20 facts you might not know about 'Toy Story 2'

Yes, there was a very real chance Toy Story 2 was going to go the way of The Return of Jafar and other direct-to-video sequels. Pretty much right after Toy Story hit theaters and was a success, plans went into place for a second film, but it was fully intended to not be a theatrical release. In fact, there were debates about whether or not Tom Hanks and Tim Allen would even return to voice Woody and Buzz, respectively.

Pixar’s team wasn’t exactly focused on a direct-to-video sequel, especially when they had bigger fish to fry. At the time, Pixar was already working on A Bug’s Life, the company’s second feature-length film. As such, Toy Story 2 was being worked on by a smaller team in an entirely different building.

Disney had not done a theatrical sequel in a long time, but when they started to see footage from Toy Story 2, they got excited. It was decided the film should actually be released in theaters, which changed the production plans. Part of that was the need for 12 minutes to be added to the film, but the Pixar crew also insisted it not merely be padding.

As production on the theatrical release began, a lot of people at Pixar were not happy with how Toy Story 2 was turning out. John Lasseter, in charge of Pixar at the time, was also not pleased with it. Pixar went to Disney and said they would have to redo the film from the beginning. Disney disagreed, but Pixar remained steadfast that changes were needed. Lasseter took over production after A Bug’s Life finished, he got the Toy Story band back together, and they went all out to revamp the movie.

Pixar’s crew was told that Toy Story 2 would be a theatrical release on February 5, 1998. Disney locked in a release date of Nov. 24, 1999. They stuck to their guns on that. The reason Disney said Pixar could not redo Toy Story 2 is because they were not going to budge on the release date. When Lasseter took over to revamp the film, they had all of nine months to finish it. For an animated feature, that’s an incredibly compressed timeline.

One day, an inadvertent bit of coding led to the deletion of much of the Toy Story 2 animation work. They lost 90 percent of the work they had done over the previous two years, and the backup files had apparently not been working for the last month. Then, a lifeline was found. Technical director Galyn Susman had been working from home after the birth of her child, and she had a backup copy on her home computer. In the end, they only lost a few weeks of work.

Al McWhiggin, the toy collector who steals Woody, had been in an early draft of Toy Story, but he ended up not making the cut. He was able to return for Toy Story 2. By the way, the character was reportedly based on Lasseter himself. On top of that, the squeaky-toy penguin was also from an early draft of the first film.

It is revealed in Toy Story 2 that Woody is a toy from a children’s show in the 1950s called Woody’s Roundup, and so are the rest of the toys from his collection like Jessie and Bullseye. These characters and this idea came from real shows in the 1950s like Hopalong Cassidy and, of course, Howdy Doody.

For the scene where Woody seeds the merch from Woody’s Roundup, Pixar actually made mockups of the toys. They then presented Hanks with those toys in the recording booth. His reactions in the moment were then recorded and used in the film for Woody’s reactions.

Pixar wanted Barbie for Toy Story, but Mattel wouldn’t sign off on it. As such, the character of Little Bo Peep was added. Then, of course, Toy Story became a huge hit. This time, Mattel was happy to have Barbie in the film. Naturally, they also released a “Tour Guide Barbie” after the movie came out.

Slinky Dog’s line, “I’m not a smart dog, but I know what roadkill is” may sound somewhat familiar. That’s because it’s a riff on a line from Forrest Gump. Of course, the voice of Woody himself Hanks played Forrest Gump, winning an Oscar for the role.

For the toy cleaner, Pixar went to their past. The model for that character is Geri, the main character from Pixar’s Oscar-winning short “Geri’s Game,” which came out in 1997. In fact, there are some hints in the movie that the Cleaner is indeed Geri.

That truck that nearly flattens Mr. Potato Head? It reads "Kartoffel Pfannuch” on the side of it. People who speak German likely chucked at that, as it translates to “Potato Pancake.”

Did Pixar need to animate a dusty shelf and dust flying into the air? Perhaps not, but they did it anyway, even though animating dust proved immensely difficult. It took a while, but they were able to animate one speck of dust, which was them replicated over two million times for the scene. That set a record for number of particles animated for a film.

Toy Story 2 managed to hit the release date — to the detriment of the many animators and crew members who worked themselves ragged to make it happen. All the work paid off at the box office, though. This one-time direct-to-video sequel made $245.9 million domestically and $497.4 million worldwide. That beat Toy Story at the box office, and the film was the third-highest-grossing animated movie at the time.

Toy Story 2 has achieved a rare feat: It’s one of the films with a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. One person who was a big fan? The legendary animator Chuck Jones. Jones even wrote Lasseter a letter saying that the film, and Lasseter, were “advancing the cause of classic animation in a new and effective way.”

Toy Story 2 was released on DVD in 2000, including in an “Ultimate Toy Box” edition that paired it with Toy Story and a bunch of special features. Unfortunately, a small amount of that edition came with a glitch. Some DVD sets were sent to Costco that featured a random scene from High Fidelity playing in the middle of the movie. In a vacuum, that’s a problem as is, but High Fidelity is also an R-rated movie. The included scene involved a hefty dose of swearing, which obviously bothered parents.

This was still before Best Animated Feature was a category at the Academy Awards, so Toy Story 2 could not win that award. Instead, it was up for only one Oscar, for Best Original Song. Randy Newman penned “When She Loved Me,” which was sung by Sarah McLachlan in the movie. However, it did not win. Toy Story 2 had more success at the Golden Globes, which gave the film Best Picture – Musical or Comedy.

Though “When She Loved Me” got an Oscar nomination, Newman wasn’t sure it would make a good fit for Toy Story 2, wondering if kids would be bored with a somber ballad. Then, Hanks and Allen were played the song. They both ended up crying, and the song made the cut, leading to many more tears from audiences.

Pixar chilled on the sequels for a bit after Toy Story 2, and for a long time the Toy Story universe was on the sidelines. Then, in 2010, Toy Story 3 came out. It proved to be a truly massive hit. Toy Story 3 ended up making over a billion bucks at the box office.