TOY STORY Consultant Shares His Version of Andy's Dad's Story and It's So Freakin' Sad!
There have been a lot of fan theories revolving around what happened to Andy's dad in Pixar's Toy Story. Either Andy’s parents were divorced, or his dad died. Well, a version of the story behind Andy's dad has been revealed by Toy Story consultant Mike Mozart. He says that Andy's dad died and the story behind his death is one of the saddest stories ever. Seriously, this story might just make you shed a tear.
Mozart helped his friend Joe Ranft, who was Pixar’s former head writer. Apparently, before Ranft passed away, he shared the story of Andy’s dad with Mozart, which he called Toy Story 0. You can watch him tell the story of Andy's dad in the video below, but I'll give you the basic rundown.
This is not an official story as it was debunked by Toy Story writer Andrew Stanton, who said, "Complete and utter fake news. Everyone go back to your homes. Nothing to see here, folks." Regardless of that, I still think it's a great story that I kind of want to believe is true. Stanton didn't offer any other version of Andy's dad's story anyway, so this is what we've got.
Any's father's name was also Andy, and Woody was originally his doll! Andy Sr. was the original owner and the name written on the bottom of Woody's boot was Andy's dad's. Woody was a one of a kind doll and Andy Sr. was the only kid in the world to have one because it was a prototype that was given away to one lucky kid from a cereal company. The Woody toy was never mass-produced because the show was canceled.
In 1959 Andy Sr. contracted polio and for his safety, all of his toys were burned and destroyed. That is except for Woody, Slinky, and Mr. Potato head. Those were all of Andy Sr.'s toys. After he found out his toys were going to be burned, young Andy Sr., who lost the use of his legs, crawled out of his bed to save those toys from being burned, and he ended up hiding them in a box.
Andy Sr. eventually recovered and lived long enough to get married and have Andy Jr., the character we all know from the Toy Story films. Unfortunately, Andy Sr. was stricken with Post-Polio Syndrome. To help out, the family moved into Andy's grandparent's house. So, many of those pictures we see of Andy were actually of Andy's dad when he was a kid. How can you tell? The kid in the pictures is wearing glasses.
This is where things get incredibly heavy. It's actually the saddest and most powerful story in the all of the Pixar films. This is the part that really got me because it's so damn heartbreaking.
Andy’s father has Andy brought over to his bedside. There he takes a key out of his wallet and gives the key to Andy Jr. and tells him to go bring down a chest from the attic. Andy Jr. goes up to the attic grabs the chest and brings it back downstairs only to find that his father had passed away.
It isn't until after the funeral of his dad that Andy opens the chest to find Woody, Slinky, and Mr. Potato. The toys wake up from their slumber at this moment and believe that Andy Jr. is actually Andy Sr. the boy the grew up with all of those years ago. They don't know their original owner had passed on. Andy Sr. lives on in his son.
How incredible is that! This explains several things that are in line with the continuity of the films. io9 brings up some of these things saying:
This explains several things from later on in the series: why Woody doesn’t remember he was part of Cowboy Crunchies’ Woody’s Roundup, since he was created right before the show was cancelled; why the handwriting on Buzz’s foot is different than Woody’s, because they were from two different people; why Al saw Woody as so valuable... since he was a one-of-a-kind toy (it does make you wonder what other Woody toys there were, though, since there were toys for Jesse, Stinkin’ Pete, and Bullseye).
I know it's a depressing story, but I love it and it would be amazing to see this story turned into a prequel film. I'd love to see that happen, but I doubt that it will because it's so heavy. What do you think about this version of the story behind Andy's dad?