Toy Story 2 (1999)

directed by John Lasseter

Anissa Lynne Johnson

Sheriff Woody and I entered the world a year and a month apart (I’m older!). Too tiny to see Toy Story in theaters, I grew up hearing my dad tell stories of the magical night he saw it on a date with my mom, lost in the wonder of so many toys from his childhood come to life. Etch-a-Sketch. Barrel of Monkeys. Slinky Dog. Those plastic green army men. But the toy my dad loved the most from the movie was a new one: Woody.

Woody dressed just like my grandpa, a walking Western born in the northern-most parts of Michigan. Button-down shirts with pearl snaps, leather boots, and a big ol’ belt buckle. Sometimes, I wonder if it was their resemblance that drew my dad to Woody, the Tom Hanks cowboy without a hint of a drawl. I wonder if it’s what made my dad a regular at Burger King during Toy Story’s promotional season, collecting all the kids’ meal toys in faith his daughter would grow up to fall head over spurs for Woody, too.

My first Sheriff Woody doll was in my hands before I could even talk. He was about 12” tall and plush except for his plastic head, hands, and boots. On the elbows of Woody’s yellow plaid button-down, he had two scratchy Velcro patches designed to attach him to the soft ones on my Buzz Lightyear doll’s knees. Then you could play through the part where Sid plays the claw machine at Pizza Planet and wins Andy’s most beloved toys by mistake.

It wasn’t until I turned three and could finally understand (and quote!) the movie, that I started carrying Woody around with me everywhere I went. Grandma and Grandpa’s. Daycare. From room to room in our house. You name it. My dad’s got a photo of me pushing him around in my baby dolls’ buggy. The ride was to help him fall asleep, since car rides were what helped me. What can I say, I loved that cowboy.

Because of Toy Story, I believed each of my toys came alive the moment they were alone. I imagined they peeked their heads out of my toy box and made sure the coast was clear before the party began. I imagined my plush Sebastian from The Little Mermaid would pop my Disney’s Buddy Songs cassette tape into the Fisher Price boom box and lead a choir of toys in a rendition of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” Barbies got their hair done at my salon playset. Hot Wheels raced around the room on the wooden trim. Crowds of Beanie Babies flocked to the restaurant playset for a little dinner, plastic hotdogs in plastic buns.

Toy Story taught me of their personhood, and I couldn’t bear the thought of a single toy feeling left out. So I made darn sure to spread my time and love among each of them. Even the horrific baby doll that would call out, asking to be fed, without anyone touching her at all. (I swear to God, there are witches working at some of these factories. Ahem, FURBIES?? I rest my case.)

We also had a bedtime rotation. Sure, there were regulars. Pinky. Brownie. Woody. They were always on the pillow next to mine. But everyone else got their time to snuggle with me, too. As an only child, my toys made me feel less alone. I hoped to do the same for them.

The month after I turned five, Disney/Pixar gave me more toys to love when they released Toy Story 2, the first movie I saw in theaters. During the previews, I bounced in my red velvet seat and slurped root beer from the commemorative cup that came with the kids’ combo. More than thrice, my parents told me to face forward and watch the dang movie because I turned around non-stop, mesmerized by the spinning reels of film on the projector, which made a soft humming and clicking sound like a ceiling fan. I wanted to understand how Woody could be in the stream of light reaching across the theater onto the ginormous screen. And what was that guy doing up there? What was his job? In between my observations, I watched the movie.

In this one, there was a cowgirl toy, Jessie. She was spunky. Giggly. Energized by the very presence of other toys besides her. She spoke her mind without fear. I forgot about watching the projector when Jessie was on screen. An animated woman that wasn’t a damsel in distress. Before Toy Story 2, I didn’t know a woman could save the day. That maybe I could. For the first time, I saw myself on screen, reflected in Jessie’s bright spirit. In the way she bounced everywhere she went, joy coursing through her, needing a way out. In her stubbornness. So when it got to the part where Jessie tells Woody about her owner Emily and a Sarah-McLachlan-sung montage shows Jessie’s abandonment in a cardboard box, I felt like it was happening to me and sobbed. And sobbed. Even when the scene ended. Even when Jessie became Andy’s toy, and it all worked out. How did Emily not know what donating Jessie would do to her?

I snuggled all my toys a little tighter that night. Promised to never do the same to them.

A month later, it was Christmas. I went into my parents’ bedroom to wake them up and then ripped downstairs to the living room, hoping a Jessie doll was waiting for me in one of the perfectly wrapped presents with my name on it under our Christmas tree. I imagined us twirling, singing, laughing. Two cowgirls having the time of their lives. I’d hold her in arms as we rode my stick horse through the house yelling, “Yeehaw!”

But Jessie wasn’t there. Instead, it was another Woody. A bigger Woody over double the size. New Woody was mostly plush like Old Woody except you could take off his rubbery-plastic hat. Put a tiny toy gun in his holster. Flip his sheriff’s badge over, so one side looked crumply and the other looked smooth and shiny. That way you could play through the part where Al from Al’s Toy Barn steals him from Andy’s yard and hires a toy cleaner to fix him up, so he can sell him to a museum in Japan. New Woody’s clothes were bright and fresh. He had Andy’s name written on the bottom of his right boot. Old Woody didn’t. And the pearl snaps on his yellow button down weren’t screen-printed like Old Woody’s. No, they were real. And his plastic head didn’t flop over like Old Woody’s either. He was better made. Fancy. No bell or whistle spared. If you pressed his belly, he’d rotate through a few catch phrases like:

“There’s a snake in my boot!”

“Reach for the sky!”

“Hey, howdy, hey, I am looking good!”

It’s true. He did look good. Great even. Heck, New Woody was beautiful. And I bawled my eyes out at the sight of him, at his presence in our house. I ran back to my bedroom upstairs to grab Old Woody. Came back with him lying limp in my tiny hands. Knelt down in front of the tree. How would I explain to Old Woody that he wasn’t being replaced? That I didn’t do this?

I unwound the metal twist ties binding New Woody to his cardboard packaging and introduced Old Woody to him as top toy, explaining our four-year history. And then I promised to give both Woodys equal playtime with lots of laughs and love and adventure.

My parents just sat there with their mouths half open, realizing their daughter thought Toy Story was real, that my little brain spent all its energy worrying about whether or not every toy knew it belonged in this family. That it was wanted.

I wish my mom had been doing the same. That she’d paid attention to my soft heart. To each movie tear shed with empathy. I wish she’d comforted me instead of threatening to not let me watch them anymore. In the crystal ball of all those hours I spent wailing over the two Woodys, over Jessie and Emily, how did she not foresee that divorce would devastate me?

Jessie never saw it coming either. She thought she was on another adventure with Emily. My mom had promised me a shopping trip that October day as an early birthday present, a week shy of turning nine. I didn’t know until my mom opened the sliding door on our minivan and put our dog Holli and her kennel between the bucket seats. I tried to bolt back to the house. To my dad. To New Woody and Old Woody. To my childhood. But my mom shoved me down into the seat and pulled the child lock on the door. Peeled out of the driveway and our family. She tried to buy my support with cheap toys from Target, my favorite store, an hour away. But I didn’t want a single toy to remember this day. I took each one she put in the cart back out again.

I once heard Tom Hanks say in an interview that the first time he watched the Jessie montage during the making of Toy Story 2, he bawled his eyes out in the cutting room. I can’t help but wonder if Tom was remembering the day when his mom became Emily, too.

Anissa Lynne Johnson is a disabled writer and speaker from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Her work has appeared in The Daily Drunk, Sledgehammer Lit, EcoTheo, Press Pause, and elsewhere. More often than not, Anissa can be found walking in the woods or watching the sort of movies that *sigh* never win awards. Say hello on Twitter @anissaljohnson or at anissalynnejohnson.com.