033 Toy Story (1995)

Retro Grade Podcast

“THIS ISN’T FLYING, THIS IS FALLING WITH STYLE “

On this week’s episode of Retro Grade Podcast we talk about the beloved children’s animated film, Toy Story. Released in 1995, this is the first feature length film released by Pixar Studios, directed by John Lasseter. We revisit the classic film from most of our childhoods, we reminisce about all the toys we had from this film and our memories of watching each film in the franchise and how they impacted our lives. This week’s episode is organized in a much different way than it normally is, with us going into the production first and talking about the creation of Pixar the studio and the development struggles the animators went into making this film. We reference the documentary film The Pixar Story, and we use that to not only talk about the making of Toy Story, but also the film industry as a whole and how studio executives see the creative process, and how Hollywood has a tendency to romanticize long hours of labor and crunch an how we are still talking about this in our modern world.

We talk about what we each love about the story, and how the evolution of Woody came about, and how in earlier versions of the film, Woody was a truly horrible character past the point of redemption. We go into the dialogue, the jokes, the set up and payoff of multiple story elements, and all the themes that are present for children and adults to appreciate.

And lastly, we go over the serious allegations against people who worked on the film, including the director John Lasseter, screenwriter Joss Whedon, and early investor Steve Jobs, and how their images in the public eye have deteriorated since the release of the original film. So stay tuned, because this episode of Retro Grade Podcast just might change the way you see this classic film.

Music is from Triune Digital and audio clips pulled from movies we will be reviewing in other episodes.

Artwork by @jannelle_o