Part One, in case you missed it.
Woody’s nightmare is a different sort of scene than the video game opening. It isn’t intended as a fake-out. We may initially buy into it, believe Andy is really back early from cowboy camp, and possibly miss the clue of the characters playing with a deck of cards where every card is the ace of spades. But once Andy drops Woody, we know that this isn’t happening and is more than likely a dream. It’s not even just that we know Andy isn’t going to throw Woody away anytime soon; it’s Andy’s blank expression and stiff movements as he holds his arm perpendicular to his body and delivers the line “I don’t want to play with you anymore” in an emotionless monotone. If you haven’t recognize this as a dream sequence by the time Woody falls through the cards into a garbage can lit by a spade-shaped spotlight full of detached arms, you really need to see more movies.
Woody wakes up from his nightmare on the shelf where Andy’s mom left him and discovers he isn’t alone. Here comes new character number five – or six, depending on whether you count he video game as the introduction of deluded Buzz – Wheezy the penguin. Yes, that is a lot of new characters, especially when we’re less than fifteen minutes into the movie and we haven’t even met the toys with whom Woody spends most of the film. But Wheezy is kind of different. Mrs. Potato Head and Buster, fun as they may be, are mainly there to deliver on promises made in the first movie. They do both have roles in the story, but they might not have been there if they hadn’t been verbally introduced as Christmas presents in Toy Story. Zurg and Al (and deluded Buzz) are all very important and mostly new characters, but they won’t really enter the story for a little while yet. Wheezy doesn’t fall into either category. We’ve never seen or even heard of him before and his role in the story will become apparent as soon as we meet him.
What is Wheezy’s purpose to the plot? To make the idea of broken toys and what happens to them less abstract and more concrete. Woody may be suddenly feeling his age and fearing that Andy is done with him, but the audience is not nearly so worried. Ripped though he may be, Woody is still one of Andy’s favorite toys. Even Andy’s mom, who has less of a direct emotional attachment to Woody, is on board with the idea of fixing him. Woody may have missed cowboy camp, but he will almost certainly be fixed and played with again. If we’re going to believe that this is a world where toys really can be sold, given away, or thrown out, we need to see it happen. Enter Wheezy, an asthmatic toy penguin with a broken squeaker. Since we’ve never met Wheezy before, it’s up to Woody to tell us that Wheezy used to be a beloved toy and that Andy was truly upset when his squeaker broke. But months have passed, Andy’s mom has simply left Wheezy on the shelf instead of getting him fixed as she said she would, and we have no indication that Andy has really missed Wheezy. And in case anyone was wondering why the other toys didn’t come to Wheezy’s aid, Wheezy explains how his broken squeaker and dust-aggravated asthma combine to muffle his cries for help. Wheezy is simultaneously sympathetic and unwantable. Even as we want to pick up the poor little bow-tied penguin and give him a hug, we understand why a broken squeaky toy with chipped paint would think himself a good candidate for the yard sale, which it turns out he is.
The problem Woody faces now is the fear that he will be discarded. His current understanding is that toys are discarded because they’re broken, like Wheezy. So if he can rescue Wheezy and possibly get his squeaker fixed, Wheezy won’t be sold and Andy will play with him again. Woody goes out into the yard to rescue Wheezy not only out of sincere concern for the little penguin, but also because he sees his own future in Wheezy’s plight and hopes that by saving Wheezy, he can keep himself from eventually ending up in a twenty-five cent box.
This is Buster’s big scene. The “keep it casual” bit is another great example of how Buster walks the line between real dog and cartoon canine. He still isn’t doing anything a real dog couldn’t physically do, but he’s smart enough to understand Woody’s request and comply a little too much. Had Buster not made it into the final script, Woody probably could have snuck out to the yard sale on his own. But it would have been a little more difficult to get Wheezy back inside and leave Woody stranded at the yard sale.
And Al reappears, though initially, we only see his chest and arms as he examines Woody. We might recognize Al or his voice, even though we only saw him in a brief commercial where he was wearing a giant chicken suit. The clues to his identity – feathers and the license plate “LZTYBRN” – are not that hard to figure out. But it is conceivable that the toys would not recognize someone who they only know from a local TV commercial. Al desperately wants to own Woody and is willing to pay as much as fifty dollars for him, though we don’t know why yet. In a reversal of the earlier part of the film where Bo Peep tells Woody that Andy won’t care if Woody is missing his hat but the rip in his shoulder gets him shelved, Al sees the rip as a minor flaw that can be fixed, but really gets excited when he discovers that Woody still has his original hat. Al is clearly a devious guy from the start. He grabs a couple of random items to try to conceal Woody from Andy’s mom. So it comes as little surprise when he distracts her, breaks into her cash box, and steals Woody.
Andy’s mother describes Woody as “an old family toy” when explaining why she won’t sell him. It’s one of the only clues to the lingering question I have about the story, but we’ll get to that later.
When Al makes off with Woody, Buzz springs into action. We’ve already seen him rush to Woody’s aid when Woody fell out of the dresser earlier. But Buzz is no less ready to take action when the stakes are higher. He isn’t able to rescue Woody, but his tireless efforts to find the friend who taught him what being a toy is all about will continue for the rest of the film.
As Al takes his ill-gotten toy back to his apartment, the other toys review what they know and Buzz figures out the kidnapper’s identity. These scenes mostly move the story along while providing a couple of little fun bits for the characters. What I find most interesting is the portrayal of Mr. Spell, who Buzz uses to figure out that “LZTYBRN” stands for “Al’s Toy Barn.” While he was never a prominent character, Mr. Spell was clearly one of the living toys in the first Toy Story. His biggest moment was accepting Woody’s thanks for organizing “Plastic Corrosion Awareness Day.” Here, unless you catch him moving ever so slightly on his own to show the time it took Buster to sniff out Woody in the hide and seek game or notice Woody’s line where he mentions Mr. Spell’s upcoming seminar on “what to do if you or a part of you is swallowed,” you might think he had all the life and personality of a tinkertoy, a ball, or Woody’s hat. With so many new characters to deal with, Toy Story 2 demotes some of the secondary characters from the previous film to almost the role of extras. R.C. the remote controlled car is only glimpsed briefly in a few scenes, the army men show up at least twice with no missions as big as the one they undertook in the first movie, and has anyone seen Hockey Puck?
Once the toys realize that Al is the kidnapper, we return to Al, who is just about to leave to film a new commercial. Before he goes, he gives us a new clue to the mystery of why he stole Woody. Al believes that Woody is somehow going to make him a lot of money. Al drives to work, which is revealed to be just across the street. This both shows that Al is lazy as well as devious – he also insists on shooting the commercial in just one take – and set up the short distance between Al’s home and job, which will become important later on.
Al’s car, his vintage TV, and some of the furnishings in his home indicate that he is a fan of all things 1950s. But his plan for his big collection – which will be revealed shortly – is to sell the whole thing. Perhaps Al really did care about the stuff he was collecting at one time, but somewhere along the way, the money he could get for it outweighed any joy he got from owning these pieces of the past.
I think this shot sums up the scene after Al leaves pretty nicely. Woody is stuck in a place where all of the other toys are, as far as he can tell, crazy people. There’s a horse who races around the room with Woody on his back, a cowgirl who is going a mile a minute with full volume excitement, and an old guy who seems perfectly reasonable except for the fact that he’s in a box. Also, take a look at the lighting and color scheme of the room. The shades are all drawn, so while it isn’t overly dark, there’s a lot of shadow. The walls, carpet, and ceiling are all blue, adding to the coldness of the environment. Yes, Andy’s walls are mostly blue, but they’re a bright, sunny sky blue and covered with stars, crayon drawings, and a giant Mickey Mouse watch. Al’s apartment reads as a cold, sterile, unwelcoming place that couldn’t be further from Woody home back in Andy’s cheery, sunlit room.
And then. everything changes as Woody’s heritage is revealed to him. By having Bullseye the horse turn on the lights that spotlight Al’s collection, the room grows more inviting. All of the Woody themed merchandise is bathed in a golden glow that pops out from the cool blue background and evokes a feeling of warmth and nostalgia. The whole concept of Woody discovering his own history is a nice reversal of the plot of Toy Story. Buzz was a toy who was completely immersed in his backstory and didn’t realize that he was a toy. Now we have Woody, who has been aware that he is a toy for as long as we’ve known him, but never knew his own backstory.
This whole article could easily become about the great voice acting in this movie. But because I want to keep my focus broad, I’ll just point out Tom Hanks’s wonderfully quiet and understated “Holy cow” as Woody looks down at several magazines featuring him on the cover. It conveys just the right amount of amazement, without going even an iota over. And the animation is equally perfect: the slight tilt of Woody’s head and his hand resting on his cheek. Ideally, this is how voice and animation should work together, each playing off of the other and combining to create a moment that just feels so real and so right.
Finally, we and Woody are shown the inspiration for all of this Woody themed merchandise – including Woody and the other toys – the classic TV show “Woody’s Roundup.” The shows is modeled after Howdy Doody and similar children’s shows and features Woody and his “Roundup Gang” as marionettes. Great pains are taken to ensure that the show looks suitably dated and hand produced. The “puppets” flop around awkwardly, the backgrounds are merely cloth backdrops and cardboard cutouts, strings are always visible, and the whole thing is filmed in grainy black and white. This also serves as our formal introduction to the three new characters. The excitable cowgirl is introduced by the show’s theme song as “Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl.” The horse is Woody’s trusty steed Bullseye. As his puppet counterpart appears onscreen, Bullseye lowers his head and kicks out one of his front feet in a charmingly cute “aw shucks” pose. The old fellow is “Pete the old prospector,” though his box identifies him as “Stinky Pete the Prospector” and the toys mostly just call him “Prospector.” Of all the “Woody’s Roundup” characters, the Prospector is the only one whose onscreen personality differs significantly from that of the toy. While the puppet Pete bumbles around onscreen with his pickaxe stuck in his backside, the erudite toy Prospector puts a hand to his forehead and shakes his head in embarrassment at his counterpart’s antics. It one of a number of qualities that sets him apart from the other toys, the most obvious being that he is in a box, and sets us up for the eventual reveal of his true character.
The whole “Woody’s Roundup” concept raises one of the few questions I have that is never answered by the movie: How did Andy – whose Super Nintendo and general surroundings identify him as a child of the 1990s – end up with a rare Sheriff Woody doll based on a character from a 1950s TV show? It’s possible that Woody remained unsold on some toy store shelf for years, somehow avoiding simply being thrown out and finally was bought for Andy at some point, narrowly avoiding a fate like the one that befell the Prospector. But remember, Andy’s mom called Woody “an old family toy.” I doubt she would use that particular phrase if Woody was merely her son’s longtime favorite toy. The most popular theory seems to be that Woody once belonged to Andy’s absent father, though I don’t know whether Pixar or Disney have ever confirmed this rumor. But if Woody is a hand-me-down toy, why doesn’t he remember the person who owned him before Andy? If Woody had been through the experience of being loved by a child who grew up before, then he would already know the facts he learns in Toy Story 2. One potentially troubling explanation is that toys automatically forget about their previous owners once a new child receives then and loves them. But the ending of the film seems to negate that possibility. If you have any theories that satisfy all of my questions, I’d love to hear them.
In addition to giving these new characters a connection to Woody, the reveal of the TV show and supporting merchandise gives Woody a reason to stick around Al’s apartment. Escape wouldn’t be easy; before the other toys made their appearance, we saw Woody struggling to reach the door handle and remove the grate to the ventilation system with just one working arm. But right now, Woody’s main goal is still to get back home to Andy. Just as Toy Story needed a reason for Woody to stick with Buzz at a time when he wished he had never met the other toy, Toy Story 2 has to keep finding reasons why Woody doesn’t spend of his time trying to get back home to Andy. His first reason is his fascination with “Woody’s Roundup.” After all, Andy won’t be home for a few days anyway, so what’s the harm in Woody taking a little time to check out all this cool stuff with his face on it?
While Woody gets to know the Roundup Gang and discovers his own history, Andy’s toys are getting a rescue mission underway. The Al’s Toy Barn commercial serves another purpose aside from giving viewers a preview of Al by providing the toys with a map to the toy store, where Buzz believes they will find both Al and Woody. Sending a small team of toys to find Woody allows the movie to keep its focus narrow. For the rest of the movie, we’ll be going back and forth between Woody and the Roundup Gang at Al’s apartment and Buzz’s team trying to rescue Woody. Bo Peep, Mr. Spell, RC, and all the new characters who live at Andy’s house will be out of the picture until the very end so we’ll have plenty of time to focus on our two main groups.
“Team Buzz” consists of Buzz, Slinky, Rex, Hamm, and Mr. Potato Head, all characters we know from the previous movie. Except for Buzz, none of these toys have ever been on a real adventure. They spent all of Toy Story safe in Andy’s room or on the moving truck. Rex in particular views the experience mainly through the prism of the video games he’s been playing, particularly the Buzz Lightyear game. It’s up to Buzz to keep his team on task and keep them motivated over the long journey. He mainly inspires them through his admiration for Woody, who regards as not just a friend, but a great toy who once saved Buzz’s life. He’s also not above playing on their guilt a little by pointing out that the other toys did throw Woody out of the moving van.
Back at Al’s apartment, Woody continues to marvel over Al’s collection of “Woody’s Roundup” memorabilia and the show that all of it is based on. Woody was actually the Buzz Lightyear of his day. Where Buzz is now on bedsheets and stars in his own video game, Woody was on a yo-yo, a lunchbox, and some spoons that closely resemble the Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound spoons my dad and uncle had as kids. So if “Woody’s Roundup” was once so popular, why has Woody never heard of it through Andy or anyone else until now? As it turns out, Woody was replaced by the actual Buzz Lightyears of his day. As astronauts started going into space and kids caught space mania, they left the wild west behind for toys that could take them to the stars. Woody, of course, can relate. It’s still clear that the wounds from his old rivalry with Buzz have healed and Woody is soon back to playing with the various toys bearing his image. But he hasn’t forgotten how it felt to think Buzz would replace him in Andy’s life.
Now comes the big reveal, one that will snap Woody back to his original goal. Why does Al think Woody can make him rich? Because Al plans to sell his whole Woody’s Roundup collection to a toy museum. Up to this point, Woody’s stay at Al’s apartment has mostly been a fun vacation. Sure he didn’t want to be stolen by Al. But now that he’s here, he’s met some new friends, watched a show about himself, and played with some cool Woody toys. He still wants to get back to Andy, but Andy is away at cowboy camp. Since Woody didn’t get to go with Andy like he wanted to, what’s the harm in having his own vacation and going home later? The reveal of the toy museum change all of this. If Woody doesn’t leave, Al will sell him to a toy museum in Japan, giving him no chance of ever getting back to Andy. This starts the conflict between Woody and the Roundup Gang, particularly Jessie. Moments ago, she was nothing but thrilled to have Woody there. But once he makes it clear that he still has an owner and fully intends to return home, she turns on Woody, snapping at him and making sarcastic comments about Woody’s damaged arm and Andy having caused it. She and the other toys have been kept in storage awaiting Woody’s arrival, since the museum is only interested in a complete set. Her fear of going back into the darkness, possibly forever, causes her to turn on Woody and Jessie never shows any emotion at less than full intensity. She’s now as angry and bitter as she was sunny and enthusiastic before.
The other toys need Woody in order to get to the museum and avoid returning to storage. Woody wants no part of it and Jessie’s attitude is only making him more eager to leave. All he wants right now is to get back home to Andy. So why doesn’t he?
To be continued….
Bonus: As the toys are trying to find the commercial for Al’s Toy Barn, Hamm flips through the channels at lightning speed. Di you eve wonder what was on all of those other channels? Why, previous Pixar projects, of course!
Several of the split second clips are from Pixar shorts, like Luxo Jr.:
and Tin Toy:
But what’s really fun to see are a couple of Pixar’s old commercials. Like this Listerene commercial where the bottle of mouthwash plays Robin Hood:
Or one of their juice box recycling ads:
There are a couple of others that I didn’t mention. Next time you’re watching the movie, trying going through this scene frame by frame and see what you recognize.
All images in this article are copyright Disney/Pixar.
Tags: computer animation, disney, pixar
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