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, John Lasseter telephoned Billy's house to offer him the role of Mike Wazowski in Monsters, Inc. (2001). Billy's wife answered the telephone and said "John Lasseter wants to speak to you." Billy took the telephone from his wife and said "Yes".
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.
This was the first animated film in Oscar history to be nominated for a Best Screenplay Academy Award - Adapted or Original.
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.
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.
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).
The toolbox on top of the milk crate that Woody is trapped in is a Binford, the same type of tool that Tim Allen used on his television show Home Improvement (1991).
Hasbro denied Pixar the use of the name GI Joe when it was informed that a GI Joe doll was going to be blown up by Sid.
What attracted Tom Hanks to the role of Woody was the fact that, 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 the fact that, before him, they offered the role to his biggest influence in his career, Chevy Chase, who turned it down.
In 2013 the original film was remade shot-for-shot with real toys and real people shot for shot. It took Jonason Pauley and his friends 2 years to complete the 82 minute film.
All of the cars in Toy Story have license plate stickers that are dated November 95 - the same date the movie was released.
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).
When Woody is sitting on the bed talking with Slinky, there is a drawing of him on the wall behind them. This is actually an early sketch of the Woody character.
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. Those casting choices were meant to represent how new Hollywood was taking over old Hollywood - Newman representing old Hollywood, Carrey representing new Hollywood.
Jeffrey Katzenberg often gave notes that he wanted more edge. Pixar presented an early draft of the film to Disney on November 19, 1993. The result was disastrous. The film was deemed unwatchable and John Lasseter recalls simply hanging his head in shame. It presented Woody as a "sarcastic jerk" who was constantly insulting the other toys. Katzenberg took Walt Disney Feature Animation president Peter Schneider in the hall after the screening and asked him why it was bad, Schneider responded that it "wasn't theirs anymore." Disney immediately shut down production pending a new script. The story team spent a week on a new script to make Woody a more likable character, instead of the "sarcastic jerk" he had been.
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.
John Lasseter always wanted Tom Hanks to play the character of Woody. Lasseter claimed Hanks had "the ability to take emotions and make them appealing. Even if the character is down-and-out and despicable." Early test footage, using Hanks' voice from Turner & Hooch (1989), convinced Hanks to sign on to the film.
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.
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.
The first (and as of 2014 the only) animated film to receive a special achievement Academy Award. It was given to director John Lasseter for "the development and inspired application of techniques that have made possible the first feature-length computer-animated film." More than fifty years earlier, Walt Disney received an honorary Oscar for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
Buzz Lightyear's colors are purple, green and white. This was because John Lasseter's favorite color is green, his wife's favorite color is purple and the character was based on the white suits astronauts used to wear in the Apollo missions.
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.
Joss Whedon reportedly created the character Rex the Dinosaur.
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 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.
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.
HIDDEN MICKEY: The "giant watch" clock seen on the wall above the bed in Andy's Room, is based on a Mickey Mouse watch.
Some 3D effects were too complex, or even impossible, to calculate at the time of this film; subtle tricks are used to avoid them. Examples: explosions, thus the viewer doesn't see Combat Carl's demise; hair dynamics, so Andy, Sid, and Molly all have short hair while Andy's mother's hair is always tied back in a simple-to-model pony tail; and flying water droplets, thus the viewer doesn't see any liquid when Woody dumps his burning head into a bowl of cereal.
During the production of the movie, Steve Jobs made a private call to producer Ralph Guggenheim one night, trying to convince him to use Bob Dylan as the writer and performer of the soundtrack.
The presence of Bo Peep 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.
The carpet in Sid's house is modeled after the carpet in the Overlook Hotel in The Shining (1980). The Shining is Editor Lee Unkrich's favorite movie. 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.
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, 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!"
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.
Just below the back (and, as the computer game reveals, also the front) of Buzz's waistband is the Disney registration trademark.
Andy's last name is Davis. Although this is never stated in the film, during the end credits, Laurie Metcalf (who voices Andy's mom) is credited as voicing "Mrs. Davis". (Andy's last name is also revealed in Toy Story 3 (2010).)
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 the makers of this film.
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.
During the staff meeting one of the books on Andy's bookshelf behind Woody is titled "Smyrl, Smryl, Twist and Twirl," a reference to Eliot Smyrl on the modeling team. Another is titled "Scooter Run". This is a reference to what filmmakers would do when Pixar consisted of no more than six people. Many of the books are names of Pixar's short films (André and Wally B. (1984), Knick Knack (1989), Tin Toy (1988) etc.) and some of the book authors are named after Pixar staff.
Hannah serves Buzz tea from a Utah teapot, a famous data model seen in countless computer animations.
[June 2008] Ranked #6 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Animation".
Andy's lamp is a red version of the lamp that first appeared in and the ball that bounces down the hall just before the party, up and down from the hand of a guest, then is bounced off of by Buzz is the ball that first appeared in Luxo Jr. (1986). Both have since become Pixar trademarks.
In Andy's bedroom, you'll notice that there are books on the book shelf with the following titles: Tin Toy, Knick Knack, Red's Dream, Luxo Jr. These titles are the names of the animated short films that Pixar made in the 1980's.
Buzz Lightyear's name was inspired by Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, and the term light-year, which means the amount of distance a beam of light travels in one year.
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.
In April 2008, Toy Story (1995) made its 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.'
Weezy the penguin was originally going to be in this film but was cut during the first draft of the script. But he was brought back in Toy Story 2.
When Sarge looks through his binoculars spying on the party guests when he and the other army men investigate the birthday party, you'll notice that Andy's friends are actually the same character model of Andy just with different skin tones and different clothes and accessories.
The carpet in Sid's house has the same Hexagonal pattern as the carpet in the Overlook Hotel from The Shining (1980)
Bill Murray was considered for the role of Buzz Lightyear.
The license plate on Andy's mother's car reads "A 113". A113 is a room used by the animation department at CalArts - alma mater of a large number of Pixarians, including John Lasseter.
During the "Mrs. Nesbit" scene, Buzz was with two headless dolls. He says, "One minute you're defending the whole galaxy, and suddenly, you see yourself Darjeeling with, Marie-Antoinette and her little sister." Marie-Antoinette was queen of France during 1774-1792. She was guillotined on 1793 in the French Revoultion with her sister-in-law Élisabeth.
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.
On the back of the Pizza Planet truck, there is a sticker that reads "KRAT FM". This is a reference to Pixar employee Tia W. Kratter, an artist on the film.
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.
The moving company, which is called Eggman Movers, shares it name with the main antagonist of the Sonic The Hedgehog video game series, Dr. Eggman. However, in 1995, Dr. Eggman was still known as Dr. Robotnik to Europe and America.
When Andy and his mom are going to the pizza place, they stop at Dinoco for gas. Dinoco is also the company which Lightning McQueen is obsessed to work with in the movie Cars, also by Pixar
When Woody goes into Sid's sister's room to retrieve Buzz, the coil of Christmas lights are right next to the door. When they come out, the coil is missing. It is there again when Woody picks it up to go back to Sid's room.
After Woody helps Buzz get out from under the crate, you can see a can that says Catmull rootbeer. This is a reference to Ed Catmull, president and co-founder of Pixar.
The robot in the films says stuff that an actual real life robot called, m.y pal 2 would say. M.y Pal 2 was a talking toy robot in the early 90s.
During the "Mrs. Nessbit" scene, Buzz says, "One minute you're defending the whole galaxy, and, suddenly, you find yourself sucking down darjeeling with... Marie-Antoinette and her, little sister". Marie-Antoinette was the queen of France from 1772 to 1793. She and her sister-in-law, Elisábeth were guillotined on the French Revolution.
