicated. Every single thing that you see on the screen is designed and built and discussed endlessly, even the leaves on the trees in the jungle." There were meetings about the leaves and the countless other details in a movie that runs 115 minutes.

"This is very much the movie I wanted to make. I have little, tiny things I'd love to adjust -- straighten somebody's tie or something -- but it's pretty much exactly the movie I set out to make, so I'm very happy with that."

Bird, who started his first animated film at the age of 11 and made his feature directing debut with 1999's "The Iron Giant," was inspired by everyday families.

"I think I was just entertained by an idea of the superhero who was kind of put in a position where he couldn't do the thing that he loved and he was kind of looking back. Once I had him, I started by saying, is he married and what's his family like around him? Is he so busy looking back that he's not giving them enough attention? And everything kind of flowed out of that.

"But I think more than making a superhero film, I was interested in exploring family archetypes, so I used the superhero sort of world to do that. I think that dads in the family are expected to be strong, so I made him superstrong. Moms are pulled in a thousand different directions, so I have her be elastic."

The superheroes in hiding have three children: a reclusive teen girl whose power is invisibility, a 10-year-old boy who moves at lightning speed and an infant boy who seems to be the only normal one in the family.

Bird has three children, too, only his are boys ages 9, 12 and 16. "They were all rocked by this film. ... I was glad that I didn't lose any of my street cred that I gained by working on the first eight seasons of 'The Simpsons.' "

"The Incredibles" is the first Pixar movie to be rated PG, rather than G.

"We wanted to do an adventure without pulling our punches, and so really little kids that are upset by adventure films like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' or 'Star Wars' or something like that probably should wait a few years before they see this. But we feel like for every little, tiny kid we lose, we gain a few enthusiastic adults.

"I like the fact that Pixar feels they don't have to make only one kind of movie; they can make a variety of movies. I think this has much of the flavor and characters that everyone loves about Pixar films, but I also think we're going in some new directions that are really a lot of fun to watch."

Bird's last big picture, "The Iron Giant," was an homage to 1950s science fiction films, done in the style of traditional animation.

Set in 1957, it's about an imaginative 9-year-old boy who befriends a gigantic, gentle robot that falls to Earth. When a government agent arrives to track down the alien invader, the boy learns the meaning of friendship and the machine discovers its humanity. Vin Diesel, Jennifer Aniston and Harry Connick Jr. spoke for the lead characters.

This time around, Craig T. Nelson is the lead voice. "He has a big, sort of resonant voice that sounds like it could be coming out of a superhero," Bird says. "He also has kind of a guy-next-door quality, and I thought those two things were really important for the film. He's a really terrific dramatic actor but he has a very easy flair with comedy, and I just had a blast working with him."

In addition to Nelson, Hunter and Jackson, those lending their voices include Jason Lee, Wallace Shawn, Sarah Vowell, Elizabeth Pena and Pixar good-luck charm John Ratzenberger.

Pixar is the new king of animation, and it's not the sort of old-fashioned, hand-drawn style perfected by Walt Disney's legendary "nine old men," one of whom was Bird's mentor and two of whom receive an animated tip of the hat in "The Incredibles" and special thanks in the closing credits.

Asked about this seeming shift to computer-driven animation, Bird says, "I don't ultimately think that audiences go to see technique. I think they go to be involved in stories and with characters, and I do not think that 2-D animation is dead. No one at Pixar believes that, and hopefully we'll fast-forward through this time into a time when all kinds of animation are done and embraced."

Bird isn't sure what his next project will be.

"I have a lot of ideas, and some of them are live action and some of them are animation and some of them are blends, and I'm really excited about five or six of the 15 or so I have being assembled in my brain. Which one will kind of shove to the front of the line, I don't know. That will come after many months of rest, because this has been a long journey."

If you mark it in production babies, that would be 57 children born during the making of the movie. You can spot all their first names, from Aaron and Alexandria to Zazie and Zoe, in the credits.