The last time I wrote a Toy Story review was back in April, and the reason it's taken me so long to do another is that I decided to watch all the franchise's related material. Which meant that instead of skipping straight to Toy Story 3, I hunkered down with all sixty-two episodes of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Yup, the whole thing.
It's prescient that in Toy Story 2 the Prospector bitterly states that Woody's Roundup was cancelled due to Sputnik and the ensuing demand for space toys - for sure enough, when the time came to branch out the Toy Story franchise, it was Buzz who got the spin-off cartoon. (I wonder if there was any serious discussion at Disney Studios as to whether they could produce a black-and-white marionette show starring the Roundup Gang. Probably not).
The idea behind this cartoon is extremely meta, for it is technically a story within a story; a defictionalized take on the television show that Andy and his friends watched that was such a huge hit that it led to Buzz Lightyear becoming the highest selling and most in-demand toy in the world.
Heck, this is the show that makes the entire Toy Story trilogy possible! It's the reason for (our) Buzz's existence and all the adventures that follow when his action-figure counterpart is introduced to Andy's bedroom.
