10 Things You Never Knew About Toy Story

As any Pixar enthusiast will tell you, it’s been 20 years since ‘Toy Story’ first hit cinemas, and hasn’t time just flown by. In the two decades since, John Lasseter and his team have made over a dozen features, nabbing numerous Oscars and accolades along the way to global domination.

So what better way to celebrate the anniversary than to uncover some of the awesome facts about the film itself.

The production was a world-first

‘Toy Story’ was actually the first fully CGI animated, feature length movie ever made, and opened up a whole world for talented, imaginative animators.

It was made on a shoestring

‘Toy Story’ was made for just $30 million, with 110 staff on board. Compare this to ‘The Lion King’ that came out a year earlier which spent $45 million and used 800 workers, Pixar achieved a heckuva lot.

Tim Allen wasn’t the first choice for Buzz

In fact, the budget for ‘Toy Story’ so so small, they couldn’t afford their original choice for Buzz Lightyear, which was Jim Carrey. But it turns out Tim Allen more that sufficed as the space ranger! Bill Murray was also considered.

Billy Crystal turned it down

Billy Crystal was offered the role of Buzz but turned it down. After seeing how amazing the film was, he’s since cited it as the biggest mistake of his career. When approached to be the voice for Mike Wazowski in ‘Monsters Inc.’, he didn’t make the same mistake twice.

It wasn’t intended to be called Toy Story

Originally, ‘Toy Story’ was going to be called ‘You Are A Toy’ - a line Woody famously bellows at Buzz when he still believes he’s a real space ranger out to save the world.

The alien voices were inventively achieved

The actors portraying the three-eyed aliens inhaled helium before delivering their iconic lines such as “the claaaaaaw”, to generate the out-of-this-world-sounding voices.

An early draft was deemed so bad it shut down production

An early draft of ‘Toy Story’ was declared unwatchable and, due to Woody being a bit of a sarcastic, unlikeable bully, the production was immediately shut down. A week later, after re-writing the character, the project began to move forward again. Phew!

There’s a nod to a famous Stanley Kubrick film

Because the film’s editor was a huge ‘The Shining’ fan, there was a nod to the Stanley Kubrick horror included. We see it when Woody and Buzz are trapped in Sid’s house, in the form of the distinctive carpet design.

Hasbro wouldn’t play ball

Hasbro didn’t allow Pixar to use G.I. Joe when they knew it was going to be blown up. They invented a Combat Carl character (based on the green plastic army men we see) to use instead when Sid ‘experiments’ in his back yard.

Did you spot the detail on the aliens?

The three-eyed green aliens have a pepperoni and mushroom pizza logo on their outfits. Bet you hadn’t noticed that before.

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Picture credit: Disney Pixar, Warner Bros.