With the release of Toy Story 3 this weekend, NERDSociety.com chatted with voice actor John Ratzenberger, who plays the grouchy Hamm and producer Darla K. Anderson. The concept for Toy Story 3 began in 2001 when the creative minds behind the movie had a meeting in a secret retreat. “Lee Unkrich (director), Michael Arndt (writer), John Lassetter (writer and executive producer) and I were pitching around ideas to each other. It was ten am at the time,” as Anderson remembers. With every Pixar movie, story is the key element and they soon found out the story wasn’t very interesting. Anderson said, “By 10:30 am, we knew we didn’t have heart in the story. We called it a day and tarted from scratch.”
Woody with Darla K. Anderson
Pixar is known for its great animation but what’s more important are the CG characters that audiences all over the world care about. Enter John Ratzenberger, the only actor to lend his voice in every Pixar movie. “They (Pixar) call me and I answer all the time. I’m easy to please and don’t ask for much so that’s why they keep coming back to me,” as he jokingly tells his relationship with Pixar. “But seriously, I like the themes behind each movies. They’re not too preachy, they’re subtle but it makes the audience feel good.” When asked about his Hamm character in the Toy Story franchise, he replied “That’s who I was when I was a kid. I was a wisenheimer and I’d get sent to the principal’s office often. I see Hamm as very loyal but boisterous.”
John Ratzenberger, the man who has starred in all Pixar movies
With the rumor of Pixar being bought out in 2004-2005 by Disney and having no creative control of the previous movies, the Pixar crew went into a depression state. “The characters from our movies were our babies and it felt like we were giving it for adoption. Nothing against Disney but we wanted our input on the stories,” Anderson said. In 2006, Pixar got bought out by Disney but it was good news for the Toy Story team. They reached an agreement with Disney in where they’d still have creative freedom to all the future movies. “We’re a family at Pixar and we respect each other. I think it was a wise decision for Disney to give us the green light to make more movies” adds Ratzenberger.
Lassetter was the man who thought of the new story for Toy Story 3. “My kids were going to college. While I was happy that they began a new chapter in life, I was also sad that the house would be quieter and lonelier,” as Lassetter explained at last year’s Disney convention, D23. “I thought it would make a good story for the ‘Toy franchise because we see Andy (the toy owner) grow up through the first two movies.”
So Pixar began creating the movie as technology advanced since the story was first pitched in 2001. “Technology evolves so quickly that we added elements to the story that couldn’t have been done in the past. Sometimes we got carried away and had to pull back. In the end, the story is still first,” Anderson explains.
When Anderson was asked about her thoughts of Disney buying out Marvel all she said was, “It’s very exciting and it’ll be interesting if we’ll jump any fences in any way.”
Toy Story 3 is currently playing at theatres right now and has taken $41 million on Friday alone.
Thanks to Reservoired Dog and John Spartan for contributing to this article.
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