The World of Forgotten Disney

Black Friday Reel

Probably should have done this around Thanksgiving and not Christmas. Oh well.

The Black Friday reel is an infamous storyboard reel in the Pixar movie Toy Story, which nearly resulted in the film being canceled after being shown on November 19, 1993. The only bit shown in full was an alternate take on how Buzz got knocked out of the window, although the documentary Black Friday: The Toy Story You Never Saw showed two other snippets showing Slinky attempting to get up onto the bed as well as what was presumably an alternate take on the birthday scene.

The scene, alongside most of the original storyline, was created the way it was because then-Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg demanded that the movie have a more adult, cynical edge to it. This likewise made Woody out to be a callous jerk who let his role of leadership get to his head and treat the toys he lorded over very harshly. When the scene was shown on November 19, 1993 to various studio executives, alongside the original reel, Roy Disneyand the other Disney heads were disgusted with the result, and John Lasseter felt embarrassed throughout the whole thing because what happened was that the characters were the most unhappy, mean characters to appear in the film in a horrible way.

This resulted in Disney nearly shutting down production of Toy Story, with the production team requesting two weeks to make alterations and do the film they wanted to do. One of the changes was that Woody's characterization was significantly softened so that the audience will sympathize with Woody as well as wish for Woody to not undergo the actions he took instead of viewing him as a jerk.

Ironically, the 1989 Original Screenplayfor the movie Beauty and the Beast had been scrapped by Jeffrey Katzenberg for the same reasons why the Black Friday reel was created, due to it being perceived for being dark.

In the scene, Woody deliberately throws Buzz out of the window, and callously admits it when accused of such, and clearly has no remorse for his actions. In the final version, Woody's knocking Buzz out of the window was an accident, he was horrified at what he had done, and he tried to explain that it was in fact an accident to the disbelieving toys.