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1!Quick note: This page is meant for Headscratchers of the franchise as a whole. If you're wondering about a specific movie, see ''[[Headscratchers/ToyStory1 Toy Story 1]]'', ''Headscratchers/ToyStory2'', ''Headscratchers/ToyStory3'', and ''Headscratchers/ToyStory4''.
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3'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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14%% Try to avoid natter, going too off-topic, and/or first-person language. If a bullet has something you feel is incorrect, just fix it.
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21!! Why don't the toys reveal they're alive?
22* There's not really a point; all they want is to be played with, which isn't benefitted by a reveal. The toys are also aware that if they were to demonstrate their sentience, this could turn into a huge worldwide crisis, with toys everywhere in danger of being experimented on, imprisoned, or destroyed.
23** Why is the masquerade in the first place, then? The whole thing would just be seen as a normal facet of life.
24** There's a ''reason'' possessed toys are a staple of the horror genre. If Woody were to so much as ''twitch'' in front of Andy, or change his expression (say his mouth opens just enough to show a toothy grin), Andy would scream in blood-curdling horror and never play with Woody ever again. Woody doesn't want to risk scaring Andy or any other child if he can. He only did that to Sid because he was asking for it.
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27!! Why does Buzz follow the crowd if he isn't aware of the fact that he is a toy?
28* Because he mostly goes along with what the other toys do. He thinks they're an alien culture on an alien planet and is wisely following the adage "When in Rome, do as the Romans do".\
29According to one of the unpurchased Buzz Lightyear dolls in the second movie, Star Command has ordered all space rangers to wait in "hyper-sleep" (read: the Buzz Lightyear dolls sitting in their boxes without revealing their sentience). With that in mind, it's also possible Buzz is continuing to obey this rule from Star Command.
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31!!If toys can be alive, what about stuff like toy telephones? What differentiates them from a "grown-up" telephone?
32* Since a Little Bo Peep lamp figure can also be alive, don't see why not.
33* There is a living toy telephone in ''Toy Story 3''. Not sure about real "grown-up" telephones, though. Though that toy telephone had a face and grown-up telephones usually don't. But there are also toy telephones that don't have faces.
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36!! What constitutes a "toy"? In ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2'', Hamm states that "the lawn gnome from next door" is alive, so what other things can come alive? What if someone makes their own toy, will that come alive too?
37* Anything the kid considers a toy comes alive. We see this happen in the fourth movie, with Forky. Not sure what the limits of it are, even some normal toys aren't alive, but it does seem to work that way.
38** There's some NightmareFuel in this, given Forky is clearly tortured by his existential crisis of being half-garbage, half-toy. Every time a child churns out some half-hearted craft — a paper doll, a plasticine animal, a sock puppet, etc. does it live some brief, painful life before being thrown in the trash?
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41!! Why does Andy only write his name on some of his toys?
42* Buzz thinks that Andy writing his name on him meant his accepting him into their culture, which implies all of them got Andy's name written on them. The other toys were, however, impressed that Buzz got permanent ink; the others might have rubbed off. Either that, or he only puts his name on toys that he's likely to take out of the house. You wouldn't take your piggy bank to school to play with, it's not going to get lost, so why bother?
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44
45!! Why does the Woody doll have teeth if his "toy mode" doesn't have an open-mouth smile?
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47
48!! Is Play-Doh considered a toy, even though it doesn't have a "true" form? Furthermore, if it is, and it comes to life like any other toy, what happens if it dries out? What about the kids who ''eat'' their Play-Doh?
49* In the outtakes for ''Toy Story 2'', Mrs. Potato packed Play-Doh into Mr. Potato Head's compartment. It didn't ''seem'' to be alive. But then again, it was just a blob of Play-Doh and not a figure made of Play-Doh. So maybe Play-Doh can come to life if it is made into a figure.
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51
52!! How come in the movies, their eyes can come out individually while the ones in RealLife have their eyes attached together as one piece?
53* Potato Head had separate eyes from 1952 until around the 1980s, perhaps so kids wouldn't have missing Mr. Potato Head eyepieces or because of choking hazards.
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56!! Related to the above: How does Andy's Potato Head have arms that come off so easily when the RealLife ones don't?
57* When Mr. Potato Head was redesigned in the 80s, for a brief period, he ''did'' have bendable arms that were permanently attached to his potato body; it wasn't until the 90s or so that his arms became detachable. However, it does raise the question of how Andy has this odd Potato Head that has both features of old and new ones.
58* Ultimately it is down to RuleOfDrama and/or RuleOfCool; his arms are more flexible to facilitate plot drama and jokes. As such, Mr. Potato Head as he appears in these movies is supposed to be a generic representation of the toyline as a whole, not a specific make and model.
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61!! Woody's got a holster, which seems to imply he has a gun, but the collectors seem to think he's complete without one, implying he never had one in the first place.
62* He may have originally had one but lost it. For something that small it might be a common occurrence to the point that collectors thank their lucky stars they can even find a Woody doll in the first place.
63* Accessories for toys only really started being common when the increased use of plastics made toys overall cheaper to produce and manufacture on a large scale; Woody was before that age, so the makers might've deemed it too costly.
64* They needed a place to put the match for Woody to light the fuse of the Big One.
65* There is a gun in Woody’s Roundup memorabilia and has to be Woody’s. Bullseye is a horse, Jessie has no holster, and Stinky Pete was "mint in the box. Never been opened." But when Woody is in toy form, his hands aren’t in a clenched pose to put a gun in. Al also only cares about that Woody is missing his hat he doesn’t pay attention that his holster has no gun or cares about it.
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67
68!! Isn't the cowboy hat that Andy wears throughout childhood ''Jessie's'' hat?
69* A WMG is that Emily (Jessie's first owner) is Andy's mother. Emily had the hat, but it is not shown in the box of donations Jessie was in, and she was shown to be growing up in the 70s/80s.
70* Actually, if you pay attention, Andy's hat has a different shape than Emily's hat. Andy's hat is shaped more like Woody's hat even though it's the same color as Jessie's (minus the band). It's probably just a coincidence that it looks like Jessie's hat.
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72
73!! Why are the toys against moving in front of humans (sans Sid), while moving in front of an animal (e.g., Scud, Buster) is perfectly acceptable? The double standard here...
74* If humans knew toys were alive, they would probably try to experiment on them in some way, which probably would destroy the purpose of toys: as playthings for human children. Animals, on the other hand, don't really care; Scud and Buster are both perfectly happy playing with Woody and Buzz.
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76
77!! How does Buzz retract his wings? Andy can likely retract them by pressing down on them, but how does Buzz do it?
78* A shot in the 1 where Buzz "flies" to Andy's car and drops in through the sunroof shows they can retract on their own. Presumably, the same way toys can open and close their mouths or move their limbs without having physical mechanisms (or even joints) to do so.
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80
81!! Does Mr. Potato Head hate Woody or something similar? He always talks to him rudely, he is the only one who makes jokes about him when Buzz comes to Andy's bedroom, and he leads the anti-Woody ambush in the first movie.
82* Potato Head's pretty much shown as a bitter, pessimistic jerk who automatically thinks the worst of everyone, for the most part. He doesn't hate Woody per se, but it's implied he himself is jealous of Woody being the leader and not him, not to mention he seems to think Slinky is being a major kiss-up to Woody. [[note]] Mind, after Buzz's introductory spiel, MPH's reaction is an unimpressed "Oh really? Well, I'm from {{PlaySkool}}.", so he wasn't always on Buzz's side. [[/note]]
83** Plus, when Buzz mentioned him and the others kicking Woody out of the moving van, he did still feel some guilt about that "Oh, ya had to bring ''that'' up."
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87!! Do toys feel pain when they're not "alive"?
88* It's very likely they do, but their involuntary "stay still" instinct overrides any reactions to said pain. Woody very likely felt the pain of getting his forehead burned by sunlight focused through a magnifying glass, but couldn't show any reaction to it until Sid left the room.
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91!! WordOfGod states that toys, even ones who think they're "real" like Buzz, have an involuntary instinct to freeze up as toys when they're around humans. But it's also true that they can move and talk with humans if they so desire, namely when Woody is trying not to get his head blown up in 1. At what point does this survival desire override instinct?
92* Chances are, if Woody belonged to Sid and wasn't trying to get back to Andy he wouldn't say or do anything.
93** Not the case with those other toys that came to life in Sid's presence.
94* The only thing preventing them from coming to life for their own survival is the risk it would be either way. Sid may have had issues and needed serious therapy even BEFORE finding out the toys’ secret, but if he ever told anyone that toys come to life there's still the POSSIBILITY someone would believe him and try harder to get tabs on the toys. The reason Sid's toys did nothing to survive abuse is because technically a toys job is to help a kid have fun, even if Sid's means of fun are barbaric. Buzz on the other hand was a recent birthday present for someone else, so scaring Sid into sparing Buzz of aerial demolition was the final straw at this point.
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96
97!! Why does Buzz have a laser? Seems like it's asking for a lawsuit.
98* Most likely there's a warning of some kind on the box Buzz came in. As for lawsuits, quick Google says that most laser pointers don't exceed 5mW and don't transmit enough energy to damage anything before your blink reflex kicks in.
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100
101!! Where does Toys' sentience come from? For that matter, ''when'' do toys become alive/sentient?
102* ''4'' and the Toy Box world from ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' (which Pixar considers to be canonical to the films) indicate that sentience comes from belief whether something is a toy or not, mixed with the emotional connection between the toy and the owner.
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105!! Buzz's wings pop out with enough force to tear through duct tape (it was how he got off the rocket in time). Isn't that kind of unsafe for little children to play with? Plus, why didn't he do that earlier?
106* Buzz's wings were faster and more powerful than they would be normally because Buzz was in control and not Andy. It's like how Woody can move all of his fingers when he's talking to the other toys, but to Andy, all he'll ever have is a thumb and four closed-up fingers. To Andy, Buzz's wings will only ever be a light pop and fwoosh, while when Buzz needs them to tear duct tape, they will. Besides, maybe the duct tape was old and dilapidated.\
107When Sid attached the rocket to Buzz he was all depressed about being a "stupid, insignificant toy" and therefore had accepted his fate of being blown up. By the time Woody had convinced him otherwise, Sid had woken up and taken him outside for the "launch" and couldn't escape without being noticed.
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109
110!! Can battery-powered toys move on their own?
111* Depends on what exactly the batteries are powering. For example, Buzz's batteries mostly power his electronics, like his lights and his sound chip. For a toy like RC, batteries are much more vital, because they power his source of locomotion. If RC had no batteries, he'd still be "alive," but he would be incapable of moving under his own power, since his "engine" wouldn't have power, like a car with no gasoline.
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113
114!! How come humans apparently are loud enough that toys always get an advance warning they're coming?
115* Humans (even the children) are huge giants compared to the toys. Even if a human is walking and talking normally, it probably sounds extremely loud in the toys' ears. You would probably hear Godzilla's steps even if he was just going about his business.
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117
118!! Why do the toys never employ the strategy of "breaking the rules" and revealing their sentience to humans in the sequels?
119* Sid is just a child, so no one would believe him, and there's not much he can do about it. Most times the toys are alive around humans, there's a lot of them around, so keeping up the charade would be worth it.\
120There are other parts in the series where they take risks (such as in ''2'' where they cross a street, or in ''3'' where Woody writes to Andy to bring Bonnie), just none where they reveal themselves to people because there's a way around it. In other words, they ''have'' done things that at least severely ''risk'' revealing themselves.
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122
123!! Mr. Potato Head's eyebrows lack consistency. They are not shown to have any peg or hole to attach to, nor does there seem to be any piece to attach them to his eyes (like his nose and 'stache), yet they always separate from his eyes whenever he falls apart.
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125
126!! Who makes the rules that toys have to stay still? Is there an organization? A deity? There's no punishment for breaking them...
127* The toys becoming inanimate when humans are looking is an involuntary instinct. Obviously, a lot of social conditioning has been laid on top of it, like the way they always make sure to return to their prior position when someone walks in the room. And also, it seems like toys CAN resist this instinct, as seen at the end of the first film. But unless they make the effort, they'll go still automatically when a human shows up.
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129
130!! Why does Andy have a Bo Peep figure? All his other toys are traditional boy's toys or at most gender-neutral.
131* Bo isn't one of Andy's toys. She and her sheep are part of a lamp that belongs to Molly; Andy just uses her as a love interest for Woody to have to save.
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133
134!! What ''do'' toys do if they or a part of them is swallowed?
135* Honestly, if you weren't listening during Mr. Spell's seminar last week then that's your own fault, my dude.
136* If an entire sentient toy is swallowed they could probably attempt to trigger the human's gag reflex from the inside. If a part of a toy is swallowed, it'd probably depend on who swallowed it; as noted above the toys only freeze around humans, so if a dog swallowed Potato Head's ear Potato Head could probably try to get the dog to choke it back out; if it's a child the toy might just bend the rules and call for an adult's help.
137
138!! One thing that bugs me about Buzz Lightyear. When he first met Woody, he pointed his laser directly at him. At this point, he believed he was a real space ranger and that his laser could kill. He also pointed it toward Andy's other toys when they first met (and Rex hilariously even reacted as if it were real) and Buzz #2 did the same thing to Andy's toys in the sequel when he first saw them (and he also believed he was real). But in all those cases they didn't even know Woody or the other toys were threats. So Buzz is willing to kill any stranger at first sight (which is horrific if they just happened to be friendly people who wanted to meet him)? Or does Buzz think his laser only works sometimes? (Neither Andy's Buzz nor the Buzz from Al's Toy Barn from the second film seemed surprised when their laser ''didn't'' harm the characters they pointed it at.)
139* He probably thought his laser was set to "stun", at that point. Later on inside Sid's house, he specifically says "I've set my laser from stun, to kill.
140
141!!Talking toy animals
142Why are toy aliens, toy pigs, toy potatoes, toy t-rexes, toy triceratopses, toy hedgehogs, toy dogs, toy unicorns, toy sporks, toy knives, and toy peas all able to speak, but toy horses can't?
143* I think it really depends on the toy. Bullseye can't speak probably just because the character he was based on is a non-talking character. There may actually be other toy horses that ''can'' talk. Bullseye doesn't talk because he was never meant to talk, just like his character in ''Woody's Roundup''.
144* ''Toy Story 3'' director Lee Unkrich gave this the ShrugOfGod treatment by comparing Bullseye and Buttercup to Pluto and Goofy.
145
146!!Toy sharing voices with humans.
147The Woody from ''Woody's Roundup'' has the same voice as the toy Woody. However, Buzz Lightyear has a different voice in ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Lightyear}}''.
148* Simple answer: Woody was '''Show First, Toy Later''', deeply entrenching how his voice-actor voiced him as being his voice, whereas Buzz was '''Toy First, Show Later''' and hadn't had his toy voice as deeply entrenched yet when the show started.
149* WordOfGod is actually that the Buzz we know is from the toyline spawned by the cartoon, which in turn is a RecycledTheSeries of ''Lightyear''. In that case, it's more likely that the voice of Toy Buzz, which to us sounds like Tim Allen, actually belongs to a cheaper voice actor the toy company hired because of not wanting to pay the show's actor (who, given the timeframe, might legitimately be Patrick Warburton in-universe) or the movie's actor (who probably ''isn't'' Chris Evans in-universe because of the timeframe). It's not uncommon, plenty of talking Iron Man toys you can find at Target or Walmart or wherever will sound absolutely nothing like Robert Downey Jr., because obviously they aren't going to shell out for an A-list celebrity just for some soundbites. Heck, it's even true of this very franchise's toys: famously, all Woody toys are voiced by Tom Hanks's brother Jim, who doesn't do many acting roles outside of that (and Woody's videogame appearances), and Buzz has had a rotating selection of toy voices over the years that vary in how much they actually sound like Tim Allen. ''Sometimes'' notable voice actors will do toy roles like this (Creator/EricaLindbeck voiced Barbie for awhile), but most of the time toy companies just go for cheap nobodies, whether they're good soundalikes or not.
150
151!!Buzz can't fly because he's a toy... except, toys don't usually talk or use reason either. So how come some things are impossible and others aren't?
152* Buzz is a heavy plastic toy; his inability to fly was his lack of aerodynamics. Plus he has a soundchip that enables him to talk.
153
154!!How did Andy find out Jessie and Bullseye's names? He improvises the name "Bazooka Jane" for Jessie at the end of ''2'', but the flashback at the start of ''3'' shows he did learn their actual names despite presumably never finding out about the Woody's Round-up TV show.
155* Simple, he looked it up on the internet. And he probably DID find out about the show while reading up on the history. It’s also possible he pulled Jessie’s string and some of her voices were, ‘Hi, my name is Jessie!’ and ‘C’mon, Bullseye, let’s go see Sheriff Woody!’
156* But Andy also clearly knew Woody's name from the beginning. How would he have known ''his'' name if he didn't know about the show? Unless perhaps Woody had a pull-string quote like "Hi, I'm Sheriff Woody!" or his parents told him his name. Then again, even Woody himself didn't know about Woody's Roundup before Toy Story 2.
157
158!!Is Creator/JoeRanft's story of Woody [[WordOfGod true and ties into the main Toy Story canon]]? Creator/AndrewStanton debunks this story and the conclusion in [[https://youtu.be/Yp-4MeNQN-c?si=Frms0nTBHULRQj9H this video]] is "No." There's also [[https://youtu.be/gIeVYV1ofkM?si=Cr3ERFdudKBWHzdB this video from The Fangirl]].
159
160!!Whose idea was it to make an accessory for a baby's lamp out of porcelain?
161Porcelain is fragile, and also heavy enough to hurt a baby if it falls on one. Throughout WesternAnimation/LampLife, the mother of Bo's new household tries to keep the babies from playing with, pushing or dropping Bo and her sheep. Porcelain ornaments are nice, but they're for adults. Shouldn't a baby's lamp be made from either wood or plastic?

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