Surprise inside!
Toy Story 4 producer Jonas Rivera says it is one of his favourite moments ever at Pixar Studios. The film’s creative team members had come up with a minor role — that of a motorcycle-riding toy — and they were interested in having Keanu Reeves voice it.
The thing was, it was envisioned only as a “gag character,” Rivera recalls — a Canadian daredevil action figure named Duke Caboom, a stuntman evocative of Evel Knievel, who might get a few one-liners.
But when Pixar became intrigued after a “blind” audio test, Reeves requested a lunch meeting before officially saying yes — and he had questions.
“Is Duke mad at Rejean?” Reeves asked, referring to the boy who had owned the toy. “Is he mad at the TV commercial” that popularized him?
“We were workshopping this character over lunch,” Rivera says, and Reeves “started to become Duke right in front of us, doing the (karate) chops and getting on a table in the atrium. People walked by (in disbelief ): ‘Is that Keanu?’
“He became that character — really emoting and getting into it — no different from any other role. He’s a delight to work with.”
By the time the collaboration was complete, Duke Caboom was a fleshed-out, scene-stealing character — another highlight in a banner year for Toronto-raised Reeves.
Following are some other production secrets and surprises from the film, some of which are illuminated in the new book The Art of Toy Story 4 (Disney/Pixar/ Chronicle Books).
Tinny makes a cameo
The one-man band of a plastic music maker can be glimpsed amid all the film’s antique toys. Rivera says the appearance of Tinny is a nod to Tin Toy, John Lasseter’s Oscar-winning 1988 animated short that helped boost Pixar a step closer to feature filmmaking.
Bo was reminiscent of a Rosie
Team Bo — the self-named crew of more than a dozen Pixar talents who collaborated on remaking a bolder Bo Peep for this film — designed many iterations of the adventuresome sheep herder. In one version, Bo, while on a mission in an antique shop, wore a turquoise-tinted work outfit and a red hair scarf — a look inspired by the Second World War poster icon Rosie the Riveter.
Forky rose from a 3D workshop
The frenetic new character Forky, the craft spork toy made by the film’s kindergarten child Bonnie, wasn’t designed solely by computer or on the drawing pad. Instead, in an exercise nodding to Bonnie’s mode of creation, Pixar held a “Forkshop” — a workshop in which crew members created their own real-life Forky design models out of pipe cleaners, googly eyes, Popsicle sticks and, of course, sporks.
The original antique world
Much of the Toy Story 4 action occurs in an antique shop. But in an early version, the store was “a huge city” that “came alive at night,” according to The Art of Toy Story 4. This toy town had “a cutthroat economy where toys bartered and sold parts to repair themselves,” all in the hopes of being owned by a new child.
Bunny once had the tapes
Ducky and Bunny, the carnival-prize plush toys voiced by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, underwent numerous character iterations — with Bunny at one point becoming a storytelling toy that had a cassette player lodged smack into his tummy. That character’s name: Buster Cottontale.