Book Of Creepypastas #2

The Black Friday Incident

The early stages of production on the film Toy Story were a complete nightmare. The production was in a sort of development hell until the infamous Black Friday incident. Disney harassed the then-new animation studio Pixar constantly. They were to produce and release the film, and they wanted results as quickly as possible. Disney tried everything to eliminate Pixar's efforts to deviate from the Disney formula even at times threatening to shut the production down. Disney sent notes on revisions that they thought would improve the film. They insisted through their notes which all read:

Edge. The film needs more edge.

The people working on the film at the time struggled so hard to maintain all of Disney's notes and demands. Once a week they were required to fly across the country to the Disney offices to present them with progress. Every time they were met with the same response:

Edge. The film needs more edge.

Pixar revised the film so hard to meet the deadlines that it resulted in some rather interesting changes. In order to achieve edge, the film became quite a lot darker. Woody became a wildly unlikable character, much more angry and far less comedic than in the final film. Bo-Peep's role in the story was far more prevalent, often flirtatious towards the male characters and is the first to accuse Woody of pushing Buzz out of the window. Buzz Lightyear was referred to at this point in production as "Lunar Larry." He is highly reminiscent of an older super hero, talking in a deeper voice and is even more deluded and ignorant of his surroundings. The other toys were relatively unchanged say for minor aesthetic differences.

Pixar employees worked literally 24/7 nonstop. Director John Lasseter joked on more than one occasion that he had the best parking space at the office because his car hadn't moved for over three days. Some of the writers and story board artists began to suffer from chronic insomnia. A few writers reported seeing visions of Buzz and Woody taunting them on their lack of progress, chanting:

Edge. The film needs more edge.

Many of the initial writers quit due to the stress it was putting on their personal lives, much to the distress of the remaining crew. By November of 1992 there were two of the five writers left, and only one of the three story board artists.

The remaining storyboard artist was named Ralph Thompson. He joined the Pixar team in the winter of 1987, working on short films such as Tin Toy and Knick Knack. He, at that same time, did some storyboard work for The Nightmare Before Christmas with fellow artist Joe Ranft. Joe came down with a serious illness and hadn't been to work in a week. Ralph worked constantly in fear of the inevitable correction by Disney. More Edge, more Edge. Each presentation meant another row of sleepless nights of rewriting and redrawing the same characters in the same bedroom over and over and over. It was maddening.

One morning, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and other higher ups at Pixar came into the office and told everybody what happened at their last meeting. Disney felt that things were not looking very good for the film and demanded that, in less than a week, they see the complete film in story reels (Storyboards with audio) with massive revisions. There was a general groan and whining from the crew and they went back to working.

Ralph worked harder than all others involved. Sometimes, at two o'clock in the morning, one of the writers would walk into Ralph's office with a packet of newly written scenes. More to draw. And with more drawings meant more scratch voice work.(When a film is still in the writing/storyboarding stages, artists will do temporary voices for the story reels.) He had Disney's vague instructions racing through his mind.

More! More edge! Edgier! More! We want results people! Edgier! This is a business! Faster! More edge! Move on, already!

He thought to himself this exactly. The film needed an edge. It needed to be darker, more cynical. It needed more adult humor and situations. It needed an attitude. Of course. Ralph, you Goddamn retard, how couldn't you see it sooner? Edge. All of those hundreds of hours bent over a desk, and all you needed was edge. Why didn't you listen sooner?