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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Monster Mania Day 15: Toy Story OF TERROR!

Written by Stu Cooper

I had the great fortune of seeing all 3 "Toy Story" films in the theaters, and I loved every second of it. When I was younger I was actually such a big fan of "Toy Story" that I collected every single Burger King toy they released, including this giant hand puppets. I loved it, and I even played the super nintendo game a lot. The voice acting cast is nothing short of ingenius, the animation is flawless, and the jokes are hilarious and heartwarming. So you can imagine how excited I was to hear that "Toy Story" was getting the Halloween special treatment! I set the DVR with anticipation.

"Toy Story of Terror" is the name of the special and it aired on ABC last night. The special was a 30 minute short film (without commercials around 22 mins). The story revolved around the group of toys being hauled in the trunk of Andy's mother's car, and the car stops at a hotel. The group goes into the hotel and ends up running into several crazy misft loose toys, as well as a Lizard! The special plays up all sorts of hilarious horror movie stereotypes, and the gang actually riffs on horror movies at one point. I was surprised with the humor in the special since there were A LOT of references made that only adults would get. The shining example of that is a new cast member named "Combat Carl" who happens to be voiced by Carl Weathers, who happens to be wearing his Predator costume, and he even had one arm (since one was chopped off in Predator). I found that pretty humorous and a reference that today's youth wouldn't get. So that was a nice nod to the older members of the audience. To top off the ridiculousness of that character, he is accompanied by a miniature version of himself! There are also several other new toys involved in the story. In a nice serious moment the story-line plays up Jessie having claustrophobia and anxiety as well. She is actually forced to confront her fears when she and Woody are boxed up and sent out after being sold on Ebay accidentally. I don't want to spoil anymore than that, but needless to say the special was absolutely perfect and full of Halloween fun. I laughed and found myself thrilled with the story. It left me actually wanting to see another full length film. If you have a way to watch this, I would definitely make the time. It's only 22 minutes and it's a lot of fun in a short time. You can't go wrong here.

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