Trivia for
Toy Story (1995) More at IMDbPro »

• First fully computer-generated full-length feature film. Each frame took 4 to 13 hours (depending on the complexity of the shot) of time on a RenderFarm consisting of 87 2-CPU SparcStation 20's, 30 4-CPU Sparc-Station 20's and a SparcServer 1000.
  
  
• The animation team perfected the movement of the toy soldiers by gluing some sneakers to a sheet of wood and trying to walk around with them on.
  
  
• Rendered for an aspect ratio of 1.66:1, and it was supposed to be matted in theatres to 1.85:1 (the aspect ratio for which the team tried to compose). For reasons too complex to go into here, they aimed for 1.85:1 and missed, but only by a little. After careful consideration and consultation with director John Lasseter, they nudged the window open a tiny bit to 1.78:1.
  
  
• WILHELM SCREAM: When Buzz Lightyear is knocked out of the window.
  
  
• Woody and Buzz Lightyear are inspired by director John Lasseter's own childhood toys. He based Woody on his own pull-string Casper doll, and once he grew out of Casper he moved on to a G.I Joe, a flashy toy at the time of his childhood.
  
  
• Hannah serves Buzz tea from a Utah Teapot, a famous data model seen in countless computer animations.
  
  
• Sid Phillips is said to be inspired by a former Pixar employee of the same last name who was known to disassemble toys and use the parts to build bizarre creations.
  
  
• The top of Sid's backpack reads "Julie Macbarfle has cooties!", a reference to camera manager Julie M. McDonald, who lobbied people to put her name in the film. "Juju's house of food" is another reference to her.
  
  
• The moving company ("Eggman Movers") is named after art director Ralph Eggleston. The license plate of the truck ("MLY1K9", meaning "Molly, one canine") is a reference to Pixar's resident sheepdog.
  
  
• One of the cars' license plate is "HTT1195," which references the company "Hi Tech Tunes," which produced the film.
  
  
• When Buzz is lying on the skateboard while "repairing" his ship, there are stacked blocks that read "B" and "Z." for B.Z. Petroff, the movie's animation and layout manager.
  
  
• When the Pizza Planet delivery boy enters the Dinoco gas station, he asks for directions to West Cutting Boulevard. West Cutting Boulevard is the street where Pixar Animation Studios was located in Richmond, California, at the time (Pixar moved its entire operation to Emeryville, California, in 2000).
  
  
• Buzz Lightyear's facial features are loosely based on those of the film's director, John Lasseter; most notably his eyebrows, cheekbones and the dimple in his chin. Lasseter demonstrated this by sketching a rough self-portrait of himself on the U.K. breakfast show "The Big Breakfast" (1992) and then adding the spacesuit helmet to transform himself into Buzz.
  
  
• The license plate on Andy's mother's car reads "A 111" on the front and "A 113" on the rear. A111 and A113 are two rooms used by the animation department at CalArts - alma mater of a large number of Pixarians, including John Lasseter.
  
  
• The carpet in Sid's house is modeled after the horrible carpet in the basement of the house Pete Docter (writer/lead animator) lived in as a child. When Buzz gets wacky at the "tea party" he calls himself Mrs. Nesbit. The name of one of Pete's grade school teachers and in college, he had a Toyota pickup truck pretty much like the one the pizza delivery guys used. It too had a "YO" on the gate.
  
  
• Whenever a character's eyes blink, they never blink together, but one at a time.
  
  
• Billy Crystal was originally offered the chance to voice Buzz Lightyear, but declined. After seeing the finished film, he said the decision was the biggest mistake of his career. Upon learning this, Pixar offered Crystal the role of Mike in Monsters, Inc. (2001), which he readily accepted.
  
  
• Tim Allen has said in many interviews that Pixar originally wanted Jim Carrey to voice Buzz Lightyear and Paul Newman to voice Woody, but they couldn't due to the low budget they were given for the film.
  
  
• The realtor's sign on the lawn of Andy's house reads "Virtual Realty."
  
  
• The character of Andy is named for Andries "Andy" Van Dam, a Brown University Professor and computer science and animation pioneer who taught many of makers of this film.
  
  
• One of the books on Andy's bookshelf is titled "Smyrl, Smryl, Twist and Twirl," a reference to Eliot Smyrl on the modeling team.
  
  
• Mr. Potato-Head's line "What are you looking at, ya hockey puck?" is one of actor/comedian Don Rickles' catchphrases.
  
  
• The toy Shark, wearing Woody's hat, proclaims, "Look at me, I'm Woody! Howdy howdy howdy!" This references a cowboy-eating vulture in one of Gary Larson's "The Far Side" daily comic strips, from the early 1980s: "Hey everyone, look at me, I'm a cowboy! Howdy! Howdy! Howdy!"
  
  
• The filmmakers have indicated in interviews that the moving-van chase scene at the end of the film was partially inspired by the toy train chase scene from Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers (1993). The Pixar animators considered the toy train sequence to have set a standard for action which they had to surpass in this full-length computer animated film.
  
  
• Originally the main character was going to be Tinny, the title character in Tin Toy (1988). He would have gotten lost during a family trip and joined up with a sarcastic ventriloquist dummy in a search for a home. Eventually, Tinny was replaced with a toy astronaut named Lunar Larry, which then became Buzz Lightyear. The dummy, meanwhile, was given the identity of a cowboy, eventually becoming Woody.
  
  
• Pizza Planet was originally Pizza Putt, a combination pizzeria/mini-golf course.
  
  
• Voted number 5 in Channel 4's (UK) "Greatest Family Films"
  
  
• Bill Murray was considered for the role of Buzz Lightyear.
  
  
• What attracted Tom Hanks to the role of Woody, was during his childhood he would always wonder if his toys were alive and moved around when nobody was in his room. What attracted Tim Allen to the role of Buzz Lightyear, was before him they offered the role to his biggest influence in his career, Chevy Chase, who turned it down.
  
  
• When the soldiers are watching the pile of presents disappear during the birthday party, two silhouette pictures can be seen on the wall. These pictures are available at Walt Disney parks worldwide, and are cut freehand, with no prior sketchwork, using nothing but paper and scissors by the park's employees.
  
  
• An early possible title for the film was "You Are A Toy".
  
  
• [June 2008] Ranked #6 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Animation".
  
  
• Early scripts for the film featured a Barbie Doll in a prominent role as Woody's love interest. The original ending sequence, in which Buzz and Woody chase the moving truck, was scripted to have Barbie drive her Corvette off the truck and rescue Woody and Buzz from Sid's dog, a-la Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Mattel, the company that owns the Barbie character, declined on the basis that they thought the film would be a failure and that they didn't want Barbie to have a defined personality, preferring to let children imagine Barbie's personality traits on their own. Thus, Barbie was dropped from the script, and her character was reworked into that of Bo-Peep. When the film proved a huge success, Mattel did allow Barbie to appear in Toy Story 2 (1999).
  
  
• All of the cars in Toy Story have license plate stickers that are dated November 95 - the same date the movie was released.
  
  
• This movie was originally planned to represent how new Hollywood was taking over old Hollywood. The original casting choices were Paul Newman for Woody (representing old Hollywood) and Jim Carrey for Buzz Lightyear (representing new Hollywood)
  
  
• Tom Hanks recorded his dialog during the breaks of Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and A League of Their Own (1992). He didn't want to record his dialog during the breaks of Philadelphia (1993) or Forrest Gump (1994) because he felt he shouldn't do comedic roles in between minutes of playing serious roles.
  
  
• When the film was re released on DVD, it was found that almost 20% of the original animation files were corrupted, proving to the studio that digital storage was not as feasible as they thought it would be at the time the film was made.
  
  
• The presence of the shepherdess in Toy Story (1995) is a reference to the fairy tale "The Shepherdess and The Sweep" (1849) by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. His story was also about toys in a children's room coming to life when no one is looking.
  
  
• In April 2008, Toy Story (1995) made it's debut as a live action musical on Disney Cruise Line's The Disney Wonder. The musical contains 7 songs, 6 of which are original, and Randy Newman's 'You've Got a Friend in Me.'
  
  

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