Tin Toy

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Tin Toy is a 1988 Pixar Animation Studios short film using computer animation. It was directed by John Lasseter and won the 1989 Academy Award for Animated Short Film.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Tin Toy, Tinny, seeing Billy for the first time.

The film takes place in one room and stars the toy of the title, a one-foot high mechanical one-man band named Tinny, and a baby named Billy—the first time a realistic human character had been attempted in a computer-animated film.

At first the toy is delighted at the prospect of being played with by Billy, until he sees how destructive he can be. Fleeing beneath the couch, he discovers dozens of other toys who are too terrified to come out. But then Billy falls over and starts crying, and Tinny decides he has to help no matter what. His antics succeed in cheering Billy up, to the point where Billy picks him up and shakes him violently before throwing him away. Once the toy has recovered from this ordeal he is annoyed to see that Billy has forgotten about him and is now playing with the cardboard box he came out of.

[edit] Trivia

The theme song from Captain Kangaroo as well as The Price Is Right are heard on a television in the background.
In 2003, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Initial drafts of Toy Story had cast Tinny of this short in the lead, and was considerably more of a road movie, as Tinny endeavored to find a place to call home. After a cowboy-themed ventriloquist's dummy was inserted into the story (the forebear for Woody) and began taking more focus in the plot, Tinny's role morphed into that of Buzz Lightyear.
Although this short is seen in the Gold Collection and Toy Box editions of Toy Story, it is not included in the theatrical and standard releases of the film.