49 Fun Facts About Toy Story 3

John Lasseter directed the first two Toy Story films; who took over as director of Toy Story 3?

Lee Unkrich had edited the first film and co-directed the second. Lasseter, tied up directing another sequel, handed this one over, and it won Unkrich the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

Who wrote the screenplay for Toy Story 3?

Michael Arndt won an Oscar for his first screenplay, Little Miss Sunshine, and was nominated again for this, his second. Because a sequel is built on existing characters, it competed as an adapted script.

Toy Story 3 was the top-grossing film of 2010; which other Disney release finished second worldwide?

Alice in Wonderland had the bigger opening weekend earlier that year, but Toy Story 3 overtook it in the long run and finished about $40 million ahead worldwide.

In Toy Story 3, what does Mr. Potato Head first use as a stand-in body during the escape?

A tortilla does the job until a pecking pigeon wrecks it; he then plugs his parts into a cucumber from the daycare garden and catches up with his friends as a tall green vegetable.

Who voices Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear in Toy Story 3?

Ned Beatty gives Lotso a grandfatherly Southern drawl that makes the welcome feel safe, right up until the bear is revealed to be running the daycare like a prison.

In Toy Story 3, what does Lotso the teddy bear smell of?

Strawberries: Pixar promoted the pink bear with a fake toy commercial, degraded with tracking noise and flicker so that it looked like a home recording from around 1983.

Which actor voices Ken in Toy Story 3?

Michael Keaton plays Ken as a clothes-obsessed smoothie in Lotso's gang; he gives up its secrets only when Barbie threatens to rip up his prized Nehru jacket.

To which child does Andy give his toys at the end of Toy Story 3?

Bonnie gets them because a note left on the box meant for the attic suggests her; Andy takes it for his mother's handwriting and drives the toys over himself.

In Toy Story 3, what did Lotso find back at Daisy's house?

A new bear: Daisy's parents had bought an identical replacement. Lotso told the two toys lost with him that they had all been replaced, which was a lie, and led them away to take over a daycare.

In Toy Story 3, Lotso's gang turns Buzz into their prison guard by switching him to which setting?

Demo mode wipes his memory and brings back the deluded space ranger of the first film, who takes Lotso for his commander and locks up his own friends.

Where does Andy's mother mistakenly take the bag of toys meant for the attic?

To the curb for garbage pickup: Andy had left the bag in the hallway, and his mother took it for rubbish. The toys wriggle free and, sure that he meant to dump them, climb into a box of donations.

In Toy Story 3, what falls on Buzz in the garbage truck and restores his normal personality?

A television: the knock undoes both resets at once, and Buzz comes round with no memory of guarding his friends as prisoners or of wooing Jessie in Spanish.

Which actress voices Barbie in Toy Story 3?

Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, first played Barbie in Toy Story 2. Mattel had refused to lend the doll to the original film, then asked for her to be included once it was a hit.

Toy Story 3 was the first film released theatrically with which sound format?

Dolby Surround 7.1 adds two extra rear channels to the usual 5.1 layout. Dolby pitched it as sound with enough depth to match the 3D pictures then filling cinemas, and launched it with this film.

Which film ended Toy Story 3's reign as the highest-grossing animated film?

Frozen opened in late 2013 and was still in cinemas four months later, when a strong run in its last overseas market carried it past Toy Story 3's total.

Which film beat Toy Story 3 to Best Picture?

The King's Speech took Best Picture. Disney had campaigned for the top prize with posters likening Toy Story 3 to past winners, but its two Oscars came for animated feature and original song.

'You've Got a Friend in Me' missed out on an Oscar, but which Randy Newman song from Toy Story 3 won one?

We Belong Together won at the 2011 ceremony, where Newman mocked the advice that reading out a list of names makes for dull viewing, then said he had to thank his people anyway.

Toy Story 3 held its world premiere at a film festival in which country?

Italy saw it first: the film opened the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily, an event usually held in the town's ancient open-air theatre, a day before its American premiere in Los Angeles.

Disney originally planned to make Toy Story 3 without Pixar at which studio unit?

Circle Seven Animation was set up in 2004, when Disney and Pixar looked set to part and Disney held the sequel rights. After Disney bought Pixar in 2006 the unit was shut and its script shelved.

An abandoned Toy Story 3 script sent a malfunctioning Buzz to a factory in which place?

Taiwan: when the toys read online that Buzz Lightyears are being recalled around the world, they fear he will be destroyed and set out to rescue him.

In Toy Story 3, Andy's toys are sent to which daycare room, where toddlers treat them roughly?

The Caterpillar Room is where Lotso dumps new arrivals to be chewed, thrown and drooled on, while he and his gang keep the Butterfly Room and its gentler older children for themselves.

In Toy Story 3, which veteran daycare toy tells Andy's toys how to break out?

Chatter Telephone, the old pull-along phone, boasts that Lotso's gang will never break him. They do, and he apologises for giving up the plan.

Which band performs the Spanish version of 'You've Got a Friend in Me' heard in Toy Story 3?

Gipsy Kings, who sing in Spanish but come from the south of France, recorded it flamenco-style as 'Hay un Amigo en Mí'; it plays at the very end while Buzz and Jessie dance.

What did Pixar show Tom Hanks instead of a Toy Story 3 script?

A story reel: the whole film played in a cinema as moving storyboards with pre-recorded voices, sound effects and music. When the lights came up, the actors signed on.

Which Studio Ghibli character appears as a plush toy in Toy Story 3?

Totoro is a thank-you to Hayao Miyazaki, an old friend of Pixar's John Lasseter, who called the cameo a way of letting Studio Ghibli know how much its films meant to them.

Which Pixar short played before Toy Story 3 in theaters?

Day & Night has two hand-drawn figures, one showing daytime scenes inside his outline and the other night-time ones, who start with a punch-up and end as friends; as the sun moves, each turns into the other.

How does Lotso end up at the close of Toy Story 3?

Strapped to a garbage truck's grille: a driver who had owned the same bear as a boy spots him at the dump and ties him to the front of his lorry, so the toy who ran a prison ends up a captive himself.

Slinky Dog got a new voice in Toy Story 3 after which actor died?

Jim Varney, best known as the hapless Ernest, died in 2000. Pixar handed Slinky to Blake Clark, a comedian who had been a close friend of his for years.

Which former James Bond actor voices Mr. Pricklepants in Toy Story 3?

Timothy Dalton, who acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company before he was 007, voices a hedgehog in lederhosen who treats playtime as serious theatre and hushes the other toys so he can stay in character.

Who voices Trixie the triceratops in Toy Story 3?

Kristen Schaal, then known for Flight of the Conchords, plays the chatty blue dinosaur who works out the route home on a computer; Trixie later got the lead in the TV special Toy Story That Time Forgot.

Which actress voices Stretch, the purple rubber octopus, in Toy Story 3?

Whoopi Goldberg voices the glittery octopus, whose sticky tentacles catch escapers for Lotso's gang; she hesitates when he finally orders her to shove the toys into the dumpster.

Outside North America, which country was Toy Story 3's biggest market?

Japan took about $127 million, some $10 million more than the United Kingdom. Pixar's fake vintage toy advert for the film's villain was even remade in Japanese.

Which critic's negative review helped end Toy Story 3's perfect Rotten Tomatoes score?

Armond White argued that the film promoted consumerism, and held up the 1998 comedy Small Soldiers as the better film about toys.

Which human from an earlier Toy Story film turns up in Toy Story 3 as a garbage man?

Sid Phillips, the boy next door who tortured toys, is recognisable by his skull T-shirt, with Erik von Detten back as his voice; without knowing it, he drives the gang home on his truck.

Who rescues the toys from the incinerator in Toy Story 3?

The Aliens scoop them up with a giant crane, paying off a joke from the first film, where their kind worshipped an arcade grabber as 'The Claw'; a grateful Mr. Potato Head at last accepts them as his children.

In Toy Story 3, whose missing eye, left behind in Andy's room, shows the toys that he is searching for them?

Mrs. Potato Head can still see through the eye she left in Andy's room, so from the daycare she watches him hunting for his toys: the first proof that he never meant to throw them out.

The baby who voiced Big Baby shares a first name with which Toy Story character?

Woody Smith supplied Big Baby's gurgles and the doll's single word, 'Mama', sobbed when Big Baby is shown the name tag of the girl who lost him.

In Toy Story 3, which toy tells the story of how Lotso turned bad?

Chuckles, a clown lost on the same outing as Lotso, watched him turn bitter and left the daycare only after he was broken. He stays glum all film until a child's drawing of him makes him smile in the credits.

In Toy Story 3, what does Lotso lean on as a walking stick?

A wooden toy mallet props him up, and at the dumpster he uses it to smash Big Baby's old name tag, the outburst that finally turns his enforcer against him.

In which Pixar film did a Lotso bear appear before Toy Story 3?

Up hides him in a little girl's bedroom as Carl's house floats past her window. The bear had been meant for the very first Toy Story, but convincing fur was beyond the computers of the time.

The Toy Story short Hawaiian Vacation premiered in theaters with which film?

Cars 2 opened with it in June 2011: Barbie and Ken stow away for a holiday in Hawaii, get left behind in the bedroom, and the other toys stage the islands for them at home.

Two brothers remade Toy Story 3 with real toys using which technique?

Stop motion: Morgan and Mason McGrew of Iowa began as schoolboys, moved the toys a frame at a time and shot everything on iPhones. Disney let them post the finished film online in 2020.

Which dance do Buzz and Jessie perform over the end credits of Toy Story 3?

Paso doble: the routine was choreographed by Dancing with the Stars professionals Cheryl Burke and Tony Dovolani, and danced live on that show a month before the film opened.

In Toy Story 3, which character from the earlier films is named among the friends the toys have lost?

Bo Peep is mentioned early on among the friends sold or given away over the years; she came back nine years later as a lead character in Toy Story 4.

In Toy Story 3, which toy watches the daycare's security cameras at night?

A cymbal-banging monkey, modelled on the vintage Musical Jolly Chimp, sits at the monitors and screeches over the loudspeaker when anyone makes a run for it; the escape begins with wrapping him in sticky tape.

In Toy Story 3, what do the toys do as they slide toward the incinerator and see no way out?

Join hands: one by one they stop scrambling and take hold of each other, ready to face the fire together, seconds before rescue arrives from above.

In Toy Story 3, which of Andy's toys desert him early on, sure they will be the first thrown out?

The Green Army Men: one of them points out that when the trash bags come out the soldiers always go first, and Sarge wishes the others luck and leads his last men out of the window by parachute.

Toy Story 3 opens with which adventure, played out in young Andy's imagination?

A train robbery: two outlaws are looting a Wild West train when the toy-box sheriff and his friends ride to the rescue, the kind of game the grown-up Andy has long since stopped playing.

Before Toy Story 3, which Disney film was the first animated Best Picture nominee?

Beauty and the Beast was nominated when only five films could be. The Academy had widened the field to ten by the time two Pixar films made the list in successive years.