Toy Story 2

Woody and Buzz Lightyear have become co-leaders of Andy's toys. Andy plans to take Woody to Cowboy Camp, but accidentally rips his arm. Andy's mother places Woody on a shelf, and Woody begins to fear that Andy will throw him away. The following day, Woody finds Wheezy, a penguin toy with a broken squeaker, who has also been shelved. After saving Wheezy from being sold at a yard sale, Woody is found and stolen by a greedy toy collector. Buzz fails to foil the theft, but finds clues identifying the collector as Al McWhiggin, the owner of the Al's Toy Barn store. Buzz, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky Dog, Rex, and Hamm set out to rescue Woody. At Al's apartment, Woody discovers that he was designed after the protagonist of ''Woody's Roundup'', a popular 1950s children's Western series, and meets his co-star character dolls: Jessie the Cowgirl, Bullseye the Horse, and Stinky Pete the Prospector. While delighted to meet them, Woody realizes that Al plans to sell the entire ''Woody's Roundup'' collection to a toy museum in Tokyo. Woody announces that he has to return home to Andy, dismaying the gang, because the museum will not accept the collection without him, and they will go back into storage. After Woody's arm is repaired the next day, Woody learns that Jessie was abandoned by her owner, Emily, when she grew up. Convinced that Andy might do the same to him, Woody decides to go to the museum. Meanwhile, Buzz's group reaches Al's Toy Barn and searches for Woody. Buzz encounters a Utility Belt Buzz toy; assuming he is a real space ranger going AWOL, Utility Belt Buzz imprisons Andy's Buzz. Utility Belt Buzz later meets Andy's other toys and, assuming they are on a mission to defeat his arch-nemesis, Emperor Zurg, accompanies them to Al's apartment. Andy's Buzz escapes and follows the gang, inadvertently releasing a toy Zurg who follows Buzz to destroy him. Both Buzzes and the rest of the search party arrive at the apartment, but Woody refuses to go home with them. Shortly after the search party leaves, Woody reconsiders and invites the ''Woody's Roundup'' toys to join him and become Andy's toys. While a hesitant Jessie and an enthusiastic Bullseye accept Woody's offer, Pete refuses and blocks the others from leaving; having never been played with, he is adamant about going to the museum. Al returns to the apartment and takes the ''Woody's Roundup'' collection to the airport. On the elevator ride down, Zurg appears and fights Utility Belt Buzz until he is knocked off the elevator by Rex. The two end up reconciling after Buzz learns Zurg is his father, while Andy's Buzz and the other toys pursue Al to the airport in a Pizza Planet truck while being accompanied by three toy aliens. Following a prolonged pursuit through the airport's baggage sorting system—during which Pete re-opens the tear in Woody's arm—the other toys subdue Pete and place him in the backpack of a little girl, who takes Pete with her. They save Bullseye, but Jessie is loaded onto the plane. Woody, Buzz, and Bullseye work together to save her just as the plane takes off. The toys then return home to Andy's house. Andy returns from Cowboy Camp that night, plays with Jessie and Bullseye, and repairs Woody and Wheezy the following morning. Al mourns the loss of the lucrative deal with the toy museum on television. Woody tells Buzz that he no longer fears Andy losing interest in him. == Voice cast ==

• Tom Hanks as Woody, a cowboy doll and the leader of Andy's toys. He is stolen by greedy toy store owner Al McWhiggin, who plans to sell him to a toy museum abroad. While trapped in Al's penthouse, Woody meets the other members of the Roundup gang (Jessie, Bullseye, and Stinky Pete). • Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, a Space Ranger action figure and Woody's best friend, he leads a group of Andy's toys on a mission to save Woody. • Allen also voices Ultra Buzz Lightyear, a next generation Buzz Lightyear action figure with a utility belt who at the end reconciles with his father Zurg. • Joan Cusack as Jessie, a cowgirl doll and member of the Roundup gang. She has a sad life after being abandoned by her owner Emily. Mary Kay Bergman provided the vocals for Jessie's yodeling. • Kelsey Grammer as Stinky Pete, an elderly prospector doll and member of the Roundup gang. When Woody meets him, he is still in his original box. He is eager to be sold to the museum and tries to stop Woody from going back to Andy. • Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, a grouchy and grumpy Mr. Potato Head who is married to Mrs. Potato Head. He joins Buzz on the mission to rescue Woody. • Jim Varney as Slinky Dog, a Slinky Dachshund toy who joins the rescue mission. • Wallace Shawn as Rex, a neurotic Tyrannosaurus toy who enjoys playing a Buzz Lightyear video game. He accompanies Buzz, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky and Hamm on the rescue mission as well as defeating Zurg along the way. • John Ratzenberger as Hamm, a piggy bank and member of the rescue team. • Annie Potts as Bo Peep, a sweet-natured porcelain figure who is a casual love interest of Woody's. • Estelle Harris as Mrs. Potato Head, a Mrs. Potato Head who is married to Mr. Potato Head. • John Morris as Andy Davis, a young boy who is the owner of Woody and his friends. He is away at "Cowboy Camp" almost the entire film. • Wayne Knight as Al McWhiggin, an avaricious toy collector and owner of Al's Toy Barn. He kidnaps Woody and plans to sell him and the rest of the ''Woody's Roundup'' merchandise to a toy museum abroad. • Laurie Metcalf as Andy's mother • R. Lee Ermey as Sarge, an army man who acts as the general to Andy's room. • Joe Ranft as Wheezy, a penguin toy with a broken squeaker. Woody finds him neglected on a high shelf and later rescues him from a yard sale. • Ranft reprises his role as Heimlich from ''A Bug's Life'' (1998) during the credits. • Robert Goulet as Wheezy's singing voice • Jodi Benson as Tour Guide Barbie, a Barbie doll who meets Woody's friends in Al's Toy Barn and helps them find Al's office. For the first Toy Story, Pixar had asked Mattel to allow the use of this doll to play Woody's girlfriend, which was not approved. After the success of the first film, Mattel asked that she be included in the second film. • Jonathan Harris as the Cleaner, an elderly man hired by Al to clean and repair Woody. • Jeff Pidgeon as the aliens, a trio of green alien toys of the sort Buzz encountered in the original Toy Story. During the rescue mission, Mr. Potato Head saves their lives, and later they are adopted by him and his wife. • Andrew Stanton as Evil Emperor Zurg, Buzz's arch-nemesis who is unaware that he himself is a toy. In addition, Dave Foley reprised his role as Flik from ''A Bug's Life'' during the credits. == Production ==

Development A conversation about a sequel to Toy Story began around a month after the film's opening in December 1995. A few days after Toy Storys release, John Lasseter was traveling with his family and found a young boy clutching a Sheriff Woody doll at an airport. Lasseter described how the boy's excitement to show it to his father touched him deeply. Lasseter realized that his character no longer belonged to him only, but rather it belonged to others, as well. The memory was a defining factor in the production of Toy Story 2, with Lasseter moved to create a great film for that child and for everyone else who loved the characters. Ed Catmull, Lasseter, and Ralph Guggenheim visited Joe Roth, successor to recently ousted Jeffrey Katzenberg as chairman of Walt Disney Studios, shortly afterward. Roth was pleased and embraced the idea of a sequel. Initially, everything regarding Toy Story 2 was uncertain: whether stars Tom Hanks and Tim Allen would be available and affordable, what the story premise would be, and even whether the film would be computer-animated at Pixar or traditionally hand-drawn at Walt Disney Feature Animation. The concept of Woody as a collectible set came from the draft story of A Tin Toy Christmas, an original half-hour special pitched by Pixar to Disney in 1990. The obsessive toy collector named Al McWhiggin, who had appeared in a draft of Toy Story but was later expunged, was inserted into the film. Secondary characters in Woody's set were inspired by 1940s–1950s Western and puppet shows for children, such as Four Feather Falls, Hopalong Cassidy and Howdy Doody. The development of Jessie was kindled by Lasseter's wife Nancy, who pressed him to include a strong female character in the sequel with more substance than Bo Peep. A deleted scene from Toy Story, featuring Woody having a nightmare involving him being thrown into a trash can, was incorporated in a milder form for depicting Woody's fear of losing Andy. The idea of a squeak-toy penguin with a broken squeaker also resurfaced from an early version of Toy Story. Before the switch from direct-to-video to feature film, the Toy Story 2 crew had been on its own, placed in a new building that was well-separated from the rest of the company by railroad tracks. "We were just the small film and we were off playing in our sandbox," co-producer Karen Jackson said. Lasseter looked closely at every shot that had already been animated and called for tweaks throughout. The film reused digital elements from Toy Story but, true to the company's "prevailing culture of perfectionism, [...] it reused less of Toy Story than might be expected". Character models received major upgrades internally and shaders went through revisions to bring about subtle improvements. The team freely borrowed models from other productions, such as Geri from Pixar's 1997 short ''Geri's Game, who became the Cleaner in Toy Story 2''. Troubled production Disney became unhappy with the pace of work on the film and demanded in June 1997 that Guggenheim be replaced as producer; Pixar complied, resulting in associate producers Karen Jackson and Helene Plotkin being promoted to co-producers. In November 1997, Roth and Peter Schneider, the head of Walt Disney Feature Animation, viewed the film's story reels, featuring some finished animation, in a screening room at Pixar. They were impressed with the quality of work and became interested in releasing Toy Story 2 in theaters. The work done on the film to date was nearly lost in 1998 when one of the animators, while routinely clearing some files, accidentally entered the deletion command code /bin/rm -r -f * on the root folder of the Toy Story 2 assets on Pixar's internal servers. Associate technical director Oren Jacob was one of the first to notice as character models disappeared from their works in progress. They shut down the file servers, but had already lost 90% of the work from the last two years. Additionally, it was discovered that the backups had not been functioning for approximately a month. The film was saved when technical director Galyn Susman, who had been working remotely to care for her newborn child, revealed that she had a backup copy of the film on her home computer. The Pixar team was able to recover nearly all of the lost assets save for a few recent days of work, allowing the film to proceed. Many of the creative staff at Pixar were unhappy with how the sequel was progressing. Upon returning from the European promotional tour of ''A Bug's Life'', Lasseter watched the development reels and agreed that it was not working. Pixar met with Disney, informing them that the film would need to be reworked. Disney disagreed, and noted that Pixar did not have enough time to remake the film before its established release date. Pixar decided that they simply could not allow the film to be released in its existing state and asked Lasseter to take over the production. Lasseter agreed, recruiting the first film's creative team, including Stanton and Docter, to redevelop the story and taking over as director from Brannon, who would remain on the project as co-director alongside Lee Unkrich, who was also fresh from ''A Bug's Life'', having served as supervising editor. Unkrich, concerned with the dwindling amount of time remaining, asked Jobs whether the release date could be pushed back. Jobs explained that there was no choice, presumably in reference to the film's licensees and marketing partners, who were getting toys and promotions ready. As was common with Pixar features, the production became difficult as delivery dates loomed and hours inevitably became longer. Still, Toy Story 2, with its highly compressed production schedule, was especially trying. While hard work and long hours were common to the team by that point—especially so to Lasseter—running flat-out on Toy Story 2 for month after month began to take a toll. The overwork spun out into carpal tunnel syndrome for some animators, Catmull would later disclose that "a full third of the staff" ended up with some form of RSI by the time the film was finished. Pixar did not encourage long hours, and, in fact, set limits on how many hours employees could work by approving or disapproving overtime. Employees' self-imposed compulsions to excel often trumped any other constraints, and were especially common among younger employees. ==Music==

Randy Newman, who composed and conducted music for the original Toy Story film, returned to score the sequel. He wrote two original songs – "When She Loved Me", performed by Sarah McLachlan, and "Woody's Roundup", performed by Riders in the Sky – besides composing the score. The song from Toy Story, "You've Got a Friend in Me" was also reused. It was sung at two different points during the film by Tom Hanks as Woody and Robert Goulet, the singing voice of Wheezy. The track "When She Loved Me", which was considered to be among the saddest sequences in both Disney and Pixar films, and the saddest film songs ever written, received acclaim for McLachlan's singing and Newman's compositions. The song was nominated at the Academy Awards in 2000 for Best Original Song, though the award went to Phil Collins for "You'll Be in My Heart" from another Disney animated film, Tarzan. == Release ==

Theatrical Pixar showed the completed film at CalArts on November 12, 1999, in recognition of the school's ties with Lasseter and more than 40 other alumni who worked on the film. The students were captivated. The film's initial theatrical and video releases include Luxo Jr., Pixar's first short film released in 1986, starring Pixar's titular mascot. Before Luxo Jr., a disclaimer appears reading: "In 1986 Pixar Animation Studios produced their first film. This is why we have a hopping lamp in our logo". which features the characters, Flik (Dave Foley) and Heimlich (Joe Ranft), from ''A Bug's Life''. Re-releases In 2009, both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 were converted to 3D for a two-week limited theatrical re-release, which was extended due to its success. Lasseter said, "The Toy Story films and characters will always hold a very special place in our hearts and we're so excited to be bringing this landmark film back for audiences to enjoy in a whole new way, thanks to the latest in 3-D technology. With Toy Story 3 shaping up to be another great adventure for Buzz, Woody and the gang from Andy's room, we thought it would be great to let audiences experience the first two films all over again and in a brand new way". Translating the films into 3-D involved revisiting the original computer data and virtually placing a second camera into each scene, creating left-eye and right-eye views needed to achieve the perception of depth. Unique to computer animation, Lasseter referred to this process as "digital archaeology". The lead stereographer Bob Whitehill oversaw this process and sought to achieve an effect that impacted the film's emotional storytelling. It took four months to resurrect the old data and get it in working order. Then, adding 3-D to each of the films took six months per film. The double feature opened in 1,745 theaters on October 2, 2009, and made $12.5 million in its opening weekend, finishing in third place at the box office behind Zombieland and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The features closed on November 5, 2009, with a worldwide gross of $32.3 million. Unlike other countries, the UK and Argentina received the films in 3-D as separate releases. Toy Story 2 was released January 22, 2010, in the UK, and February 18, 2010, in Argentina. Home media Toy Story 2 was released on both VHS and DVD and as a DVD two-pack with Toy Story on October 17, 2000. That same day, an "Ultimate Toy Box" set was released containing the first and second films and a third disc of bonus materials. The standard DVD release allowed the viewer to select the version of the film either in widescreen (1.77:1 aspect ratio) or fullscreen (family-friendly 1.33:1 aspect ratio without pan and scan). All three releases are THX certified and feature a sneak peek of Monsters, Inc. and outtakes. The standard VHS, DVD, DVD two-pack, and the "Ultimate Toy Box" sets returned to the vault on May 1, 2003. It was re-released as a Special Edition 2-disc DVD on December 26, 2005. Both editions returned to the Disney Vault on January 31, 2009. A brief controversy involving the Ultimate Toy Box edition took place in which around 1,000 copies of the box set that were shipped to Costco stores had a pressing error which caused a scene from the 2000 R-rated film High Fidelity to play in the middle of the film. The scene in question, which featured the use of the word "fuck" multiple times, prompted a number of complaints from consumers, causing Costco to eventually recall the defective units from shelves and later go on to replace them. The defect was caused by a "content mix" error according to Technicolor, which manufactured the discs, and only affected the U.T.B. Box set copies of Toy Story 2 which were included with the two-pack were not affected by the manufacturing error. According to Buena Vista Home Entertainment, less than 1% of the discs shipped were printed with the glitch. Toy Story 2 was available for the first time on Blu-ray Disc in a Special Edition Combo Pack released on March 23, 2010, along with the first film. On November 1, 2011, the first three Toy Story films were re-released, each as a DVD/Blu-ray/Blu-ray 3D/Digital Copy combo pack (four discs each for the first two films, and five for the third film). The film was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on June 4, 2019. Deleted outtake For the 2019 home media, the Disney+ reissue, and the 2024 UK theatrical cinema re-release at Vue Cinemas, Disney removed a scene from the film's mid-credit outtakes that featured Stinky Pete flirting with a pair of Barbie dolls and discussing a role in Toy Story 3. When told Disney was removing it due to the Me Too movement, he asked, "But why? Because, what, they're guilty of it?", then added in an interview, "But they cut it out anyway. It was fairly harmless. It just was, 'Oh, yeah, that never happened in Hollywood'...Well, all right..." == Reception ==

Box office Toy Story 2 was as successful as the first Toy Story film commercially. It became 1999's highest-grossing animated film, earning $245.9million in the United States and Canada and $511.3million worldwidebeating both Pixar's previous releases by a significant margin. At the time of the film's release, it had the third-highest opening weekend of all time, behind The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. It also broke the studio record for having the best single-day gross, surpassing The Waterboy. When the film opened, Toy Story 2 earned $9.5 million during its first day, breaking Back to the Future Part IIs record to have the highest Thanksgiving opening day. On its third day of release, the film made $22.6 million, becoming the highest Friday gross at that time, beating The Lost World: Jurassic Park. For two years, it would hold this record until May 2001 when The Mummy Returns opened with $23.4 million. The film also had the largest opening weekend for an animated film before being surpassed by Monsters, Inc. that year. Moreover, Toy Story 2 was ranked as the third-highest five-day Wednesday opening gross of any film, trailing only behind The Phantom Menace and Independence Day. The film even had the highest five-day Thanksgiving opening weekend, beating out ''A Bug's Life. In 2013, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Frozen both surpassed Toy Story 2 to have the largest Thanksgiving weekend debut. For its second weekend, the film had earned $27.7 million, making it the fourth-highest December weekend gross, after Scream 2s opening weekend gross and Titanic''s opening weekend and second weekend grosses respectively. By New Year's Day, it had made more than $200million in the U.S. alone, and it eventually became 1999's third highest-grossing film after The Phantom Menace and The Sixth Sense, Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 47.8million tickets in the United States and Canada. The film set a three-day weekend record in the United Kingdom, grossing £7.7 million and beating The Phantom Menace. In 2001, that record would be surpassed by ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It spent seven weeks there at number one. In Japan, Toy Story 2'' earned $3.8 million in its opening weekend to not only become the country's highest-grossing American animated film, but also the second largest opening weekend in the territory, behind Armageddon. Around this time, the film surpassed Twister to become the seventeenth-highest domestic grosser. Following in biggest grosses are Italy ($6.9million), France and the Maghreb region ($24.7million), Germany ($12.9million), and Spain ($11.7million). Reviewers judged Toy Story 2 as a sequel that equaled or even surpassed the original in terms of quality. The Hollywood Reporter proclaimed: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "The rare sequel that arguably improves on its predecessor, Toy Story 2 uses inventive storytelling, gorgeous animation, and a talented cast to deliver another rich moviegoing experience for all ages." As of March 2024, it is the highest rated animated film on the site and the second best rated film overall, after Leave No Trace. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 88 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". CinemaScore reported that audiences had given the film a rare grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, making it the first ever computer-animated film to receive this grade. wrote a letter to Lasseter after seeing the film, heavily praising it. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four and said in his print review "I forgot something about toys a long time ago, and Toy Story 2 reminded me". Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said "Toy Story 2 may not have the most original title, but everything else about it is, well, mint in the box". Todd McCarthy of Variety said "In the realm of sequels, Toy Story 2 is to Toy Story what The Empire Strikes Back was to its predecessor, a richer, more satisfying film in every respect". Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly said "It's a great, IQ-flattering entertainment both wonderful and wise". Upon seeing the film, animator Chuck Jones (director of the Looney Tunes shorts) wrote a letter to Lasseter, calling the film "wonderful" and "beautifully animated", and telling Lasseter he was "advancing the cause of classic animation in a new and effective way." Lasseter, a personal admirer of Jones, has the letter framed in his house. Accolades Toy Story 2 received several recognitions, including seven Annie Awards, but none of them were previous nominations. The first went to Pixar for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Theatrical Feature. The Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production award was given to John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. Randy Newman won an Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature Production. Joan Cusack won the Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Feature Production, while Tim Allen for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Male Performer in an animated feature Production. The last Annie was received by John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Ash Brannon, Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlin and Chris Webb for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production. • 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: • "When She Loved Me" – Nominated • 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10: • Nominated Animated Film == Video game ==

Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue, a video game for the PC, PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast, was released in November 1999. The game featured original cast voices and clips from the film as introductions to levels. Once earned, these clips could be viewed at the player's discretion. Another game was released for the Game Boy Color. == Sequel ==

The sequel, titled Toy Story 3, was released on June 18, 2010. In the film, Andy's toys are accidentally donated to a day-care center as he prepares to leave for college. == See also ==