Toy Story (franchise)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


As a series, these films provide examples of:

  • Actor Allusion:
    • In the first movie, Woody is crushed by a Binford toolbox (Buzz's voice actor Tim Allen starred in Home Improvement, where Binford was the sponsor of a Show Within a Show) and Mr. Potato Head's hockey puck one liner (Mr. Potato Head is voiced by insult comic Don Rickles, known for calling anyone he insults "hockey puck").
    • In the second movie, Buzz's reaction to seeing the Buzz Lightyear utility belt sounded very much like a |Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor reaction.
    • In the third movie, Lotso is generally a corrupt enforcer. His voice actor, Ned Beatty, played a corrupt sheriff in the 1973 film White Lightning.
    • In a commercial featuring the characters for the USPS, Hamm is dressed as a mailman. Hamm is voiced by John Ratzenburger, who played another mailman, Cliff Clavin from Cheers.
    • The Sergeant of the Bucket of Soldiers is played by R. Lee Ermey.
    • In "Toy Story of Terror", Carl Weathers plays a soldier toy whose friends have been snatched by seemingly invisible monster.
  • Defictionalization: Prominent with Woody and Buzz, but every toy that didn't exist in real life before the films were made have received this treatment.
    • Since the characters are toys, some of the tie-in toys count as this by default. Buzz Lightyear of Star Command is another example. There's also a Pizza Planet restaurant at Walt Disney World's MGM Studios.
    • Annoyingly averted with Buzz Lightyear the doll itself until the latest iteration, even though they spell out exactly what's in him right in the first movie. Every Buzz Lightyear toy to come out for the first two films only had at most three of the features mentioned in the commercial, and missed several from the films. Thinkway's latest attempt neglects only Karate Chop Action, due to the mechanics required necessitating a choice between it and the far more used spring-loaded wings. They did however make a different version of Buzz specifically for the Karate Chop Action.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • Mattel would not allow the first film to have a Barbie doll because they didn't want Barbie to be seen with a definitive personality. The writers reworked it so that way a Little Bo Peep figurine would be the love interest instead. However, after the huge success of the first one, Mattel allowed her to appear in the sequels.
      • Not that her personality is very deep -- all the Barbies featured seem to be pretty ditzy.
      • Though it should be noted that the Barbie featured in Toy Story 3 ultimately turns out to be very moral, brave and resourceful, once she realizes her friends are being abused. Not to mention much smarter than she acts -- she comments at one point about the nature of political power stemming from the consent of the governed. In those words.
      • Well, considering all she's done in her long career...
    • Then-Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted Toy Story to be "edgy", which resulted in more adult humor and a Jerkass version of Woody. A story reel version was shown to Roy Disney, who called it "one of the worst things I've ever seen." The Pixar boys started from scratch and the rest is history. Not to mention that Toy Story production was almost completely canceled as a result of Katzenberg getting exactly what he asked for and not liking it. Legend has it that Pixar intentionally made the reel obnoxiously bad in hopes of changing the execs' minds. It worked almost too well; Disney almost killed the movie outright, and it took a drastically revised script to convince them to give it a second chance.
    • And don't forget the reason why Pixar ended up merging with Disney in the first place.
    • In the first film, the "Strange Things" montage was not originally planned. Woody's world was going to change more gradually over a few scenes. Then Tom Schumacher, a VP at Disney, suggested it be done in a montage, to which John Lasseter thought, "Ding! I could have had a V8!" and put a montage in.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Al in the second film is played by Newman (who later voiced Zurg in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command).
  • Refitted for Sequel: The dream sequence from Toy Story 2 and the idea of opening on a Show Within a Show version of Buzz Lightyear were scenes that had originally been planned from the first film.
  • Sequel Gap: Toy Story 3 came out eleven years after the second.
  • What Could Have Been: Probably a good thing this didn't happen. Part 2 was originally meant as a low-budget straight to video release, as per usual of Disney at the time. However, the Pixar leadership decided not to sully their studio's reputation by releasing an inferior movie, then petitioned to make it a full-featured theatrical release instead.
    • The original Toy Story 3 developed by Circle 7, which was about Buzz getting shipped to Taiwan due to a massive recall, and his friends having to go save him.
      • There's also a script floating around the Internet for a Toy Story 3 that would have focused on Woody and some of the toys being stored in Andy's grandmother's house rather than sent to a daycare center (and the characters who weren't in the third movie would have been in this one, like Bo Peep and Lenny the wind-up binoculars).

Tropes in the first Toy Story

  • Breakthrough Hit: Toy Story put Pixar on the map as one of the industry's top animation teams.
  • Genre Killer: Much to the creator's chagrin, Toy Story was one of the movies that contributed to the idea that hand-drawn animation is dead — not helped by subsequent box office dropoffs of many hand-drawn features near the end of The Renaissance Age of Animation.
  • The Red Stapler: Pretty much done with every single character in the film. Particularly Buzz Lightyear whose action figure, with Toy Story just a few short weeks in theaters, became such a hot commodity he was sold on the black market.
  • What Could Have Been: In the original treatment Woody was a Jerkass and intentionally threw Buzz out the window, and the other toys threw Woody out the window after he insulted them all.
    • That treatment was written deliberately over the top because of repeated Executive Meddling demanding Woody to be less kid friendly and more of a jerk. Pixar was secretly hoping the Disney execs would be so horrified with Woody’s unlikable character that they would order them to rewrite the film as they pleased. Fortunately, this is exactly what happened.
    • In the topic about dubs, in the Japanese version, Koichi Yamadera and another, unknown voice actor were considered to voice both Woody and Buzz respectively. Instead, they were voiced by the Japanese comedians Toshiaki Karazawa and George Tokoro respectively.
    • Bill Murray, Jim Carrey, and Billy Crystal were all considered for the role of Buzz Lightyear. Crystal turned down the part and regretted it so much he jumped at the chance to do Monsters Inc. when Pixar came calling again.
    • Originally, a Barbie doll in a Pimped-Out Dress who acted like Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies was supposed to have been Woody's love interest after she rescued him and Sid's mutant toys from Scud the dog. Mattel refused to give Pixar the rights to use Barbie (fearing that the movie wouldn't be successful and sales of Barbie dolls would plummet because of the movie's supposed failure), so Woody's love interest was changed to the Little Bo Peep figurine and Woody hatched a plan with Sid's mutant toys to trick Scud the dog during the escape to the backyard. It wasn't until the first Toy Story became popular enough for a big-screen sequel (and a third installment) that Mattel decided to let Pixar use Barbie as a character.

Tropes found in Toy Story 2

Tropes unique to Toy Story 3

  • Actor Allusion: A meta-example: After Lotso caught the toys in their escape attempt, Barbie briefly quotes the Declaration of Independence when refusing to return to Lotso (which also shocks Mr. Potato Head at her knowledge of that). Jodi Benson, the voice actress for Barbie, considered pursuing a law degree before deciding to settle for acting.
  1. ↑ What, you expected a James Bond joke?
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