Today Pixar Animation is known for creating computer animated motion pictures that make us laugh and cry, from their first feature length film Toy Story to this past summer’s Finding Dory. But back in the early 1990s, Pixar’s advanced animation techniques were mostly seen as another way for other companies to use state-of-the-art technology to do boring business more effectively.

A marketing video and sample reel of Pixar’s work in 1990 surfaced online earlier this year, and it shows just how the company was marketing itself at the time. While the company had already won an Academy Award for their animated short Tin Toy and had been known for creating stunning digital effects in movies like The Abyss, this video is all about showing how Pixar can help companies in their presentations and advertising.

Here’s the Pixar marketing video and sample reel (via Cartoon Research):

Featuring a young Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith, this video puts a focus on all that Pixar has done for other companies with their animation, specifically by way of their software Renderman. Knowing what the company would become, it’s amazing to see the much less entertaining path Pixar was taking at this time. Thank goodness the people at Pixar were much more creative than just figuring out ways to use animation to sell orange juice and candy. Though I will say it’s cool seeing that Pixar had a hand in a bunch of the commercials that I saw on TV all the time as a kid.

Anyway, we’re glad Pixar figured out exactly what they wanted to be. And we’re also glad that A Bug’s Life wasn’t anywhere near as weird or suggestive as the computer animated Volkswagen advertisement seen in the video above.