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Tom Hanks and Tim Allen reunite to celebrate more than 30 years of 'Toy Story,' the groundbreaking Pixar film that changed animation forever. In this video, the longtime co-stars share memories of making the original 1995 classic—from seeing only an early Pixar short and a test animation of Woody before production began, to helping shape the iconic friendship between Woody and Buzz Lightyear.
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00:00It wasn't about something we were just doing that day, but it was going to be, it was about something
00:04that was going to last for, oh my god, almost half my life now.
00:08Yeah, mine too.
00:08And a third of yours, right?
00:10What the?
00:11Well, aren't you 120 years old or is it just how you look?
00:14All right.
00:15Halt! Who goes there?
00:16Whoa, whoa, whoa! I come in peace?
00:19It's been too long, cowboy.
00:21I would say that there isn't a human being that does not have a very emotional connection to a toy
00:29they had when they were kids.
00:32Now, maybe it's a stick and a wheel, you know, that you roll around.
00:35Or maybe it's a major action figure that spurs your imagination.
00:39But that magical thing that happens when you are playing with a toy, time stands still.
00:45And it's something that a 67-year-old person can bring up.
00:49And that's why this speaks to, I mean, if you were 67 now, you saw the first Toy Story when
00:55you were 37.
00:56And it reminded you then of being a kid.
00:58Yep.
00:59And that continues along.
01:00It's such a good story that you can stand in a room by yourself and do dialogue to something that
01:05doesn't exist.
01:06And the story commands your attention.
01:08Each one of them is a surprise.
01:09We just watched one, bits of one, and I can't believe how good that one is.
01:14This one is a full meal.
01:17And it's not, it's more than you can ever expect because it's so, so wonderful.
01:22The storytelling, that's what I get to.
01:24Oh, thank you, thank you.
01:26Hi there, I'm Lily Pat.
01:28Let's play.
01:29Oh, extinction, not again.
01:32It's Jesse's journey, but Jesse's journey with suffering and bullying and unkindness, you definitely have, as a male, you have
01:41sympathy, because I have daughters, for what your daughter's going through.
01:44And this is all about that and how you deal with that hurt and what she comes through and the
01:49journey she's up.
01:50And then she's got support from Woody and Buzz and all the other characters.
01:54It's really well crafted.
01:56I just can't say enough about how choked up I got.
02:00I know these characters.
02:01I was just choked up in the right way about, as I have a kid going off to college and
02:07it's how things, how loss is, what it feels like to lose and how you come through law school and
02:13there's nothing you can do about this.
02:15All we have is change.
02:16If everything gels from the beginning of the concept to the people who make it work to the alliance and
02:24faith that they have in us, if you do it right, it will last forever.
02:29And it's now last forever now in five different incarnations.
02:33Because it was a granddaddy of Pixar movies, wasn't it?
02:36Yeah.
02:36Wasn't it the first feature-link film?
02:38Staff, is Toy Story 1 the first feature-link film from Pixar?
02:42First computer-generated movie.
02:44Yeah, I think so.
02:44We have a thumbs up.
02:46The art of animation went to infinity and beyond with Toy Story, the world's first completely computer-generated movie.
02:54Whoa!
02:55They did the short.
02:56They did, you know, Tin Toy and they did Luxor about the bendable lamp.
03:02That's what we saw, along with the experimental Woody that they had doing.
03:06Watching that thing all by itself.
03:08He said, if they can get so much emotion and story and investment out of an inanimate object, I think
03:16I'll, let's tie our fate to these guys.
03:19A tensor lamp, they called it.
03:20Yeah, a tensor lamp.
03:21Interesting.
03:22Innocence is bliss.
03:23I don't think I could have done it had I known that it was important or anything like that.
03:27I would have been affected by that and tried to be important then.
03:31Instead, I just did what I was told.
03:33And luckily, I mean literally, in a studio, stage B with Doc over there at Disney.
03:38Yeah.
03:38It's amazing that I did what I was told and somehow, by the grace of God, I had some voiceover
03:45skill sets from my old days in Detroit doing radio.
03:48So I knew how to say what you feel and there's no one in the room but an engineer.
03:53It's a very specific skill set.
03:56No, no, no.
03:57Go, go.
03:57Just go.
03:58I'll catch up.
04:00I was actually acting in there a little bit.
04:01You got wings.
04:02You glow in the dark.
04:04Personally, look, you'll learn from every gig you have.
04:07But I've learned about being an actor from the work that has been expected of us as Woody.
04:14There is a, in some ways, it is the absolute crystallization of everything actors do for a living, bound by
04:23the fact that we cannot move.
04:26We have to stay perfectly on mic.
04:30We cannot move around.
04:32Now, we don't get to use our body at all except the innermost aspect of our, literally, our vocal organs,
04:39our lungs.
04:39My diaphragm always is sore at the end of a Toy Story recording session.
04:46I sort of dread it going into it because I know it's going to be a marathon.
04:50And there's no way to get to these places except you actually go there, you know, emotionally, energetically, phonetically.
04:56You just, you just have to go volume-wise, you just have to go there.
04:59But every time I drive home from, you know, Studio B over there at Disney, it's like, oh, how was
05:06it?
05:07Diaphragm hurts just a little bit.
05:09Because every light, you know, it's all like that.
05:13It's all like a tense.
05:16But to wrench that out of oneself without moving, it's not like being on the stage.
05:23It's not like being on camera.
05:25You are doing one thing and one thing only.
05:26You're putting emotional words and context onto digital audio tape.
05:32Because of you, the security of the entire universe is in jeopardy.
05:34What?
05:35Right?
05:35If I hear one more time from Doc, the engineer for all these movies, is I go, I get it.
05:41I got it.
05:42I got it.
05:42He goes, you were off mic.
05:44Yeah, yeah.
05:45Because I'll start moving around and he won't say anything until he goes, he'll tell the engineer
05:50he was off mic.
05:51And I go, what?
05:52That whole scene, you were off mic.
05:54Yeah.
05:54I can't get you.
05:55And it is a directional mic and you really have to talk right here.
05:58Even me going one side and I'm doing all this stuff.
06:00And you can't sit down.
06:02I did, early on when he did this first radio part for this one, T5, in a nice way, some
06:11of the engineers were going, Buzz sounds a little old.
06:16And I didn't know how to take that.
06:18And so I got together with a voice coach from New York City Opera they put me with.
06:23And she said, you're not old.
06:25Don't get that in your head.
06:27You do have to warm up at your age.
06:28You can't just get right into Buzz's as a very specific modulation.
06:33It doesn't seem very different than the one I'm speaking at.
06:35And there were some vocal exercises.
06:38What she said, you got to warm up, Tim.
06:40You can't just do this.
06:41And I don't know why, what happened, maybe it's because I'm 900 years old now.
06:46And with some vocal exercises that opera singers do and Broadway people, that's a lot of exercise.
06:53So I had to learn the process of warming up.
06:56I had to get out of my neck and come from the diaphragm because that's all Woody does.
07:01Woody says everything from the diaphragm.
07:03Come on, Woody.
07:04Woody.
07:04All he's up there.
07:06And on the way, in the car, in the way that I learned in college, in junior college, you learn,
07:13now entertain conjecture of a time when creeping murmur and pouring dark fills the wide vessel of the universe.
07:18You say that a bunch.
07:19What the?
07:19Then you take your two fingers and put them between your teeth and you say it like that.
07:25Now entertain conjecture of a time.
07:28And you do that again and again.
07:30And then there's one other thing, which you say, she stood on the balcony inexplicably mimicking his hiccuping and amicably
07:36welcoming him in.
07:37But you've got to do that from the diaphragm, not from the neck.
07:39She stood on the balcony inexplicably mimicking his hiccuping and amicably welcoming him in.
07:43That's a warm-up for Woody.
07:46What the heck just happened?
07:48What about you, Tim?
07:49Mine is horribly weird.
07:52A throat coat and then a glass of warm water with a straw in it.
07:57You just blow bubbles.
07:59And you push so you don't constrict your voice.
08:03It's just like, it reminded me of just this weird, I did Galaxy Quest, the movie with Alan, the late,
08:09lovely Alan Rickman, Sam Rockwell, Tony Shalhoub.
08:12Sigourney Weaver.
08:13Sigourney.
08:14And all of them in between takes are going, yellow bus, yellow bus, yellow bus, yellow bus, yellow bus.
08:18What in the hell are they doing?
08:21You know, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow.
08:23Sam Rockwell would do these exercises and it looked like there was something wrong with him.
08:27Because when we're up doing jokes about, and then Alan Rickman said, is there any way we can start the
08:33show without doing a joke about your groins or your bowel habits?
08:38And eventually Alan said, you know what?
08:41And he was mad at me for a while and after two weeks he said, that's your process.
08:44And now I appreciate the fact that you do a process and that's how you get out of your mind
08:50soon.
08:50And that's what this yellow bus acting thing and what he just did scared me.
08:54I like yellow bus, yellow bus, yellow bus.
08:56I don't know what that is.
08:57I don't know what you like, but to see Sigourney doing it is quite funny.
09:01It's a thing.
09:02The first iteration of the movie, they sort of like asked us to, you know, ad-lib insults and dig
09:09into each other.
09:10And they made a whole version of the very first Toy Story and it did not work.
09:14Because at the end of the day, we were all coming off as we were trying to like dig at
09:18each other.
09:19We were like insulting each other.
09:21There was an affection and kindness was missing into the natural rivalry.
09:27That's a clip that we watch from the very, we just watched the very first time Woody and Buzz met.
09:33And it's...
09:34Halt.
09:34Who goes there?
09:35It's pretty perfect.
09:36Hello.
09:38Oh, come on.
09:39You're not, you're not an action figure.
09:41You are a toy.
09:42And that's the whole thing right there.
09:44And there's the relationship and there's the logic of it all.
09:48And it's not cruel at all, but it is competitive.
09:51And in that, there's an awful lot of fun.
09:53T-O-Y.
09:54Toy.
09:55Excuse me.
09:55I think the word you're searching for is Space Ranger.
09:59And they had, he originally was kind of a boisterous, disc jockey voice.
10:04I am Buzzlinger.
10:05And it was not, there was no softness to him or no sense of vulnerability.
10:10Because he does, he doesn't really know that he's not a toy.
10:13And it takes a while, I think it was in two, he finally realizes it.
10:16And it's not, it's a really hard scene to watch.
10:18And it, he never, he was doing that to wake up.
10:22You know, you're still going to be here and be friendly.
10:24He wasn't being mean about it.
10:25Just saying, this isn't going well.
10:26You can't say you're something that you're not.
10:28And that's how I looked at it.
10:30Is it, these two guys didn't like each other for the wrong reasons.
10:34And they didn't really liked each other a lot.
10:36It's not so much ad libs per se as it is like, well, what if he said this here?
10:40You know, which lands into, lands in each one of the characters pretty well.
10:46Well, you did the snake in your boots.
10:48Well, yeah, we were trying to come up with, this was on the first one.
10:51And they said, there is going to be a pull toy, you know, Woody.
10:55And I said, what's, what's he going to say?
10:56Oh, we're playing around with that stuff.
10:58And I said, how about, well, I'd like to join your posse boys.
11:01But first I'm going to sing a little song.
11:03He said, oh, that's great.
11:04We'll put that in there.
11:04And another one, how about, there's a snake in my boots.
11:08And we just did that in the end.
11:09So now that's what you're hearing and all that.
11:12Absolute 100%.
11:13What do you think he would say?
11:15Totally ad libs.
11:16And that's, you know, that's faith coming from the team that created it.
11:18He got me, or I got one that was, Kim Flagg, my comedy writer,
11:23she and I together came up with when he said, he lost it with me.
11:28You are a toy.
11:30And I go, and you are a sad, strange little man.
11:33And you have my pity.
11:34And that was an ad libs that, it set the stage.
11:37They all went, ha, ha, God darn it.
11:40That's funny.
11:41They hate you for coming up with it.
11:43Because they got to go back and reanimate it.
11:45Yeah, they got to reanimate it.
11:45And then I did one when I was drunk on Darjeeling Tea.
11:48And I was holding my own arm in my hand.
11:51And I acted, yeah, I acted like, like, like somehow Darjeeling Tea got him drunk.
11:57Waving his own arm in the air.
11:59And another, it was a whole ad libs.
12:01Uh, snap out of it, Buzz.
12:10Did you notice that in the early ones, in one and two, they would give us a bunch of
12:14props that are referenced in it.
12:15They wanted us to do stuff, you know, come up with something there.
12:19I don't think they want us to do stuff now.
12:21They've said, no, we know what we're going for here.
12:24They've streamlined the creative process.
12:26They don't even like us that much.
12:27To take us out of it.
12:28They don't like us that much personally anymore.
12:29That's right.
12:30No.
12:30It was after the first one came out.
12:33I was in an elevator.
12:36And a lady came in with their very young child, maybe five or six.
12:41And the woman took one look at me and said, oh, my God, Woody.
12:44Woody.
12:44And she was talking about, Carl, this is Woody.
12:47This is Woody.
12:48Look, it's Woody.
12:49Win the elevator with Woody.
12:51And this kid is looking at, you know, I'm dressed El Shlobovio.
12:54And I'm just a guy.
12:56And I said, okay, Carl, is your name?
12:58Carl.
12:58Okay.
12:59Carl, I want you to close your eyes.
13:01Close your eyes.
13:02And they go, put your hands over.
13:03So this little kid was like this.
13:05All right.
13:06Now, think of Woody.
13:07Can you see him with his holster and his hat?
13:09He's really tall.
13:10Okay.
13:10Now.
13:12Carl, you and I better get back to Andy's room.
13:14Otherwise, Buzz and all the other toys won't be able to get.
13:17Have that?
13:17And he looked like that.
13:20And somewhere around in there, I realized that there was this very, very, very almost molecular
13:27connection that we had by way of what they saw and what they heard, but also what it meant
13:32to them.
13:33It's a powerful, it's like a responsibility to some degree we have to understand that Woody
13:41and Buzz and their friendship, it's an important part of people's lives.
13:45So who's the real Buzz?
13:47I am.
13:48Fast forward.
13:48I did the same thing at my place in New York.
13:50And the kid was in an elevator, punching his mom in the thigh and being a horrible kid.
13:56And I said, come on, kid, to infinity and beyond.
13:59And he turned at me and looked like he was going to have a seizure.
14:03And he goes, that man just swallowed Buzz Lightyear.
14:06And I said, so Tom taught me to, we went to a children's hospital in Florida.
14:11Oh, yeah.
14:12And breaks your heart to see these kids with cancer.
14:14And he stands up and a couple of the kids were, it's just an amazing moment.
14:19And he said, shut your eyes.
14:21And that's where I learned to do that.
14:23Don't look at this unusually weird looking man that can do Buzz.
14:27And these wonderful kids would shut their eyes and he and I would do Woody and Buzz behind
14:31them.
14:32It's an amazing experience that this affects people.
14:36And I don't take it for granted.
14:38Remind yourself to engage.
14:41Being on a device seems like you're doing something, looks like you're doing something, and almost
14:46feels like you're doing something, but you're not doing anything.
14:49And it reminds me as a car guy, if you're at the stoplight and you put it in neutral and
14:53rev the car up.
14:55Sounds like you're doing something, feels like it's going something, but you're not moving
14:58anywhere.
14:59And it's really stressful on the car to not engage what human beings do and engage.
15:04And this movie gives a hint that there's nothing like engagement with actual toys.
15:09And they'd have a great scene where the girls finally connect.
15:12And it's just so wonderful that they create the magic that AI alludes to.
15:19It alludes, it does its best job.
15:21You're asking it.
15:22My favorite thing.
15:23Let's ask Siri to talk to Alexa.
15:25Let's see what happens.
15:29There's nothing original there.
15:30So what you're getting is a representation of originality based on things that have been
15:34done a lot before.
15:36And the algorithm that provides us with, hey, if you like this, you might like that.
15:41Removing serendipity from it, I'm sorry, that takes away any genuine sort of interest
15:48one can possibly have.
15:49Now, the problem is, it's just so easy to go along with it because, you know, you're
15:54sitting there, you'll be entertained.
15:55Go ahead and go ahead and do that.
15:56But honestly, if we're off it, would you like to sit down and watch a thing and then follow
16:03the algorithm that recommends the next thing that you did?
16:06Or would you like to put your phones down, go outside, sit around the campfire and tell
16:11stories about stuff that you did when you were growing up?
16:13Which one would you rather do?
16:14I'd rather go sit around the campfire and hear original stories about stuff that happened.
16:20But what remains there is the option for us.
16:23And some people don't want to put the work into the option.
16:27Okay.
16:27It's kind of like rereading Gone with the Wind or something like that or rewatching a movie
16:32that you've seen on it.
16:33There's familiarity in it.
16:34But there's not that serendipity of the brand new.
16:38Everybody knows these characters, right?
16:40And so the story is the new thing to it, what happens to them.
16:45But all of the movies are about a crisis that is based on someone is going to stop playing.
16:52That's the thing that the toys say, we cannot let this stand on our watch.
16:57Andy has to keep playing with us.
16:58We've got to get back to Andy's room.
17:00Bonnie is a young girl.
17:02We will be played with because this girl needs to play for as long as time allows.
17:08And even Andy, that's a beautiful scene at the end of, which one?
17:12Two.
17:12Two.
17:13In which, hey, let me show you what, you know.
17:15And so he starts playing with them and she takes over.
17:17Was that three?
17:18Crack staff, which one of those was that?
17:21Two or three?
17:21Three.
17:22It was so emotional when he looked at her and said, these toys, and she reaches around
17:25her mom's leg and then you see his face going, hmm, maybe this isn't the end of it.
17:30I'm thinking about, I'm going to get a little emotional, just thinking about that.
17:34Yeah.
17:35And to have this important human condition be illuminated by a movie that's essentially
17:42about talking toys, you know, trying to save each other, you've got to give that over
17:47to the, in no small way, certainly to, you know, what the geniuses at Pixar do, folks
17:52who understand a basic thing of what human beings want from when we go to the movies.
17:57And that is some story about ourselves and then a connection to others.
18:01That's what cinema can do.
18:02You've got a friend in me.
18:11Yeah.
18:12Yeah.
18:12You
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