The Great Muppet Caper: How Pixar Robbed Jim Henson Blind

By Emily Walls

The geniuses at Pixar have changed the way animated tales are told. Not just pleasant stories with happy endings, Pixar films speak to timeless truths and the common human experience. It's not princesses and happy villages; it's a family learning how to steward their gifts, a car learning to appreciate the past, a fish learning to trust. Pixar has made a name for itself as the studio that asks the question "What if?" What if a rat could cook? What if the monsters in our closets are just blue collar workers taking care of business? What if we could lift a house using only balloons?

The first of these films, the big one that started it all, was the story that asked what if our toys wake up and play when we're out of the room? Toy Story's endearing characters and singular story set the standard of ingenuity and creativity for animation from 1995 on. Its writers' names have become synonymous with excellence and originality. It's too bad, then, that they stole their first story from Jim Henson and Laura Phillips.

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The movie was called The Christmas Toy, and it was, I believe, a 1986 straight-to-VHS Christmas movie. It was a special, magical movie to me, because I only ever got to watch it when I was at my grandparents' house. They had taped it off TV, so every Christmas my cousins and siblings and I gathered around the tube to watch the scratchy old VHS. I'm glad I did, because if I hadn't seen it, I might mistakenly believe Toy Story was an original idea.

For Toy Story, the Pixar gurus played on the following common experience: at one point in your life, you believed that maybe, just maybe, your toys were real. You talked to your doll and tucked her into her little play crib and truly believed that she knew you cared for her. You saw your sister's three-foot-tall ventriloquist clown doll and knew deep down in your heart that it was was going to murder your ass in the dead of darkest night. (Why, Erin? WHY?) And maybe you believed that all of your toys could move and talk to one another when you weren't looking. Anything could happen when you weren't watching. Perhaps you even closed your toys inside your room then quickly jerked open the door and jumped back inside, shouting "AHA!" to your room of silent and immobile toys. I know I did. But I also know that I ambushed my toys because in 1986 Jim Henson planted in my mind (dare I say incepted) that toys love to play when we're not around.

The movie opens on a quiet toy room, but slowly the toys wake up and burst into song about how much toys love to play. They then gather around for a stupendous announcement: It's Christmas Eve and there will be new toys in their room in the morning!

New toys are coming!

Kind of like, oh I don't know:

New toys are coming!

But to be fair, in Toy Story it's a birthday party, so that's barely similar.

But if Toy Story ripped off the idea that toys come alive, at least its main character, Woody, has a unique dilemma to overcome. Woody is Andy's absolute favorite, best pal, top toy in the whole wide universe, and we learn quickly that Woody is scared to death of being supplanted by a new toy. In a recent TEDTalk (which you must watch), Pixar writer/director Andrew Stanton discusses the progression of Woody's character. The writers painstakingly crafted Woody's personality as they worked to flesh out the story's central conflict, taking their main character from a mean, bossy sourpuss in early drafts to the lovable, insecure cowboy we see on the big screen. Perhaps they wouldn't have had to work so hard to get Woody's character right if The Christmas Toy had only featured a strikingly similar main character with a similar dilemma that they could copy OH WAIT IT DID.

In The Christmas Toy, Rugby the stuffed tiger is Jamie's absolute favorite, best pal, top toy in the whole wide universe, and we learn quickly that Rugby is scared to death of being supplanted by a new toy. He is so scared, in fact, that he sneaks out of the toy room to spy on the newest Christmas presents...

 ...kind of like how Woody sends a battalion of toy soldiers to run surveillance on Andy's birthday party.

Now, this is where the stories take a major departure from each other. You see, in Toy Story the newest addition to the toy family is a futuristic space man who doesn't even know he's a toy.

Whereas in The Christmas Toy the newest addition to the toy family is a futuristic space woman who doesn't even know she's a toy.

Are you amazed yet? We're not done.

When Buzz springs from his box he makes an entry into his star log. "My ship has run off course en route to Sector 12. I've crash landed on a strange planet," he says. "Terrain seems a bit unstable." Then he flies around the room and surveys his new surroundings.

Meteora springs from her box and demands, "What planet is this?" She commands them to take her to their leader and flies around the room inspecting her new surroundings. "Interesting vegetation," she says of the tinsel covering the Christmas tree.

The other toys try to convince Meteora that she is a toy who needs to return to her box, but she won't listen to them. They try a new tactic: trickery. They tell her that the box is a one-way ticket to the fame and glory a toy like her deserves. Their ruse works, and she runs to the box.

Similarly, Buzz Lightyear cannot be convinced that he is a toy. When Woody gives up on trying to persuade Buzz to accept his true identity, Woody tries a new tactic: trickery. He convinces Buzz that the "YO" truck is a transport to a spaceship, and Buzz happily complies.

In the end, both Woody and Rugby learn that their owner-children have enough love for both their new and old toys. Along the way, they have the following:

Toy deaths

Moms who are mostly legs

Toy spouses arriving as gifts at the ends of the movies

So if The Christmas Toy used the same premise as Toy Story and had the same characters and the same central conflict, then why don't we know more about it? Toy Story is wildly popular. Why not its predecessor? I have an answer: The Christmas Toy kind of sucks. It's a 50-minute, made for TV movie and it feels like a made for TV movie. The pacing is slow, the dialogue corny, and for a movie targeted to children, it spends an inordinate amount of time on the bleakness of toy death. Where Woody is flawed but lovable, Rugby is flawed and annoying. Where Buzz is selfless, Meteora is narcissistic. Sure, I loved The Christmas Toy when I was a child (and I hear my two-year-old niece loves it now), but the movie did not pass the test of time. It is painful to watch.

Toy Story, on the other hand, takes a couple of good ideas and makes them great. The characters are instantly endearing, and the story itself is timeless and relevant. I was twelve years old the first time I saw it. I loved it then, and now that I'm twenty-nine, I might love it even more. Sure, it leans on the ideas of The Christmas Toy, but it develops, delves, and expands where The Christmas Toy remains stunted. I have heard it said that good artists borrow, but great artists steal. If a little outright thievery was what it took to bring Pixar into our lives, I say it was worth it.

So reach for the sky, Mr. Henson. This is a stick-up.