That Toy Story Rumor About What Happened To Andy’s Dad Is ‘Fake News’ Says Writer
Andrew Stanton’s tweet was a response to a story shared by Mike Mozart, a product reviewer for the JeepersMedia YouTube channel. While speaking to SuperCarlinBrothers, Mozart said Pixar’s Joe Ranft relayed the story about Andy’s father to him after Mozart was called in to work as a toy consultant on one of the movies. The story spread from there, but is there any truth to it?
While Stanton’s claim has more behind-the-scenes merit than Mozart’s tale, Redditor u/LegoK9 posits that the YouTuber might still have had that conversation with Ranft. “I guess Joe never discussed this stuff with Andrew Stanton. Or maybe Joe was BS-ing and made it all up on the stop after the fact.”
A similar sentiment was echoed by another Reddit user, who noted that Stanton could have shared more information to debunk the theory more sufficiently. “All he did is say ‘nah,’ and ‘Toy Story’ had four writers. I was hoping for some actual statements on why the backstory did not work.”
Is it possible that Ranft came up with the backstory and didn’t inform Pixar’s other staff members? Was he messing with Mozart? Did the conversation even happen at all? This matter hasn’t been settled yet, but hopefully the upcoming “Toy Story 5” will clear up the story of Andy’s dad.