Toy Story (franchise)

Toy Story is a successful computer-generated film franchise about toys that come to life when left to their own devices. The franchise is produced by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures. It began in 1995 with the original Toy Story film, which followed the adventures of a toy cowboy named Woody and his rival, a toy astronaut named Buzz Lightyear. Both a massive financial success and a historic technical achievement, Toy Story took the world by storm and forever changed the course of animated cinema. In addition to three full-length sequels, a spin-off film, and several animated shorts, Toy Story spawned an entire entertainment franchise that includes everything from a number of Disney theme park attractions to video games, comic books, theatrical shows, and a short-lived spinoff television series. Through all of this, the Toy Story franchise has left a lasting cultural impact that is still felt even decades after the original film made its debut.

Background

At its heart, the Toy Story franchise revolves around the escapades of a group of toys that come to life when their human owners are not looking. While some of the toys—like Woody and Buzz—are original creations inspired by historical trends in popular children’s toys, others—like Mr. Potato Head and Slinky Dog—are directly based on real life toys. In any event, all of the Toy Story films feature a colorful cast of characters meant to represent the vast array of entertaining toys with which generations of children have played and enjoyed.

The original Toy Story introduces audiences to a group of toys that belong to a young boy named Andy. The leader of these toys is Sheriff Woody, a vintage cowboy doll who has long been Andy’s favorite toy. Some of the other toys include Mr. Potato Head, Slinky Dog, a piggy bank called Hamm, and a porcelain doll named Bo Peep. The group’s dynamic is thrown into chaos with the arrival of Buzz Lightyear, a new astronaut toy who quickly becomes Andy’s new favorite. Competing to win back Andy’s affection, Woody accidentally knocks Buzz out a window and must embark on a dangerous rescue mission to save his rival from Andy’s maniacal next door neighbor, Sid Phillips.

In Toy Story 2 (1999), the tables are turned as Woody is stolen by an overzealous toy collector and Buzz and the rest of the gang are forced to rescue their lost friend. During the ensuing adventure, Woody learns that his roots as a toy are tied to a historic television star.

Toy Story 3 (2010) picks up as Andy is about to head off to college. While Andy is busy packing up, the toys are accidentally sent to a local daycare center where they encounter another group of toys led by an irascible teddy bear named Lotso. While at the daycare, Woody meets Bonnie, a young girl who might be able to give him, Buzz, and the others a suitable home now that Andy is grown.

At the outset of Toy Story 4 (2019), the toys are living with Bonnie, who creates a new toy called Forky out of trash. While on a road trip with Bonnie and her family, Woody meets his old friend Bo Peep and has to come to terms with the frightening reality of becoming a so-called “lost toy.”

Overview

The history of Toy Story begins with the story of Pixar Animation Studios itself. Pixar originally came into being in 1979 as part of Lucasfilm’s computer division that focused on creating special effects. In the early 1980s, Pixar split off from Lucasfilm and transformed itself into a computer hardware company. During that time, the company’s primary product was the Pixar Image Computer, a special high-end computer aimed at commercial and scientific visualization markets. In 1986, Pixar was purchased by Apple founder Steve Jobs and returned to its cinematic roots by producing an acclaimed computer animated short called Luxo Jr. At the same time as Pixar was emerging as an animation studio, long-time animation industry leader Disney was starting to explore alternative methods of video production. This led the animation giant to team with director Tim Burton to produce the hit 1993 stop-motion animation film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. The success of that film encouraged Disney to continue working in tandem with other studios. Ultimately, this led Disney and Pixar to sign a $26 million deal to make three films together.

The inaugural collaboration between Disney and Pixar was Toy Story, the first fully computer animated film in cinema history. In addition to starring Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story featured an all-star cast of voice actors that included such legends as Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, and John Ratzenberger. It also earned director and co-writer John Lasseter an Academy Award for Special Achievement. When the film arrived in theaters, Toy Story was a box office smash, bringing in more than $300 million worldwide. Moreover, the film’s success had a profound impact on the entire animation industry. Within just a few years of Toy Story’s debut, Disney and most other animation studios all but completely abandoned traditional animation in favor of computer animation. The film also led to a string of other Disney/Pixar collaborations, including Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), and Cars (2006).

The success of Toy Story was confirmed with the 1999 release of Toy Story 2, which brought in nearly $500 million at the box office. In 2006, Disney officially bought Pixar and put the company in charge of its computer animation division. Toy Story 3 subsequently followed in 2010, as did Toy Story 4 in 2019. The spin-off film Lightyear, which tells the backstory of toy Buzz Lightyear, came out in 2022.

The Toy Story franchise is not limited to the films themselves. Over the years, Disney and Pixar produced a number of Toy Story shorts to supplement the feature length films. The short series was known as Toy Story Toons and featured such entries as Small Fry and Hawaiian Vacation. Between 2011 and 2012, there was also a Toy Story-inspired television series called Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. The first two Toy Story films were also adapted to video games and three Toy Story comic books were published starting in 2009. Perhaps most notably, Toy Story came to have a major presence in several Disney theme parks, with Toy Story Boardwalk becoming a fixture at Disney California Adventure near Disneyland and Toy Story Land themed areas being installed at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida, Walt Disney Studios Park in France, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Shanghai Disneyland.

Bibliography

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