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"In some ways, it felt like making a deal with the devil," says Wedge, who helped found Blue Sky back in 1987 with a handful of cronies who had worked on the trailblazing CG scenes in 1982's Tron. "But it was inevitable. We didn't want to go on being a [TV-commercial] boutique. We wanted something bigger."

And like the Scrat scrambling to avoid that crushing glacier, Blue Sky has had to skate a rough terrain fast and furiously to get Ice Age made. Among the trickier obstacles:

--THE PHOENIX FIASCO As Fox prepared to fund Ice Age, it was also pouring a reported $80 million-plus into a conventionally animated space epic, Titan A.E. That movie imploded on liftoff in June 2000, grossing less than $25 million. Its failure hastened studio chief Bill Mechanic's departure and forced Fox to shutter its six-year-old cartoon studio in Phoenix. Full-tilt production began on Ice Age the following month. In the aftermath, says Fox animation president Christopher Meledandri, "I made sure the core group...at Blue Sky had a great deal more experience than what we had when we started Phoenix."

--RELOCATION BLUES Blue Sky had to jump from comfy digs in Harrison to a bigger, blander office-park space in White Plains, N.Y., during production. As the staff expanded from roughly 70 to 170, some positions couldn't be filled with East Coast talent. Two key veterans from Disney's 1991 feature Beauty and the Beast, editor John Carnochan and art director Brian McEntee, agreed to relocate from California, as did producer Lori Forte, who says, "It made me focus on the movie, because there's not much else to do in Westchester."

--CASTING CALLS What name actor would make the best match for a woolly mammoth? Early animation tests for Manfred employed vocal tracks of Robert De Niro, Kevin Spacey, and Steve Martin lifted from their movies. But Fox zeroed in on Romano, even though Meledandri reports it took "a long time to convince Ray to do it." Why? "It was just hard to get his attention." The producers finally cornered Romano on the Raymond set, showing him models and artwork. Because he has four kids, Romano decided this was "something good to be associated with. It's definitely not for the money."

Denis Leary came on board fairly late as saber-toothed Diego, replacing initial candidate Philip Seymour Hoffman. And John Leguizamo overwhelmed director Wedge with a mini disc sent from the Australian set of Moulin Rouge, packed with dozens of different vocal styles for sloth Sid. "[Chris] said he liked a lot of them, but it was too much information for him," recalls Leguizamo. They settled on a quirky, lisping enunciation, a la Sylvester the cat and Daffy Duck, that suits Sid's buckteeth and weird jaw structure.

--STORY-LINE SWITCHEROO Early promotional material and tie-in storybooks for Ice Age prominently feature a female sloth named Sylvia, voiced by 3rd Rock From the Sun's Kristen Johnston. But she got cut completely from the finished film. One animator says she tested badly with audiences, who found the character "abrasive." Director Wedge says, "We were just having pacing issues," and though he was in love with the character, Sylvia's omission "makes the movie play." Some staffers were so upset at this late-game change that they mounted a protest with a petition and Save Sylvia! T-shirts. In a way, they won: Sylvia's scenes will be included in the DVD release.

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