Tin Toy (1988)

August 2, 1988

August 2, 1988

Tin Toy is a 1988 American computer-animated short film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter. The short film, which runs five minutes, stars Tinny, a tin one-man band toy, attempting to escape from Billy, a silly infant. The third short film produced by the company's small animation division, it was a risky investment: due to the low revenue produced by Pixar's main product, the Pixar Image Computer, the company was under financial constraints.

Lasseter pitched the concept for Tin Toy by storyboard to Pixar owner Steve Jobs, who agreed to finance the short despite the company's struggles, which he kept alive with annual investment. The film was officially a test of the PhotoRealistic RenderMan software and proved new challenges to the animation team, namely the difficult task of realistically animating Billy. Tin Toy later gained attention from Disney, who sealed an agreement to create Toy Story starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, which was primarily inspired by elements from Tin Toy.

The short premiered in a partially completed edit at the SIGGRAPH convention in August 1988 to a standing ovation from scientists and engineers. Tin Toy went on to claim Pixar's first Oscar with the 1988 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, becoming the first CGI film to win an Oscar. With the award, Tin Toy went far to establish computer animation as a legitimate artistic medium outside SIGGRAPH and the animation-festival film circuit. Tin Toy was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2003.

Storyline

In a living room, a toy one-man band player named Tinny looks around, and sees a baby named Billy arrive. At first, Tinny is delighted at the prospect of being played with by Billy until he sees how destructive the infant can be. When Tinny tries to walk out of Billy's reach, the musical instruments on the former's back begin to play, attracting Billy's attention. Tinny begins to run, but is pursued by Billy. During a pursuit with the excited Billy pursuing him, Tinny soon finds cover under a couch, there finding a collection of toys in hiding, similarly terrified of Billy, because they have gone through the same experience. Unaware of this, Billy accidentally trips, but falls over on the hardwood surface floor face first while searching for Tinny, and begins to cry. Feeling sorry for the baby, Tinny sees this, and leaves his couch sanctuary, and begins to play near Billy to calm him down. Upon seeing this, Billy stops crying and picks up Tinny to play with, the latter fearing the worst. However, Billy soon lets go of the toy, more interested in his packaging, but ignores Tinny, and then plays with his box because Tinny came in with it. This annoys Tinny, who again plays music, tries following around Billy in hopes of being noticed, and goes to pursue him, but is still mad and ignored, and ends up trying to stop him no matter where Billy goes with Tinny pursuing him. Eventually, Billy, whose face is now covered in a shopping bag, leaves the room, followed by Tinny. The newly optimistic toys from underneath the couch are safe to come out.

Sound Effects Used

NOTE: The Hanna-Barbera sounds are only heard on the TV in the background.

Image Gallery

Audio Samples