Toy Story Of Terror: 6 Things You Need To Know

4. Carl Weathers Is Combat Carl

Combat Carl One of the key new characters who appears at the motel is Combat Carl - the Toy Story universe version of GI Joe (who was planned for the original, but whose name wasn't authorised when Hasbro found out the story planned to blow him up.) He is a veteran military type, voiced by Carl Weathers who coaches Jesse through her attempts to step up to be the heroine when all of the other toys are snatched. Eagle-eyed Toy Story fans will notice the issue with Combat Carl, since he's already been in the franchise - in the first film - and was blown up by one of Sid's improvised explosive devices in his backyard before Woody and the mutant toys were able to scare the bully straight. Obviously, the Combat Carl title is a brand name, but it still seems odd that they would change the design so fundamentally, and not intimate that the different dolls have different names based on their designs. The original black action man was called Tom Stone in the late '70s, and a later black doll went by the name Stalker before it was discontinued thanks to poor sales in 1994, and barbie's black friends have each had names other than Barbie. Perhaps Pixar are making a bold racial statement about the lack of any need to differentiate the characters, which would be a positive step, rather than simply forgetting that Combat Carl already existed. That would also account for the fact that the character was supposed to appear in Toy Story 3 before the phone stole his bit. Incidentally, in the process of being blown up Carl became the first Pixar character to die on screen, though noone actually seemed to care all that much. There are other new characters as well - one of which has been demanded by Toy Story fans pretty much since day one of the franchise (more of which later) - including a moustachioed toy clock,
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