The film was directed by John Lasseter, written by Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow based on a story by Lasseter, Stanton, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft, produced by Bonnie Arnold and Ralph Guggenheim, and features the voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, John Ratzenberger, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, and Jim Varney.

Potato Head, Slinky Dog, Rex the tyrannosaur, Hamm the piggy bank, and Bo Peep the porcelain doll — become concerned that Andy might receive something that will replace them.

Buzz opens his wings to sever the tape just before the rocket explodes; he and Woody glide through the sunroof of Mrs. Davis' car, landing safely inside.

Catmull and fellow Pixar co-founder Alvy Ray Smith had long wanted to produce a computer-animated feature, but only by the early 1990s were the computers cheap and powerful enough to make this possible.

[22] The story department drew inspiration from films such as Midnight Run and The Odd Couple,[26] and Lasseter screened Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky for further influence.

[28] Whedon also re-visioned Buzz Lightyear from being a dim-witted but cheerful and self-aware character to an action figure who isn't aware that he's a toy—an epiphany that transformed the film.

In addition to Crystal, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Jim Carrey, along with a number of other actors, including Jason Alexander, Dan Aykroyd, Matthew Broderick, Kevin Costner, Michael J.

Fox, Richard Gere, David Hasselhoff, Michael Keaton, Wayne Knight, Bill Paxton, Dennis Quaid, Kurt Russell, Adam Sandler and John Travolta, were also considered for the role of Buzz.

[43][44] Before Wallace Shawn and Jim Varney were cast as Rex and Slinky Dog, Rick Moranis and John Cleese were originally considered for the roles.

[47] Although Lasseter attempted to keep morale high by remaining outwardly buoyant, the production shutdown was "a very scary time" according to story department manager BZ Petroff.

[50][20] Stanton and the other story artists worked to quickly produce new script pages, with help from consultants such as Whedon, and the first revisions were completed in two weeks as promised.

However, the $17 million production budget was no longer going to be sufficient, and Jobs requested more funds from Disney to compensate them for the time lost in rewrites based on Katzenberg's notes.

Lasseter wanted to impress Disney with several things in the test that could not be done in traditional, hand-drawn animation, such as Woody's yellow plaid shirt with red stripes, the reflections in Buzz's helmet and the decals on his spacesuit, or Venetian blind shadows falling across Andy's room.

[61] The film's editors, including Lee Unkrich, worked on Toy Story up until the September 1995 deadline to deliver a final cut for scoring and sound design.

The torture scene was removed because the crew felt that the audience would be so invested in Buzz and Woody's characters by that point that they would be uncomfortable watching them being subjected to such violence.

[62] Another scene, in which Woody tries to get Buzz's attention when he was stuck in the box crate while insincerely apologizing for accidentally getting him knocking out of the window, was shortened because the creators felt it would lose the energy of the film.

[62] A test screening in July 1995 received encouraging responses from the audience, but the film was not rated as highly as had been hoped, leading to another last-minute round of edits.

[60] Schneider had grown optimistic about the film as it neared completion, and he announced a United States release date of November, coinciding with Thanksgiving weekend and the start of the winter holiday season.

[63] Sources indicate that Jobs lacked confidence in the film during its production, and had been exploring the possibility of selling Pixar to companies such as Hallmark Cards and Microsoft.

In addition to showing at the El Capitan, where tickets included admission to the Totally Toy Story funhouse that Disney had built in the Hollywood Masonic Temple next door,[65] the film opened on 2,281 screens on the 22nd and later expanded to 2,574.

[63] When the Thanksgiving release date was announced in January 1995, many toy companies were accustomed to having eighteen months to two years of lead time and passed on the project.

[83] Toy Story was released by Walt Disney Home Video on VHS and LaserDisc in the United States and Canada on October 29, 1996,[84] with no bonus material.

[91] On September 6, 2005, a 2-disc "10th Anniversary Edition" was released featuring much of the bonus material from the "Ultimate Toy Box", including a retrospective special with John Lasseter and a brand new DTS sound mix.

Before the film's release, executive producer and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs stated "If Toy Story is a modest hit—say $75 million at the box office, we'll [Pixar and Disney] both break even.

Its critical consensus reads, "Entertaining as it is innovative, Toy Story reinvigorated animation while heralding the arrival of Pixar as a family-friendly force to be reckoned with.

Leonard Klady of Variety commended its "razzle-dazzle technique and unusual look" and said that "the camera loops and zooms in a dizzying fashion that fairly takes one's breath away.

[111] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times stated that "Starting with Tom Hanks, who brings an invaluable heft and believability to Woody, Toy Story is one of the best voiced animated features in memory, with all the actors ... making their presences strongly felt.

John Lasseter received a Special Achievement Academy Award in 1996 "for the development and inspired application of techniques that have made possible the first feature-length computer-animated film".

In 2005, Toy Story was selected by the United States Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The action figure was used for experiments in zero-g.[142] It was reported in 2008 that a father and son had continually repeated the phrase to help them keep track of each other while treading water for 15 hours in the Atlantic Ocean.