Toy Story That Time Forgot

The post-Christmas afternoon is a specific kind of purgatory. The living room is a graveyard of wrapping paper, the "batteries not included" realization has already set in, and the initial dopamine hit of a new gadget is slowly being replaced by the crushing reality of a looming return to routine. I watched Toy Story That Time Forgot during exactly this kind of slump, sitting on a rug while wearing a pair of itchy wool socks my aunt gave me—socks that felt poetically appropriate for a special about the difference between the "cool" toys you wanted and the weird reality of what actually ends up in the toy box.

Released in 2014, this 22-minute special occupies a strange, slightly shadowed corner of the Pixar library. It arrived during that decade-long stretch where the studio was desperately trying to keep the Toy Story brand alive through shorts and TV specials before finally committing to a fourth theatrical outing. While most of these "Toons" felt like deleted scenes stretched to breaking point, That Time Forgot manages to find a distinct, almost subversive voice by leaning into the absurdity of toy lore.

Trixie’s Time to Shine

The smartest move writer-director Steve Purcell made was sidelining the heavy hitters. By 2014, we’d spent nearly twenty years watching Tom Hanks’ Woody and Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear navigate existential crises. We knew their beats. Instead, the spotlight shifts to Trixie, the triceratops voiced with pitch-perfect neurotic energy by Kristen Schaal.

Trixie’s arc is fueled by a very specific brand of toy-box FOMO: she’s a dinosaur who never gets to play as a dinosaur. In Bonnie’s room, she’s usually cast as a "goblin fairy" or a "waitress," and she’s craving some genre-appropriate action. It’s a wonderful bit of character work that mirrors the frustration of being pigeonholed. When Bonnie takes a small group—Woody, Buzz, Trixie, Rex, and the adorable Angel Kitty—to a friend's house for a playdate, Trixie finally gets her wish, though it turns out to be a "careful what you wish for" scenario.

They are dropped into the world of the "Battlesaurs," a line of toys so aggressive and hyper-masculine they make the original 1995 Buzz Lightyear look like a pacifist. Kristen Schaal carries the emotional weight effortlessly, balancing the awe of finding "her people" with the slow-dawning horror that these people are actually quite insane.

The Delusions of Dino-Riders

The Battlesaurs are a masterclass in production design and parody. They are a brilliant amalgamation of every 1980s "tough guy" toy line—think Dino-Riders meets He-Man with a dash of Spartacus. They live in an elaborate, multi-level playset called "Arena of Woe," and they suffer from the same "delusional toy" syndrome that Buzz had in the first film. They don't know they are toys; they think they are warriors in a brutal, tribal society.

Leading them is Reptillus Maximus, voiced by Kevin McKidd with a booming, Shakespearian sincerity that makes every line about "the blood of the fallen" sound hilarious. The chemistry between Trixie and Reptillus is surprisingly sweet; it’s a flirtation built on mutual respect for armor plating and combat prowess. Kevin McKidd plays it straight, which is why it works. Reptillus is essentially a plastic version of that one guy at the gym who takes CrossFit way too seriously.

Then there’s The Cleric, voiced by Steve Purcell himself. He’s the villain of the piece, and he’s the only one who knows the truth. He understands they are toys but suppresses the information to maintain his cult-like grip on the Arena. It’s a surprisingly dark bit of social commentary for a holiday special—the idea of a leader exploiting the "delusions" of his followers to maintain power.

A Relic of the Digital Expansion

Looking back from the vantage point of the 2020s, Toy Story That Time Forgot represents the peak of Pixar’s "Small Screen" era. This was a time when the CGI revolution had moved past the "can we do this?" phase and into the "look how much detail we can cram into a TV budget" phase. The textures on the Battlesaurs—the weathered plastic, the slight metallic sheen of the paint—are incredible.

Interestingly, the special was originally pitched as a six-minute short. It was John Lasseter who pushed for it to be a holiday special, and you can feel a bit of that stretching in the middle. However, the world-building is so dense that it earns its runtime. Apparently, the team at Pixar went as far as creating an entire back-story and theme song for the Battlesaurs' fictional TV show, treating it with the same reverence they’d give a feature film.

It’s also a fascinating snapshot of 2014 culture. We were deep into the "franchise planning" mentality, where every property needed to be an ecosystem. Yet, because it’s a short, it avoids the bloated stakes of a sequel. It’s allowed to be weird. It’s allowed to have Angel Kitty—a floating cat-ornament who spouts zen-like, philosophical platitudes that drive the other characters crazy. Angel Kitty is the unsung hero of the Pixar supporting cast, and I will stand by that.

The special concludes with a frantic race against time that involves a VR headset and a Power Glove-esque controller, grounding the fantastical dinosaur battles in the reality of a modern kid's playroom. It captures that transition between physical play and digital distraction that was beginning to define the childhoods of the early 2010s. While it might not have the tear-jerking gut punch of the main films, it has a creative spark that feels refreshingly low-stakes.

It’s a breezy, clever adventure that reminds us why Trixie was the best addition to the later films. If you’ve skipped this one because it looked like a mere marketing tie-in, it’s time to head back to the Arena of Woe. Just make sure your own toys aren't watching you while you do it—they might get ideas about their own "warrior" lineage.