For thirty-one years and four films, these toys grew up right alongside you. Before the fifth arrives, one last walk back.
tap a toy to hear them
1995
A boy named Andy got a shiny new space ranger for his birthday. The old cowboy who thought he was the favorite learned the first hard lesson of love: you can be replaced.
"This isn't flying. This is falling... with style."
Buzz Lightyear · Toy Story, 1995
1999
A yodeling cowgirl named Jessie remembered a girl named Emily, who loved her completely, then grew up and gave her away. Many still call it the saddest two minutes Pixar has ever made.
"You never forget kids like Emily, or Andy. But they forget you."
Jessie · Toy Story 2, 1999
2010
Andy was grown and leaving for college. He gave his toys to a little girl named Bonnie, knelt down on the lawn, and played with them one last time.
"So long, partner."
Woody · Toy Story 3, 2010
If you were a kid in 1995, you were about Andy's age in that car.
Somewhere in those fifteen years, the movie about your toys had quietly become a movie about you.
2019
For three films a toy's whole purpose was one child. In the fourth, Woody found Bo Peep again and chose a life of his own. This time the goodbye was his to make.
"I'm trash!"
Forky · Toy Story 4, 2019
Each Toy Story earned more than the one before it. The kids who saw the first in 1995 kept coming back. Then they started bringing kids of their own.
Toy Story1995
Toy Story 21999
Toy Story 32010
Toy Story 42019
Toy Story 52026
Worldwide box office. Source: Box Office Mojo.
In Toy Story 5, the toys lose to Lilypad, an AI tablet. That part isn't make-believe. This is the share of children eight and under with their own tablet. In six years it went from almost none to nearly half.
Children age 8 and under with their own tabletShare of U.S. kids who own one, by year
<1% 8% 42% 2011 2013 2017Source: Common Sense Media Census.
"When tech comes in, it wins. It happens to adults and kids. It just wins."
Andrew Stanton, director of Toy Story 5.
Tap a card.
In 1995, the factory made far more Woodys than Buzzes. How lopsided?
tap to reveal
4 to 1
Thinkway made 200,000 Woodys and just 50,000 Buzzes for Christmas. Demand hit two million each. Buzz sold out, then turned up on the black market at $100.
A movie about toys made most of its money a different way. How?
tap to reveal
3× more
It earned roughly $9 billion selling toys, nearly three times its ~$3.2 billion at the box office. A movie about toys, by becoming toys.
One single frame of Toy Story 4 took this long for a computer to render.
tap to reveal
325 hrs
That is the longest frame in the film. Back in 1995, a frame took about seven hours. The toys got harder to draw, not easier.
We make one of these every week. Pop culture, sport, the internet, told in data.
The toys have outlived the people who gave them their voices. Every new film is also a quiet goodbye to them.
Jim Varney
Slinky Dog
d. 2000
Don Rickles
Mr. Potato Head
d. 2017
R. Lee Ermey
Sergeant
d. 2018
Estelle Harris
Mrs. Potato Head
d. 2022
Carl Weathers
Combat Carl
d. 2024
When you hear those toys speak in the fifth film, you're hearing someone new, holding a voice in trust.
Randy Newman has scored every Toy Story since 1995. For the fifth, the new song belongs to Taylor Swift, written from Jessie's side of the story.
1995
"You've Got a Friend in Me"
Randy Newman. The promise the whole series spends thirty years keeping.
1999
"When She Loved Me"
Sarah McLachlan sings Jessie's heartbreak. Newman called it his proudest work.
2010
"We Belong Together"
Randy Newman. Won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
2026
"I Knew It, I Knew You"
Taylor Swift, written with Jack Antonoff. Sung, like the first goodbye, from Jessie.
It almost never existed
In 1998 someone at Pixar ran a delete command on the servers and Toy Story 2 began erasing itself, character by character. It survived only because one supervisor had a backup at home.
A wink at the near-disaster
The license plate RM RF 97 in Toy Story 4 nods to that deletion command, the one that almost wiped the second film off Pixar's servers.
A113, everywhere
The code A113, the CalArts classroom where Pixar's animators studied, is hidden in every Pixar film. In Toy Story it's the plate on Andy's mom's car.
Sid's Shining carpet
The hallway carpet in the cruel neighbor's house is the same hexagon pattern as the Overlook Hotel in Kubrick's The Shining. Sid was always the horror movie.
Every toy that made you laugh, worry and cry.
swipe, or tap the arrows
Before you go: get the next story before it drops.
2026
Toy Story 5 opens June 19. Woody roams free now, so Jessie leads the room with Buzz at her side. And Bonnie has found a new favorite thing.
Its name is Lilypad, a frog-shaped tablet. For the first time, the toys aren't fighting another toy. They're fighting a screen.
So long, partner.
We make one of these every week. The next one might be yours.
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