FIGURES.COM EXCLUSIVE: Talking Toy Story of Terror (and Toys) with Angus Maclane

[JeffSaylor]

Pixar's First Television Special On ABC TONIGHT!...

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By David Yeh

In the world of modern film animation, there is no studio as beloved as the Pixar Animation Studios. Within, you will find the many talented personalities that brought your favorite films like Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, WALL-E, and so much more to life. But just as important to Pixar and Disney's brand are the continued adventures of everyone's favorite characters; the short subjects and the sequels.

Tonight, ABC will air Pixar's first television special, Toy Story of Terror, directed by Angus Maclane. But don’t be fooled by it airing on television. Maclane has worked on just about every Pixar film since A Bug's Life and earned his first credit on the short, Geri's Game. By the time WALL-E came about, Angus had moved from animation to story and helped develop a story idea for BURN-E, a character that was only seen briefly in WALL-E, but thanks to Maclane, the cameo robot was given his very own short cartoon that accompanied the home video release. Maclane was also the brain behind the brilliant Toy Story short, Small Fry, about Buzz Lightyear switching roles with a Kid's Meal version of himself, finally saw a mini-Buzz Lightyear action figure release at Disney's D23 Expo earlier this summer.

Essentially, the crew working on Toy Story of Terror are the very same that delivered the feature films to the theater. We caught up with Angus to talk a little about Toy Story of Terror and of course about toys and collecting.

Figures: Angus, great to talk to you! Let’s start at the beginning of your career with Pixar.

Angus: Geri’s Game was the first credit I had. I started working on Toy Story 2 when they were going to make that film direct to video. At the time, 2D animation was really popular and there weren’t as many people interested in computer animation. I honestly don’t think I could have gotten hired at Disney at the time, so I took a chance from a guy at art school and after an internship there I was hired to do Toy Story 2. I stayed on that for awhile and I did a little bit of A Bug’s Life and then Geri’s Game, which was the first thing that came out.

Figures: Can you tell us a little about what spawned your interest in animation?

Angus: I was interested in acting and I was interested in drawing. It was a nice combination of the two. I was naturally interested in performing and artwork. Some of it is just the nature of my genes. My uncle on my mom’s side was a ballet choreographer so he was into movement; my dad’s side were marine designers, engineers, architects... so it was a combination of those worlds.

Figures: You went from animating into story into directing...

Angus: BURN-E was the first short I did for Pixar and I did Small Fry. In between I did Ken’s Dating Tips which was kind of a bonus feature. That was a great thing to do because it was the first time I did voice directing. For BURN-E I just did one or two of the voices but for Ken’s Dating Tips, the first person I ever got to record professionally was Michael Keaton. I’ve been to a few recording sessions but to go “this is what I want” or “this is what we’re going to do” was a steep learning curve, which was great. That learning experience paved my way to feeling comfortable on my work directing Small Fry and then Toy Story of Terror, which was an even bigger leap with a bigger cast.

Figures: Before we get into Toy Story of Terror, let’s talk about Small Fry. You came up with a bunch of happy meal toys. When are we going to see more of those come out?

Angus: We love toys. With shorts, there’s not a really big viewership for that so if we did this would that sell? The tooling costs alone, as it was expensive to make all of those characters in the computer, it would be expensive to make those toys in real life. I think with sales from the D23 Exclusive Small Fry, we’ll see. I know online there’s a lot of people that demanded a Ghost Burger, which I totally understand. I would love a Ghost Burger too!

Figures: I would love a T-Bone!

Angus: Oh man, a T-Bone… I would, yeah. That one, I would love a Condor Man!

Figures: All of them would be really, really fun! Why do you suppose it’s so difficult to get more toys out from Small Fry?

Angus: I think there’s more support for longer form content but for something like Toy Story of Terror, that will show every year as a special, we’ll wait and see and if it’s really popular... we’ll try and do something. A lot of these guys can get burned producing a lot of product for a movie that doesn’t get a lot of play…

Figures: It’s kind of like the opposite of the initial Buzz Lightyear figure, where no store would carry it.

Angus: Yeah. And I’m so glad that they finally made a mini Buzz Lightyear figure from Small Fry at the D23 Expo... because if you can’t sell THAT then I don’t know!

Figures: Other than Toy Story Hawaiian Vacation, there haven’t been any toys at retail based on any of the short cartoons. You’d think with anything Disney anything is marketable.

Angus: I think it is but it’s hard to say. There’s only so much shelf space as they call it, so if we can sell a mini Buzz Lightyear, maybe we can sell a T-Bone, Leader of the Steak Force. You and I think that’s funny, and if we did a Kickstarter campaign it would be huge but it’s just one of those things... We’ll have to wait and see.

Figures: How did Toy Story of Terror come about?

Angus: There was some interest either from Disney or ABC that wanted to do a spooky special and they approached me to develop a few things for that. I had a meeting with John [Lasseter] and we talked about what would be the setting and after that we developed it for a while. I also pitched a few things to Andrew [Stanton] and eventually it became what it was.

Figures: Could you elaborate on that process?

Angus: A lot of it is schedule. We have a story team, so for example, early, early on we’d work with a beat board just to figure out the beats of the story. Even at an early stage I wanted Jessie to be the main character and I wanted Combat Carl to be in the movie.

Figures: What was it about those two characters? Jessie and Combat Carl...

Angus: There hasn’t been a movie around Jessie and this was a good way to kind of do that. Also with Carl, because it was a way to get into toys that our generation has grown up with. A lot of the toys are represented by the directors and what they grew up with and what they’re passionate about. Without giving anything away there are a lot of toys in Toy Story of Terror that reflect the toys from 1978 to 1988.

Figures: So Combat Carl is obviously representing the twelve inch G.I.Joe figures?

Angus: Yes, yes, yes.

Figures: Who did you cast to voice Combat Carl?

Angus: Carl Weathers was a natural choice. I felt he had terrific comedic chops from Happy Gilmore and Arrested Development, but he also had a commanding action hero presence. Between Predator and Rocky, I wanted to make the character be basically an 80's action hero, and if you can find a guy that can do that and be funny with it, that was the key. Carl Weathers was just a natural... and it was already named Combat CARL in Toy Story.

Figures: The special airs on ABC, October 16th and will be a half-hour special. Did ABC dictate how long they wanted it to be?

Angus: I think the usual holiday, Christmas classic type special is a half hour long. So being that classic format, it was an interesting challenge and one that I thought was fantastic to try and tackle.

Figures: You showed some scenes at the D23 Expo earlier this summer and it really does look fantastic. The animation isn’t typical of television; it really is feature quality animation.

Angus: Yeah, it’s the same crew. A lot of our shorts were made in Canada and they do a fantastic job but technically this was made with the same crew. The people that worked on it were instrumental in the previous movies. I’m glad you liked the quality of the animation but a lot of it has to do with the tremendous talent that I had to work with.

[Editor’s note: Pixar Canada has since shut down all operations. This interview was conducted prior]

Figures: Even though Toy Story of Terror is a “Halloween” special, it really isn’t a “Halloween” show. All the other specials are trick-or-treat or costumes; this isn’t and it was refreshing to see that it’s just another Toy Story adventure. Was that a conscious decision?

Angus: It was a conscious decision so that it could be shown year round. Not all countries celebrate Halloween, naturally. But as much as I love Halloween, to me the idea of making a horror/thriller Toy Story movie was more appealing than showing the Toy Story characters dress up for Halloween.

Figures: It would cheapen it.

Angus: Yeah, it would just... I can’t think of a good way to describe it. The toys are there to be played with by the kid, but on their leisure time are they going to dress up and bob for apples? It just doesn’t seem right.

Figures: So we know that Combat Carl has a major appearance, is he the only new toy?

Angus: No. There’s a ton new toys. There are many new toys that I’m very excited about and I will definitely say that I’m a huge action figure fan and really into LEGO... So I’m very excited for the toy forums after the show so that they’ll drum up support for those toys to be eventually made.

Figures: Maybe a Combat Carl with removable hand?

Angus: I would LOVE a Combat Carl with removable hand, but it might be a choking hazard.

Figures: Now that the special is finished, what are you working on now?

Angus: I am working on several exciting projects now that I cannot divulge, but they’re very exciting and I’m happy to be working at Pixar. It’s never been better.

[Editor’s note: It gets beyond nerdy from here on out]

Figures: What are you collecting right now?

Angus: Right now I’m collecting Third Party Transformers.

Figures: Did you get Quakewave?

Angus: I have Quakewave, but I have an original Shockwave. I got the Quakewave because I’m collecting the Masterpiece Transformers as well. I’m really into FansProject, Mastermind Creations, and Make Toys. I think they make the best third party stuff. I’m also collecting some classic Transformers, some Headmasters, anything G1 style. Right now it’s either LEGO, Robots, and then some Aliens stuff. That’s what I limited my collection to. What do you collect?

Figures: A little bit of everything. I recently got the Back to the Future LEGO...

Angus: Yeah, I got that. Yeah.

Figures: Some other Star Wars LEGO, mainly Ewoks and Jabba the Hutt stuff...

Angus: Really? Wow... okay. Yeah.

Figures: [laughs] Star Wars Black Series 6 inch...

Angus: They had a bunch of those at Disneyland, did you see them?

Figures: Yeah, there’s a ton of them but they’re a little more expensive there.

Angus: They’re neat but I wasn’t a fan of the paint aps. I collected the Gentle Giant Jumbo figures... but it’s a size problem.

Figures: Yeah, that, and you don’t want to take them out of the box!

Angus: Yeah, well I only bought the ones I had as a kid, which wasn’t that many. But I bought the GONK droid and I took that out of the box. I had to have that one on my desk!

Figures: For sure! I also get the Masterpiece Transformers too. Quakewave was my first third party Transformer.

Angus: Yah that one is really high quality. Did you get the extra hands?

Figures: Yeah, I swapped them in.

Angus: Did you get the... what are they, the Reprolabels?

Figures: Yes, I got the clear outline ones since his color is already purple.

Angus: Oh cool, did you apply it? I think their stuff is fantastic but I haven’t done it. I have to think about how far to go down that road, about stickering stuff...

Figures: It’s easy when I only have one third party Transformer and Shockwave only needs two stickers as in the cartoon.

Angus: I just got Tigertrack. Have you seen that one?

Figures: Yeah, see that’s too far deep for me since he wasn’t in the toon. I only buy the ones that are in the cartoon.

Angus: See, for me… That’s a good cut off, good for you. I like the yellow better than the red…

Figures: Really? But that’s Sunstreaker and I would want to wait for that...

Angus: I like Sunstreaker! I like Sunstreaker but that Sideswipe mold is so rad.

Figures: I need to get Sideswipe still and I pre-ordered Prowl. Did you get Soundwave?

Angus: Yup yup, I got Soundwave.

Figures: The Japanese version? I needed the red eyes.

Angus: It’s not so much that but the quality difference between Takara and Hasbro is huge on those. I have the Hasbro Optimus Prime, the new one, and a friend has the Takara one. The tightness of joints, paint applications, thickness of the plastic...

Figures: [laughs]

Angus: [laughs] It’s nice to talk to someone about this. How are we doing on time? Are you going to put this on the interview? I mean, you might as well.

Figures: Absolutely, I will.

Angus: Have you seen this... I came across this Gundam LEGO that this guy made, a custom that splits into three bits and can be completely reconfigured.

Figures: I haven’t but that sounds cool! You’re making custom LEGOs now as well...

Angus: Have you seen the Cube Dude stuff I did? It’s a line of LEGO building pattern I designed and LEGO licensed me to do some stuff for Celebration V and some for Comic-Con. It’s a building pattern that anyone can build. I’ve done like 300 of them. I did a Buzz Lightyear that was a giveaway for Toy Fair and I did a set a couple years back. So I do a lot of LEGO art on the side.

Figures: That’s really cool! And they really are neat. Do they pay you for all this?

Angus: They pay me in LEGO bricks. [laughs]

[At this point Angus and I started showing each other various toys on our cell phones]

Figures: It was great talking, Angus and look forward to seeing Toy Story of Terror on ABC, and more of your CubeDudes!

Angus: Yeah, it was great meeting you, David!

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Tune in to the world premiere of Toy Story of Terror on ABC tonight!

And check out Angus’ LEGO CubeDudes HERE!

- David Yeh

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