Review: Toy Story Toons

Oh dear, it’s been well over a year since I last wrote something about the Toy Story franchise (which was a post on Toy Story That Time Forgot in December 2020) and since then a whole other movie in the series has been released – though to rather mixed reception.

Having discussed the original trilogy, the Buzz Lightyear cartoon of the early noughts, and the two holiday specials (Halloween and Christmas) it’s now time to turn my attention to what’s known as the Toy Story Toons: three short films set post-Toy Story 3 and pre-Toy Story 4 in Bonnie’s house. Together forming a neat little mini-trilogy, they are Hawaiian Vacation, Small Fry and Partysaurus Rex, originally released over 2011 – 2012 at the start of the theatrical releases of various Pixar/Disney films.

Though they may be short, they each contain the seed of creative storytelling innovation that’s so prevalent throughout this franchise. Well... two out of three do. Small Fry has a fun premise, but fails to utilize it in the devastatingly clever way you’d expect from a Toy Story short, though Hawaiian Vacation and Partysaurus Rex make up for it by being instant classics: perfect gems of comedy and colour.  

Their run-time isn’t long enough for the extended parent/child metaphors of the films, or even the fun parodies and character portraits of the two holiday specials (which showcased Trixie and Jessie respectively). Rather, they just have fun with the concept of how small sentient toys negotiate a giant world. How do you fake a holiday getaway with the limited resources of a child’s bedroom? And what does bath-time look like through the eyes of a toy? Someone at Pixar said: “what if it was like a rave?” and I think that’s genius.

Review: Toy Story That Time Forgot

Who doesn’t love Christmas Specials?

With the release of a Toy Story Halloween Special, it was only a matter of time before Pixar followed up with a Christmas one, and of the two, I think Toy Story That Time Forgot has the tiniest edge over its spooky counterpart. Whereas Tale of Terror was very much built around horror tropes that befitted the holiday it was celebrating, this one is only tenuously linked to Christmas, and yet it builds such an immersive world with its Battlesaur characters that I get wrapped up in the adventure every single time.

Released in 2014, it is longer by its predecessor by exactly one minute, and once again employs a female character as its protagonist (is it annoying that the likes of Jessie and Trixie have to wait for television specials to enjoy the limelight? Yes, but this is the last time I’ll mention it, I promise).

In this case, Trixie the triceratops is frustrated at being cast into the role of anything but a dinosaur in Bonnie’s elaborate games, only to realize that her purpose as a toy is to sublimate herself to her child’s needs. This is a lesson she imparts to the episode’s most important new character, Reptillus Maximus, an anthropomorphic dinosaur action figure that (like Buzz nearly twenty years earlier) doesn’t realize he’s a toy.

It’s basically the same epiphany that the toys learn in all these movies – except, bizarrely, the fourth one. But we’ll get to that in due course...

Review: Toy Story: Tale of Terror!

I’m not sure anyone was in a huge hurry to see more of Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest of the gang after their glorious send-off at the end of Toy Story 3 – not because we didn’t love them, but because… well, why mess with perfection? Why go back to the well and risk overexposure? Why compromise that utterly sublime ending?

I’ll get to Toy Story 4 in due course, in which many of these fears did in fact materialize, but the shorts and specials that were released between 2011 and 2014 were delectable little trifles that gave us more adventures of the toys without backtracking on any of the developments or characterizations of the movie trilogy. For now at least, I can continue raving about the continued success of the franchise.

This, plus the Christmas Special (Toy Story That Time Forgot) and three short films (Small Fry, Hawaiian Vacation and Partysaurus Rex) all work beautifully as a sort of coda to the trilogy, giving us glimpses into what is essentially the toys’ happy ending with Bonnie, the new owner who loves and cherishes them, and who they can protect and nurture in return. With that in mind, you can’t blame Pixar Studios for wanting to play a little longer in this particular sandpit.

I’ll get to the rest in good time, but for now, in honour of Halloween: Toy Story: Tale of Terror!

Review: Toy Story 3

Perhaps the smartest thing Pixar ever did when it came to the continuation of the Toy Story franchise was to wait. Wait eleven years in fact.

At the conclusion of Toy Story 2, it would seem the story had run its course, for if the first movie was Buzz coming to terms with his identity crisis, then the sequel did the same for Woody. In those final moments, the two friends are at peace with each other and their joint purpose in life. One day Andy would no longer need them, but that day was not today, and it was enough to simply enjoy his childhood while it lasted.

But then… that day did come. And it came in real time. Those who watched Toy Story as kids were now at the end of their adolescence, and it was time to leave their childhoods behind. The third instalment and culmination of the franchise was therefore perfectly primed to make a potent statement on the passage of time, the inevitability of growing up, and the putting away of childish things… if Pixar could pull it off.

Well, of course they could. Just as the sequel was built heavily on the ideas and themes established in the original, Toy Story 3 had the advantage of expanding on everything the first two films had set up for it, as well as an obvious built-in premise: Andy finally outgrows his toys.

This was an impending reality that was discussed throughout Toy Story 2, largely through conversations between Woody and the Prospector, with the latter’s secret agenda leading him to stoke the former’s fear of change and rejection. “Do you really think Andy is going to take you to college?” he asks at one point, a question that’s unexpectedly answered eleven years later.

Um, yes actually.

Review: Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

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.

Review: Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2 is not just a perfect sequel, but a perfect movie – though the fact it’s a perfect movie is entirely contingent on the fact that it’s also a sequel. A debut film simply would not have had time to lay the necessary groundwork to do justice to the questions that Toy Story 2 tackles, and its success is directly derived from its reliance on ideas raised in the first movie, on character development that flows organically from our established understanding of Woody and Buzz, and on expanding their microcosmic world in new and interesting ways.

A story in which Woody seriously considers leaving Andy for a museum in Tokyo could not have existed without one in which he realizes his precarious position in Andy’s affections. A story in which Buzz goes on a dangerous journey to rescue his friend from this folly could not have existed without one in which he’s convinced by that same friend that being a toy is a noble calling.

And a story that explores the impermanence of toys in a child’s life could not have existed without one that already dealt with some of the fears they grappled with in their day-to-day life, whether it was being damaged, lost, or replaced.

So with their first sequel, Pixar demonstrated they knew what a good follow-up should be: a story that expands on the original without repeating it, one that builds on ideas and relationships that have already been established, and one that takes the familiar characters off in new and interesting directions. You can apply these rules to all the best sequels, from The Empire Strikes Back to The Dark Knight to Paddington 2.

Nobody regresses or forgets lessons already learnt; instead they move forward and learn new ones, which are supplemented by new characters, locations and set pieces – none of which are introduced for their own sake, but to better highlight the story’s central theme.

That theme is best summed up in The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden, another writer of toy stories that I just-so-happen to be reading at the moment, who wrote: “it is an anxious, sometimes dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose, they can only be chosen; they cannot do, they can only be done by; children who do not understand this often do wrong things, and then their dolls are hurt and abused and lost.”

So if the motivating fear of the first Toy Story was the possibility of getting lost and ending up in the hands of a cruel playmate, then Toy Story 2 is about a much more inescapable fate: the abandonment that comes when a child inevitably grows up; of toys being shelved and forgotten and discarded over time.

Review: Toy Story

I never actually saw Toy Story on the big-screen, though I vividly remember my grandmother telling my dad: “I’ve just seen a film you have to take the girls to.” But it wasn’t until it came out on VCR (yes, I’m old now) that I got to watch it – and become temporarily obsessed with it. You know how kids can just watch something over and over again without getting sick of it? For my sister it was E.T., and for me it was Toy Story.

So with the promotion for Toy Story 4 gearing up, I decided to re-watch the entire trilogy (plus the various shorts) and try to figure out just why I was so enamored as a child.

Well, there’s the obvious: what kid isn’t captivated by the idea that their toys come to life as soon as they’ve left the room? Toys are our first friends and confidants; they comfort us at night, guard all our secrets, and provide us with constant companionship, being entirely subservient to whatever our imaginations decide to project upon them.

We love them to bits, and so the possibility that they might love us back is a compelling one. 

Of course, Toy Story certainly isn’t the first tale to explore the idea of living, sentient playthings. Just off the top of my head, there’s also E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Nutcracker, Hans Christian Anderson’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Margery Williams Bianco’s The Velveteen Rabbit, Lynne Reid Banks’s The Indian in the Cupboard, Victor Herbert’s Babes in Toyland, and the likes of Winnie the Pooh, Raggedy Anne, and the assorted stories of Rumer Godden. Julian Fellowes got in on the act with The Curious Tale of the Abandoned Toys, and when I was little I read the Sally Anne series by Terrance Dicks, about a group of toys living in a children’s hospital.

And hey, remember Small Soldiers back in 1998? That was a fun one.

My point is that Toy Story certainly wasn’t the first to come up with the idea of living toys. But all good stories start with a good idea, and “toys that come to life when nobody’s around” is a great one, full of magic and possibility, as proved by its popularity over the years. (I recall the early promotion for the film playing on this theme, with one advert asking: “ever wonder why your toys are never where you left them?”)

But what makes Toy Story special is that it’s not just based on one good idea, but several, all of which are explored to the full extent of their potential.