Why We Almost Didn’t Have Toy Story 2

There’s hardly a millennial or Generation Z kid that doesn’t know about Toy Story. In fact, most 2010s babies now know all about the movie, all thanks to Pixar making it one of the largest cartoon franchises.

The movie wasn’t just a commercial success. It also set the pace for Pixar’s dominance in the animation industry. You might just want to imagine a world without Toy Story at this point. If you successfully did, it might be helpful to know that the Toy Story franchise, as we know it, almost didn’t happen.

The first series of the movie released in 1995 had a rocky start. The crew had to cancel the entire manuscript and re-write the story – all in a bid to meet Pixar’s target audience with relatable content. But that’s not all. The story behind Toy Story 2 is even more fascinating.

Initially, the manuscript for Toy Story 2 got deleted accidentally. The server on which the Pixar team worked executed a wrong command to delete the entire files. All efforts to restore the computer files failed. Thankfully, they had tape backups stored up. That way, Pixar was able to recover 90% of the manuscript.

However, it didn’t end there. The tapes had technical faults, which made the backup files riddled with errors. With just 10% of the full work correct and available, it seemed like the end of the road for a fantastic dream. Fortunately, a female worker who had just given birth had copies on her Volvo machine. The team connected all files together to deliver the ageless Toy Story 2.