Small Fry: Exclusive Look at the Toy Story Short - IGN (original) (raw)

When it comes to great pop culture characters, an embarrassment of riches awaits those who go to see The Muppets this week. Not only will you get to see the return of Jim Henson's beloved characters, but also a new Toy Story short, Small Fry accompanies The Muppets, giving fans another chance to see what Woody, Buzz and the gang are up to now.
Small Fry is directed by Angus MacLane, a longtime Pixar animator who has worked on nearly every single one of their feature films since A Bug's Life and made his directorial debut with BURN-E, a short on the WALL-E DVD. When I spoke to MacLane about Small Fry, he told me that when it came to dealing with characters as iconic as the Toy Story gang, "The biggest stress is trying to make a story that lives up to the series… something new and different, but also something that doesn't let down the fans or the people that like the movies. And I like the movies and feel a tremendous responsibility to make [Small Fry] worthy to match with the trilogy."

In Small Fry, Buzz is accidentally left behind by Bonnie at a fast food restaurant, only to discover a support group made up of the small and often cheaply made toys that accompany fast food meals. In the meantime, the fast food toy version of Buzz has inadvertently been brought back home to Bonnie's and the baffled toys in her room. Recalled MacLane, "The idea of doing some sort of support group-y thing was something I'd wanted to do. And we were brainstorming different ideas and I did a drawing of a big Buzz Lightyear holding a small one, and John [Lasseter] really responded to that one, and said, 'Develop that one a little bit.' I was able to weave in the support group story."

For MacLane, getting to tackle the fast food toy idea was an exciting one and when I told him I had collected my fair share of such toys, he remarked, "I love those toys very much. I'm sure as a fan, you can recognize a lot of the references in some of them. They're extremely specific. For me, the story is that they're not loved, but they're really cool toys. I always felt like the Happy Meal toys, they were limited in the sense that they only did like one or two things, but they're usually pretty cool. I just tried to emulate that idea, making every single character be something that was funny, but also felt like it was true. Even though it didn't exist, it could exist."

Click for a hi-res version of this exclusive new photo from Small Fry.

MacLane noted they had ideas for far too many fast food toys to actually make it into the short and that one common thread that they used for many of them was the random amalgamation of two ideas – such as Super Pirate. One other character MacLane lobbied hard for and succeeded in getting into Small Fry was Condorman, based on a mostly-forgotten 1981 Disney film MacLane enjoys. Said MacLane, "For Condorman, I just wanted to find a way to get Condorman back into the public consciousness… It was kind of like, 'Can we do this?' And they were like, 'Yeah, we can do that.'"

The leader of the support group is Neptuna, a warrior mermaid toy voiced by Glee's Jane Lynch. Discussing that character, MacLane noted, "I had pitched this idea for this character for Toy Story 3, actually. 'Oh, what if we did like a kind of battle mermaid,' and it just never ended up making it into the movie for time reasons. Of course, I was like, 'Oh, this would be cool,' but I was just an animator in the movie, and it was kind of late in the process to introduce those ideas. Then, pretty much as soon as I had the context for what she was doing in the film, I knew I wanted her to be kind of tough and kind of a battle/superhero kind of character. But once there was the idea of having a support group, she was this leader who was kind of patronizing -- but we still wanted her to be appealing. She's not nasty, she's just narcissistic, but funny about it. Pretty much ever since Best in Show, I've been a big fan [of Jane Lynch's]. That was the first movie I really saw Jane Lynch in, and I'm so glad she's been so successful. Luckily, she wanted to do it. She was our first choice. It was so great to work with her. It was really an honor."

Click for a hi-res version of this exclusive new photo from Small Fry.

While the focus is on the support group in Small Fry, we also see Woody and company dealing with Mini Buzz back in Bonnie's room. Discussing Mini Buzz, who is not just shorter than Buzz Lightyear, but disproportionate, MacLane explained, "That happens a lot with fast food toy tie-ins. They'll just sort of get it wrong. They can't be the real size, so everything will be just a little bit off. So, just as it would be off in shape, that's why I chose a different voice with Teddy [Newton]. Teddy's a friend of mine. I think he's really, really funny. He's one of the funniest guys I know. So I just sort of figured let's get the funny guy to do this role. My direction was, 'He just wants what he can't have. He's kind of an opportunist. Just go.' And Teddy just picked it up right away."

As for whether we might see these fast food toy characters again, MacLane – who is now working on a "top secret" Pixar project he couldn't discuss -- brought up one of the Small Fry characters he has a soft spot for, exclaiming, "I hope that Disney makes a Ninja Clown TV show! What's great about it is if it's not good then it doesn't matter. It doesn't break the continuity of the short." MacLane added that, amusingly and awesomely, he created TV shows, movies or other properties as backstories for where each of those characters came from.

Said MacLane, "I think when they release the toys, it's going to talk about that a little bit. For example, Funky Monk is from a CGI 3D movie called Rappin' Robin in the Hood. It's this retelling of the Robin Hood fairytale, but from the streets. There's Rappin' Robin and his partner is DJ Little Juan, and they hang out with MC Maid Marian. Then there's Officer Nottingham who's always on their case. They're against Producer P-John and his autotune-type shenanigans. It's really just taking what is a very plausible, bad idea from popular culture, and you could see someone might do that. Now, if they end up making that, then that only helps the joke of the short, right? It's more like a dare. 'Oh, you're going to reboot Condorman?' It's all intentionally part of the dare, I guess. I hope somebody continues with the Super Pirate TV show!"