The Least Popular "Toy Story" Toy Ever Made

Its was 1995. While the world was reeling from lightning-fast 56k internet speed and the news of OJ Simpson's "innocence," millions of people were also reeling from a cinematic experience like no other.  Toy Story was the first entirely computer generated feature film ever made.  It was also the first feature length film made by Pixar.  Toy Story captivated the world.  As an art student, it certainly grabbed my attention.  This movie broke many boundaries.  One could easily write pages about the cultural significance of the movie, but this isn't a movie blog...it's a toy blog.

Toy Story changed the rules for merchandising as well.  When I saw the movie, I found my internal toy-collector voice saying: "How cool would it be to have a Buzz Lightyear just like the one in this movie?"  Well, it turned out that director John Lassiter had the same thought.  The story went that Mr. Lassiter first approached all the major toy manufacturers with the opportunity to create the Toy Story line.  One by one, they all rejected him.  Eventually, he approached a previously unknown company called Thinkway Toys who, luckily, hopped on board.  Due to the insistence (and persistence) of Mr. Lassiter, the original Buzz and Woodie toys were faithful loving replicas of what we all enjoyed on-screen.  Thinkway's gamble paid off.  By 2007, over 25 million Buzz Lightyear action figures had been sold, and Thinkway Toys was on the map in a big way.  Of course, there were many other toys in the line representing most of the recognizable characters from the film.  Unfortunately, they didn't receive the same screen-accurate treatment as Buzz and Woodie.  Nonetheless, you could still theoretically assemble the cast of the movie if you were willing to crowbar open that velcro-wallet of yours. 

Today's toy takes us right back to a classically creepy moment from this landmark film.  (It

was the moment that confirmed that 90% of the population is indeed afraid of dolls.)  Woodie found himself in the foreboding bedroom of Sid, a malevolent, if not slightly creative, child, toy-hacker.  Among Sid's bastardized toy-hybrids was a one-eyed doll head attached to an Erector-Set body that resembled a crab, or some sort of arachnid.  This character, known simply as "Babyface," had the greatest on-screen reveal when Woodie discovered him in the dim illumination of a small flashlight.  Baby Face crawled forward on his mechanical spider legs and then ascended skyward, like a sadistic-looking scissor lift towering above Woodie.  With his dimly under-lit face, he gave Woodie a horrifying one-eyed stare down.

Sid later makes a cameo in Toy Story 3 when he appears as a garbage collector.  This seemed like a disappointing epilogue for him.  In his own way, he was an unfortunate character.  Perhaps I felt a bit sympathy for him.  After all, he lived in disaster of a house, slept on a sheetless mattress in a bedroom, illuminated by one bare light bulb hanging from a cord.  He did have a work-bench in his bedroom.  That was pretty cool.  I figured he was more destined to become a Burning Man/Maker Faire artist than a trash collector.  There was a level of genius present in Sid's hacked toys.  He demonstrated a pretty creative vision for assembling found objects...even if those objects occasionally were stolen from his little sister.

I think Babyface was the manifestation of the complexity of Sid's character.  There would have been a certain amount of care and attention to detail required to build the arachnid body.  As for the doll's head, let's face it, any well-adjusted adult knows that dolls are evil and scary.  It really took very little mutilation for Sid to make it look any creepier.  Babyface really was the centerpiece of Sid's body of work.  Perhaps that's why, in 1995, Babyface was the only toy available representing Sid's handiwork.  It was part of the smaller, and not as screen-accurate action figure line, but, nonetheless,  I had to have it.

Perhaps the general public didn't see the creative genius of Sid.  Perhaps those who did see it, found that this toy wasn't accurate enough to be appealing.  Indeed, it seemed most likely that a Babyface toy would have been best marketed for adult collectors.  However, this toy, admittedly, didn't have the intricacy of an adult collectible.  Whatever the reason, it didn't exactly fly off the shelves the way Buzz Lightyear did.  To this day, original carded examples are readily available on eBay.  However, it is still a fun and novel thing to have one of these sitting on your shelf.  Who doesn't enjoy creeping everyone out who walks in the room?  That's why the 6" Babyface, from Thinkway Toys, is The Toy of the Week.

As a point of interest, I think it is important to note that Thinkway Toys still carries the license for Toy Story merchandise.  In recent years they have released an entire line of retro-packaged, screen accurate Toy Story toys that seem to be marketed towards adult collectors.  This line is known as the "Signature Collection."  At this time, none of Sid's mutated toys are released as part of this line.