The Complete History & Evolution of Toy Story (1993–2026) — Disney Pixar

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: If it weren't for The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story would have never existed. And did you know that it wasn't created because Pixar wanted to make a movie about toys? It happened because Steve Jobs hated Disney's fantasy movies. So, let us go through the complete history and evolution of Toy Story, from the characters that inspired it, to the three different times it was nearly cancelled. Everything began when a young animator named John Lasseter was working at Disney Studios. In 1982, Lasseter watched the light cycle sequence in Tron and became completely fascinated by what a computer could do. Until then, computers were mainly used to create effects and a few backgrounds. But John started asking a much more ambitious question. What if an entire animated movie could be made this way? His first idea was to adapt the Brave Little Toaster using computer animation. But Disney was not interested at all. To them, the technology was too expensive, and there was no reason to use it unless it made production cheaper or faster. The proposal was rejected, and John Lasseter lost his job soon afterward. That failure, however, led him to Lucasfilm's graphics group. There, he met a group of engineers who also wanted to make movies with computers. In 1986, Steve Jobs bought The Division, and turned it into an independent company called Pixar. But Pixar wasn't yet the studio we know today. Its main business was selling computers and software for creating images. The short animations it made existed mainly to demonstrate the power of its equipment. One of those animations was Look So Junior. The short film's about two lamps that eventually turned the smaller lamp into Pixar's symbol. And did you know the computer used to animate Look So Junior was called the Pixar Image Computer? And buying a new one today would cost around $520,000. Now I understand why Disney thought they were too expensive. Anyway, two years later came the short film that changed everything. Teen Toy told the story of Tinny. A small teen musician trying to escape from a baby. The idea was simple. But for the first time, the story was told from the perspective of a toy that was afraid of being destroyed by the child who was supposed to love him. Tin Toy won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film one year after it was produced. And the Oscar goes to... Tin Toy, John Lasseter, and William Reed. That put Pixar on the radar of several major studios. But something unusual happened in 1991. Disney decided to work with Tim Burton. This became the first time the company produced an animated movie outside its own studios. Since it had only made hand-drawn animation before then. This new movie would use stop motion. And it was called The Nightmare Before Christmas. [00:03:08] Speaker ?: This is Halloween! [00:03:12] Speaker 1: Thanks to the enormous success of that film, Disney decided to work with another small studio. That studio was Pixar. Their first project was going to be a television special called A Tin Toy Christmas. The idea that would later inspire the story of Toy Story. And Disney didn't create that story. The company was at the height of its princess and fairy tale era. And Steve Jobs hated all of that. He wanted to break away from the formula. The story would follow Teenie after he was abandoned at a gas station. And eventually ended up in a kindergarten filled with toys nobody wanted. And Disney thought the idea could become something much bigger. So in 1991, the two companies signed a $26 million agreement to create three animated feature films. But this was extremely risky for Pixar. Because if any of those movies failed, the company was finished. The first major problem was that they had absolutely no idea what movie they were going to pitch. So they decided to continue with Teenie Story. The earliest versions of Toy Story starred Teenie and a ventriloquist Dummy. The next major problem was that both characters wanted exactly the same thing. To find the child who had played with them. And Disney pointed out something fairly obvious. If both characters thought the same way, there was no interesting conflict between them. So the story became a body movie about two complete opposites. One would be an old toy who was afraid of being replaced. And the other would be the brand new toy who arrived and stole all the attention. Teenie slowly transformed into an action figure. First, he became a soldier similar to G.I. Joe. Then he was given a space theme and several strange names. Including Lunar Larry and Tempest from Morph. I'm Tempest from Morph! Eventually, he became Boss Lightyear. Named after astronaut Boss Aldrin. His suit borrowed elements from the Apollo astronauts and the action figures of that era. The green and purple colors were chosen by John Lasseter and his wife, Nancy. Because they were their favorite colors. So now, came the question. What toy could be the complete opposite of a space ranger? A cowboy. Designer, but lucky, turned the ventriloquist dummy into a pull-string cowboy. His mechanism was inspired by a Casper doll John Lasseter had owned as a child. At first, Woody still had the enormous jaw and unsettling appearance of a ventriloquist dummy. Little by little, his face became softer until he developed the fabric and plastic look everyone knows today. The supporting characters also kept changing and just wouldn't help transform Boss. In the earliest versions, Boss knew he was a toy. Whedon suggested that he should be completely convinced that he was a real space ranger. He also added Rex and wanted Barbie to play an important role. But Mattel refused to license her. The company believed every girl should imagine her own personality for Barbie and it didn't want a movie deciding who Barbie was. So that role went to ball peep instead. Hasbro also refused to let Pixar use G.I. Joe. Especially because Sid was gonna destroy him. And that is how Combat Carl was created. Everything was finally starting to come together. But Disney kept asking for the movie to have a sharper, more adult personality. And Pixar obeyed. And because of that, it nearly destroyed its own movie. To make Woody seem edgier, the writers turned him into a selfish, cruel, and aggressive character. In this version, Woody didn't accidentally knock Boss out the window. He threw him out on purpose. Then threatened the other characters so they would not challenge him. Tom Hanks was one of the first people to notice the problem. While recording his dialogue, he asked why Woody had turned into a complete jerk. On November 19, 1993, Pixar showed that version to Disney's executives. Their reaction was so bad that they became known inside the studio as Black Friday. Disney shut down production on Toy Story. And after nearly two years of work, Pixar's first movie could die before it was even completed. John Lasseter asks for one final chance. The team had two weeks to prove it could save the movie. And during that time, Steve Jobs had to finance the project until Disney became involved again. They removed Woody's cruelty, restored Boss's innocent personality, and centered the story on two toys who made mistakes but couldn't learn to trust each other. The new version worked, and Disney allowed production to continue. Years later, Tom Hanks revealed that he, Tim Allen, and the rest of the cast had already recorded around 80 minutes of the version that was completely discarded. After Disney returned to the production, it brought in ideas that it considered incredibly innovative. It wanted Toy Story to become a musical. Ah, Disney trying to ruin everything since prehistoric times. The script became stuck again. Disney's writers didn't understand that the story was about the toys, and not the children who played with them. So they kept adding human characters until Joss Whitten arrived, quickly understood what Pixar was trying to tell, and helped create the story we know today. The technology of that era couldn't create humans, hair, or fabric with the realism we see today. That made a movie about toys the perfect decision. Plastic, wood, and hard surfaces were exactly the things computer could represent best. That is how, alongside Woody and Buzz, toys like Mr. Potato Head, Rex, and the rest of the characters were created. Mr. Potato Head also has a surprisingly strange story. The toy was invented by George Lerner, and it didn't originally include a plastic potato. The children were supposed to push the pieces into real potatoes. Ham, the pingy bank, represented a childhood tradition that has existed for centuries, saving coins inside little pigs. Lenny, the binocular toy with eyes, was inspired by Robin Eyes, a toy made by Tommy in 1982. Andy was named after Andres, Andy Van Damme, a professor at Brown University, who taught many of Toy Story's creators and animators. The evil Sid Phillips, meanwhile, was inspired by a former Pixar employee, who destroyed toys and used their pieces to build new monsters. But, have you ever wondered why all of Andy's friends look like more Andes? And no, it wasn't only because the animators were lazy. Human characters were extremely expensive to animate at the time, because simulating the texture of skin was very difficult. So Pixar saved time and money by simply cloning the Andy design it already had. Even then, producing Toy Story was insane. It's more than 114,000 frames require approximately 800,000 hours of processing. We're talking about an entire studio. Pixar used 117 computers, and every frame could take an average of 3 hours to render. The whole studio could render less than 30 seconds of the movie per day. During its most productive week, Pixar managed to render only 3 and a half minutes of the entire film. Now we can understand why human characters like Andy and Sid look much stranger than the toys. The team was creating something for which there was still no rules, tools, or previous examples. Even after the movie was finally completed, everyone said it was the ugliest looking film they possibly could have made. Despite all of that, Disney decided to take the risk and release Toy Story in theaters. On November 22nd, 1995, Toy Story reached the big screen. Against every expectation, audiences loved it from the very first screening. The movie cost around $30 million, and it eventually earned nearly $374 million worldwide. It also became the first animated movie nominated for an Academy Award for its screenplay. John Lassery received a special award for directing the first fully computer animated feature film. That's right, Disney fired him first, and then he came back swinging. But the most important change happened outside the awards. After Toy Story, every studio understood that computer animation wasn't impossible. It was actually the future of the industry. A movie about toys sounds like it was designed to sell merchandise, right? But before the release, almost no company wanted to manufacture Woody or Buzz. Toy companies usually needed between 18 months and 2 years to prepare a new product line. And Disney arrived too late, so several companies rejected the license. The only company willing to take the risk was a small Canadian business called Thinkway Toys. The result was the exact opposite problem. The figures sold out, and there were not enough Buzz Light years for every child who wanted one for Christmas. The first 250,000 figures of each character sold quickly. And Disney spent around $20 million on advertising. But brands including Burger King, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Payless added nearly $121 million in Toy Story promotions. So Toy Story wasn't longer only a story about toys. It had become a machine that sold real toys. In 1996, the movie arrived on VHS and sold more than 21 million copies during its first year. That same year, Pixar created Toy Story Treats, animated shorts between 10 and 30 seconds long that aired during the commercial breaks of Saturday morning cartoons on ABC. The network insisted that they were not advertisements for the VHS because they never mentioned the product. But strangely enough, they began airing only a few weeks before the movie went on sale. Then came the first Toy Story video game. Books, clothes, shoes, computer software, and even Disney on Ice shows. Toy Story had escaped the screen, and Disney wanted a second movie as quickly as possible. At first, Toy Story 2 wasn't even going to reach theaters. Disney commissioned it as a sequel made for a direct VHS release. Pixar assembled a much smaller theme that it will use for a full movie, because the studio was working on a bug's life. But when Disney saw the first scenes from Toy Story 2, it realized the movie had the potential to become a box office hit. So the plan changed completely, and Toy Story 2 became a worldwide theatrical release. The project expanded, the animation became more detailed, the environments became larger, and Woody discovered that he was not simply an ordinary cowboy. He had been the star of a television show called Woody's Roundup. The movie also introduced Jesse, Ballsy, and Stinky Pete. But while the story was about forgotten toys, Pixar nearly lost the entire movie. In 1998, a mistaken command began deleting files from the servers. Characters disappeared from scenes while the animators were trying to work. By the time they stopped it, around 90% of the movie had been deleted. The backup system wasn't working correctly either. So the movie survived because of Galen Sussman, a technical supervisor who was working from home while caring for her baby and had a recent copy on her computer. The team carried the machine back to Pixar, wrapped in blankets, treating it like they were bringing back the baby Jesus into the office. And they recovered the project. Then Pixar decided they had to delete it again. This time it was on purpose. John Lasseter watched the movie and decided the story wasn't good enough for theaters. And Disney refused to move the release date. So Pixar rebuilt almost the entire movie in only nine months. The team worked itself into complete exhaustion. Several animators developed repetitive strain injuries and carpal tunnel syndrome. The exhaustion became so dangerous that one employee arrived at the studio and forgot his baby inside the car. Unfortunately, the baby was rescued. So, Toy Story 2 finally opened on November 24th, 1999. It cost close to 90 million dollars and earned more than 500 million dollars. The movie even added fake outtakes during the credits as though Woody and Buzz were real actors. And one of those jokes showed Stinky Pete offering roles to two Barbie dolls. Oh yes, after the first movie became a success, Mattel finally agreed to let Pixar use Barbie. You know, I'm sure I could get you a part in Toy Story 3. So Pixar moved this scene from later releases because of its resembled to abuses of power exposed in Hollywood. And do you remember All's Toy Barn? That store was inspired by a real San Francisco toy shop called Jeffrey's Toys. And after all of this, the franchise was only beginning to grow. After two movies, audiences already knew that Buzz was an action figure based on a fictional space ranger. So the question was fairly logical. What was the story of the real Buzz? And Disney answered with Buzz's idea of Star Command, The Adventure Begins, an animated movie released directly on VHS in 2000. The story began inside the world of Toy Story. The toys gathered to watch a movie starring Buzz. And then the animation changed from 3D to 2D to show his adventures against Zork. Team Alien returned as Buzz in the movie, but Patrick Warbutton replaced him in the television series. Well, I don't think these are the three missing little green men. Well, I don't think these are the missing little green men. Buzz Lightyear of Star Command had 65 episodes if its opening movie is counted as three parts. The movie sold around 3 million copies during its first week. It also received its own video game and helped Buzz become more than just one of Andy's toys. But then, Woody and Buzz nearly continued without Pixar. Although Disney and Pixar had created some of the most successful movies of that era, the relationship was slowly falling apart. Steve Jobs wanted Pixar to keep control of its future films. But Disney wasn't willing to surrender a franchise that generated so much money. So, in 2004, negotiations ended. And Pixar announced that it would look for another distributor. The problem was that Disney still owned the rights to the characters and could produce sequels without Pixar. So, it created a studio called Circle 7 Animation and began developing its own version of Toy Story 3. In that story, Buzz began malfunctioning and was shipped to a factory in Taiwan. When the toys discovered that every Buzz Lightyear had been recalled and would be destroyed, Woody, Jessie and the others mailed themselves to the factory to rescue them. The movie progressed far enough to have scripts, designs and animation tests. Toy Story was about to split in two. Pixar's original movies and Disney's sequels. But in 2006, Bob Iger took control of Disney and decided that losing Pixar would be a huge mistake. So, Disney bought the studio for $7.4 billion, shut down Circle 7 and canceled that version of Toy Story 3. The franchise returned to its creators and they decided to say goodbye to Andy. To create the new Toy Story 3, Joan Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Leon Creech returned to the cabin where they had developed the first movie. Their first idea didn't work either. So, they watched Toy Story and Toy Story 2 again and found the question the story had avoided for years. What'll happen when Andy finally grew up? Leon Creech became the director and the movie turned Sunnyside into a false promise. Technology had changed so much since 1999 that the original models of Woody, Buzz and the others could no longer be modified correctly with the new software. Pixar had to rebuild them detail by detail and replace every joint, texture and material. That is why the characters keep their original designs. But we can now see Woody stitching, the fibers in clothing, the scratches on Buzz and far more realistic lighting. Toy Story 3 opened up on June 18th, 2010 and turned a farewell between a young man and his toys into one of Pixar's most memorable endings. The movie earned more than 1.066 billion dollars. It became the first animated film to pass 1 billion dollars and received 5 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. It also won Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song. Everything seemed to have ended perfectly. Andy had grown up. The toys had a new child named Bonnie. And Pixar had completed a trilogy without a single poorly received movie. But Disney didn't let the character disappear. Instead of immediately producing a fourth movie, Pixar began showing smaller adventures about the toy's life with Bonnie. In 2011 came Hawaiian Vacation, where Ken and Barbie missed their trip to Hawaii and the other toys tried to recreate it inside the bedroom. That same year came Small Fry, where a tiny fast food boss switched places with the real boss. And in 2012 came Partysaurus Rex, where Rex became the king of a party inside the bathroom. Those three short films became known as the Toy Story Toons. Then came two television specials that were around 22 minutes long. So Toy Story of Terror arrived in 2013 and made Jesse the star of a suspense story set inside a motel. Toy Story The Time Forgot arrived in 2014 and introduced the Battlesaurus, dinosaur toys who, like Boss in the first movie, didn't know they were toys. The franchise also continued expanding through video games. Toy Story 2, Boss Light Gear to the Rescue, had become one of its most remembered games. Toy Story Razor arrived in 2001 and the Toy Story 3 game became especially popular because of its toy box mode, which allowed players to build and control a toy world without following the movie. The characters later appeared in Disney Infinity and in 2019 they received their own world in Kingdom Hearts 3. In the real world, Toy Story Midway Mania opened in 2008. Later came complete Toy Story lands in France, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Florida, designed to make visitors feel like they were the size of a toy inside Andy's backyard. And in 2013, one of the franchise Stranger Strengths appeared. People began shouting, Andy's coming, at Toy Story characters inside Disney Parks. Woody, Boss and Jesse would drop to the ground and pretend to be lifeless toys. The secret stopped being fun when everyone began doing it. So, the practice ended because repeatedly throwing themselves onto the ground became a risk for both the performers and the visitors. Toy Story now had movies, shorts, series, video games, shows, attractions and an absurd amount of merchandise. But one question still remained. What would happen to Woody after Andy? When Toy Story 4 was announced, a large part of the audience believed it shouldn't exist. The third movie had already delivered the perfect ending. Even people inside Pixar knew a fourth movie would only make sense if it found another ending. Not for Andy, but for Woody. Production began with John Lasseter as the director, and a story about Woody and Bo Peep. But the project changed several times. Lasseter left the director's chair, Josh Cooley took over, and around three quarters of the original screenplay was rewritten. The final story introduced Forky, an object made by Bonnie, who couldn't understand why he was alive. And this time, the visual evolution was enormous. Pixar could create rain, dust, spiderwebs, fabric, and reflections that had been impossible in 1995. The artists even added tiny cracks to the enamel on Bo Peep's hair to remind us that she was still made of porcelain. Don Rickles, the voice of Mr. Potato Head, died in 2017 before recording any new lines. His family asked for the character to remain in the movie. So, Pixar searched through 25 years of recordings, deleted scenes, video games, and promotional material to build his dialogue. Toy Story 4 opened in June 2019. It earned more than 1.73 billion dollars and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Woody finally left Bonnie to travel with Bo Peep and help other lost toys. Once again, it looked like the ending. And once again, it wasn't. The same year Toy Story 4 was released, Disney Plus launched with Forky Asks a Question. The series included 10 short films, in which Forky asked questions like: "What is money?", "What's love?", "What's time?", "What's art?", "What's a computer?", or "What's a friend?" In 2020 came Lamp Life, a short film explaining what had happened to Bo Peep during the years he was separated from Woody. And in 2021, Pixar popcorn included more small appearances from the franchise, including a boss exercise routine and an adventure with Ducky and Bonnie. Toy Story kept producing stories without needing another main movie. Then, Pixar returned to the question Andy had asked since the first film: "Who was the man who inspired the Boss Lightyear toy?" So Pixar presented Lightyear, as the movie Andy had supposedly watched before asking for his boss figure. This time, Boss wasn't only a toy who believed he was a space ranger. He was a real pilot stranded on a distant planet. That is why Team Allen didn't return. Pixar chose Chris Evans to separate the human hero from the toy version. But the explanation confused a large part of the audience. Boss Lightyear of Star Command had already existed since 2000, as the series that supposedly inspired the toy. Now Pixar was presenting another version of the same origin, with new characters and a different story for Zarg. The movie was also banned or denied as a release in several countries because it included a brief kiss between two women. And Disney refused to remove this scene. And Lightyear cost around 200 million dollars and earned only 226 million worldwide. It became the first major financial failure in a franchise whose four main movies had all been enormous successes. So the next project returns to the toys. In 2023, Disney confirmed that Toy Story 5 was in development. This time, the story was placed in the hands of Andrew Stanton, one of the writers who helped build the first movie and had worked on every previous installment. The new film also became the first main installment created without John Lasseter, who had left Pixar years earlier. But after five movies, what could replace the toys that they had never faced before? The answer was sitting in front of almost every modern child: a screen. Toy Story 5 opened on June 19th, 2026. Its first weekend earned 312 million dollars worldwide, the biggest opening in the history of the franchise. By July, the movie was already approaching 800 million dollars and was still playing in theaters. Its products still generate close to 1 billion dollars every year. The franchise has dozens of attractions, four themed lands, hotels, video games, series, short films and characters that are still being sold to children who were not even born when Andy gave away his toys. But anyway, which era of Toy Story is your favorite? And leave your answers in the comments.