The late Don Rickles WILL voice Mr Potato Head in 'Toy Story 4'

One thing movie fans thought would be missing from Toy Story 4 was the late Don Rickles.

Rickles memorably voiced Mr Potato Head in all three previous movies, but sadly, he passed away in 2017 at the age of 90.

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So it was widely assumed that the legendary comedian would not be part of the Toy Story 4 voice cast, but it seems we may have been getting ahead of ourselves.

Director Josh Cooley has confirmed that he is in the movie.

“All of his pieces may be replaceable, but his voice is not,” he wrote on Twitter. “Honored he signed on for TS4, honored he’s in TS4.”

And in a chat with Entertainment Weekly, he’s explained how.

“Of course we loved Don obviously, and after he passed, his family contacted us and asked if there was any way that we could create a performance using the recordings that we had,” he said.

“Now, he signed to be in Toy Story 4. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to record him for the film. But we went through, jeez, 25 years of everything we didn’t use for Toy Story 1, 2, 3, the theme parks, the ice-capades, the video games – everything that he’s recorded for Mr Potato Head. And we were able to do that.

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“I’m very honoured that they asked us to do that, and I’m very honoured that he’s in the film. Nobody can replace him.”

His irascible performance as the iconic toy was key to all three previous films, so it’s immensely pleasing to hear that he’ll be back for number four.

The movie lands on June 21.