The film was directed by John Lasseter, co-directed by Ash Brannon and Lee Unkrich, and produced by Helene Plotkin and Karen Robert Jackson, from a screenplay written by Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlin, and Chris Webb, and a story conceived by Lasseter, Stanton, Brannon, and Pete Docter.

Although most Pixar features take years to develop, the established release date could not be moved and the production schedule for Toy Story 2 was compressed into nine months.

Utility Belt Buzz later meets Andy's other toys and, assuming they are on a mission to defeat his arch-nemesis Emperor Zurg, accompanies them to Al's apartment.

While a hesitant Jessie and an enthusiastic Bullseye accept Woody's offer, Pete refuses and blocks the others from leaving; having never been played with, he is adamant about going to the museum.

[11] A few days after Toy Story's release, John Lasseter was traveling with his family and found a young boy clutching a Sheriff Woody doll at an airport.

The memory was a defining factor in the production of Toy Story 2, with Lasseter moved to create a great film for that child and for everyone else who loved the characters.

[12] Ed Catmull, Lasseter, and Ralph Guggenheim visited Joe Roth, successor to recently ousted Jeffrey Katzenberg as chairman of Walt Disney Studios, shortly afterward.

[16] The concept of Woody as a collectible set came from the draft story of A Tin Toy Christmas, an original half-hour special pitched by Pixar to Disney in 1990.

[15] Secondary characters in Woody's set were inspired by 1940s–1950s Western and puppet shows for children, such as Four Feather Falls, Hopalong Cassidy and Howdy Doody.

[16][17] The development of Jessie was kindled by Lasseter's wife Nancy, who pressed him to include a strong female character in the sequel, one with more substance than Bo Peep.

With the scheduled delivery date less than a year away, Lasseter called Stanton, Docter, Joe Ranft, and some Disney story people to his house for a weekend.

[6] Back at the office that Monday, Lasseter assembled the company in a screening room and pitched the revised version of Toy Story 2 from exposition to resolution.

[18] As the story approached the production stage in early 1997, it was unclear whether Pixar would produce the film, as the entire team of 300 was busy working on A Bug's Life for a 1998 release.

Steve Jobs made the decision to shut down the computer games operation and the staff became the initial core of the Toy Story 2 production team.

[14] Before the switch from direct-to-video to feature film, the Toy Story 2 crew had been on its own, placed in a new building that was well-separated from the rest of the company by railroad tracks.

[12] In making the sequel, the team at Pixar did not want to stray too far from the first film's look, but the company had developed a lot of new software since the first feature had been completed.

[24] The work done on the film to date was nearly lost in 1998 when one of the animators, while routinely clearing some files, accidentally entered the deletion command code /bin/rm -r -f * on the root folder of the Toy Story 2 assets on Pixar's internal servers.

Lasseter agreed, recruiting the first film's creative team, including Stanton and Docter, to redevelop the story and taking over as director from Brannon, who would remain on the project as co-director alongside Lee Unkrich, who was also fresh from A Bug's Life, having served as supervising editor.

[6] Brannon focused on development, story and animation, Lasseter was in charge of art, modeling and lighting, and Unkrich oversaw editorial, cinematography, and layout.

[22] In one instance, an animator had forgotten to drop his child off at daycare one morning and, in a mental haze, forgot the baby in the back seat of his car in the parking lot.

"Although quick action by rescue workers headed off the worst, the incident became a horrible indicator that some on the crew were working too hard," wrote David Price in his 2008 book The Pixar Touch.

[31] The film held its official premiere the next day at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles – the same venue as Toy Story – and was released across the United States on November 24, 1999.

[47] Translating the films into 3-D involved revisiting the original computer data and virtually placing a second camera into each scene, creating left-eye and right-eye views needed to achieve the perception of depth.

The scene in question, which featured the use of the word "fuck" multiple times, prompted a number of complaints from consumers, causing Costco to eventually recall the defective units from shelves and later go on to replace them.

[66][67] Media outlets inferred the outtake to be a reference to the casting couch practice and attributed the change to being a result of the Me Too movement, which included director John Lasseter stepping down from Pixar the previous year following allegations of sexual misconduct towards employees at the studio.

[65] Kelsey Grammer, voice of Stinky Pete, later explained his and Lasseter's intention behind the outtake, that being "[...] the Barbies might be in his trailer, talking about how he’d like to get them some work, but he’s actually trying to hit on them.

[72] On its third day of release, the film made $22.6 million, becoming the highest Friday gross at that time, beating The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

The site's critical consensus reads, "The rare sequel that arguably improves on its predecessor, Toy Story 2 uses inventive storytelling, gorgeous animation, and a talented cast to deliver another rich moviegoing experience for all ages.

The Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production award was given to John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon.

The last Annie was received by John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Ash Brannon, Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlin and Chris Webb for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production.