Heads up: You're going to need some tissues for this tearjerker.
What Really Happened to Andy’s Dad in “Toy Story”?
Updated on May 12, 2025
Mark your movie calendar: Toy Story 5 will be unwrapped on June 19, 2026. And though details are a closely guarded secret, director Andrew Stanton has revealed that the latest installment—which once again features the voices of Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear—will tackle contemporary issues such as the impact of technology on childhood play. Here’s hoping the Disney film will also answer a question that fans have been pondering for 30 years: What happened to Andy’s dad in Toy Story?
If you or your kids grew up watching the first four Toy Story films (1995’s Toy Story; 1999’s Toy Story 2; 2010’s Toy Story 3; and 2019’s Toy Story 4) you may have noticed that the dad of young Andy—originally seen playing with all his beloved toys in his bedroom—is totally absent. And while Disney movies do have a tendency to eliminate one or both of a main character’s parents in its classic family films, often in childhood-marring scenes (hi, Lion King), the fate of Andy’s dad is never addressed at all. Did he die? Are Andy’s parents divorced? It’ll just have to be a mystery … right?
Maybe not! In 2022, a YouTube video from the Super Carlin Brothers posited a theory that still makes a lot of sense. Read on to find out more.
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Andy’s dad may have originally had a friend in Woody
Toy Story’s toy cowboy protagonist, Woody, belonged to Andy’s father first (indeed, Andy’s mom calls Woody “an old family toy”). Andy’s father was also named Andy—Andy Sr.—and he wrote his name on Woody’s boot back in the 1960s. The reason Woody is such a rare toy is because he’s the only Woody doll that was ever made—just a prototype. A cereal company had a promotion that involved sending an amount of box tops to get a Sheriff Woody doll. However, Woody merchandise was discontinued after Sputnik went up (remember Stinky Pete’s complaint that “children only wanted to play with space toys”?). Because Andy Sr.’s family wasn’t very wealthy, he couldn’t collect enough box tops before the promotion ended. But Andy Sr., a sickly child, sent in his few box tops with a letter begging for a Woody doll, and someone decided to send him the prototype.
Andy Sr. got sick and died
Here’s where it gets really sad. Andy Sr., already sickly, came down with polio, which meant that all of his belongings had to be burned—including toys. But, he stashed his beloved Woody away beforehand to spare him. Eventually recovering from polio, he met his wife as an adult and had Andy Jr. However, around the time Andy’s sister was born, he came down with post-polio syndrome and ended up dying—but not before he entrusted his precious Woody doll to his son. (Be right back, we’re drying our tears.)
How did the filmmakers respond?
Though the backstory is mind-blowing, it may be wrong. Stanton, who was also one of Toy Story’s original writers, insisted in a follow-up tweet that there’s “nothing to see here” and that the story is nothing but “fake news.” Oh.
Will we ever know the truth?
The Super Carlin Brothers’ theory about what happened to Andy’s dad in Toy Story does come courtesy of toy collector Mike Mozart, who was a consultant on the first Toy Story and a close friend of another of Toy Story‘s writers, Joe Ranft. Mozart claims that the story of Andy’s dad came from Ranft himself. Alas, Ranft passed away in 2006, so there’s no way for him to truly debunk or confirm the theory. Like little Andy, we’ll just have to use our imaginations.
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Source:
- SuperCarlinBrothers Video — The Complete Pixar Theory
