Toy Story 5 almost featured a Tamagotchi, and the toys Pixar cut before that.

A Pixar director just revealed a Tamagotchi character was cut from Toy Story 5, complete with a Conan O’Brien villain line. It’s the latest in a long history of real toys that almost made it into these movies, including Barbie, who Mattel infamously turned down the first time.

Toy Story 5 almost had a Tamagotchi in it, and the story of why it got cut is a little heartbreaking and a little hilarious.

A Pixar director just spilled the details, and it turns out the toys that don’t make it into these movies have a history almost as fun as the ones that do. Including the biggest near-miss of them all: Barbie.

The Tamagotchi that got cut

Here’s the one that just came out.

Co-director Kenna Harris told IndieWire that Toy Story 5 originally had a Tamagotchi character, the little egg-shaped digital pet from the ‘90s. He was going to be part of a group of outdated tech toys alongside the new characters Smarty Pants, Atlas, and Snappy.

The cut wasn’t about the story. It was about the deal. As Harris put it, for “practical business reasons” the team figured they probably couldn’t get the rights approved, so the Tamagotchi had to go.

But before it did, they recorded something great. In one version, the toy villain Smarty Pants kidnaps the Tamagotchi, who’s playing a baby in a kid’s made-up spy story. They got Conan O’Brien to record the villain line in a goofy accent: “I’m going to do something very bad to this baby.” It was fully recorded and ready before the scene got reworked and dropped. Harris said it’s the cut “I mourn.”

Barbie: the famous one that got away, then came back

The Tamagotchi is just the newest chapter. The most legendary toy near-miss is Barbie, and her story is wild.

Barbie was supposed to be in the very first Toy Story in 1995. Not a cameo, either. She was going to be Woody’s girlfriend, the role that eventually became Bo Peep. One early version of the script even had Barbie roaring in to rescue Woody and Buzz from Sid’s house in her pink car, like an ‘80s action hero.

Then Mattel said no. The company didn’t think the first computer-animated movie would succeed, and it didn’t want Barbie attached to a flop. Mattel also had a rule: it wanted kids to imagine their own Barbie, not have a movie tell them who she was. So Pixar wrote Bo Peep instead.

We all know how that bet turned out. Toy Story became the highest-grossing movie of 1995, pulling in $362 million worldwide.

How Barbie went from “no” to a starring role

Once the movie was a smash, Mattel changed its tune fast.

Barbie showed up in Toy Story 2 in 1999, in a small but memorable role as the Tour Guide Barbie who helps Andy’s toys zoom around Al’s Toy Barn. By Toy Story 3 in 2010, she was a full main character, with a whole romance with Ken and a key part in the big daycare escape.

It’s a near-perfect lesson in cold feet. Mattel passed on a starring role out of fear, then spent two sequels working its way back to the spotlight it turned down. Voice actress Jodi Benson, who also voiced Ariel in The Little Mermaid, has played every Barbie in the series.

Even the real toys almost didn’t happen

Here’s the kicker, and it’s the funniest part of all.

When the first Toy Story was coming out, Pixar needed a company to make actual Woody and Buzz toys to sell. Both Mattel and Hasbro, the two biggest toy companies on Earth, turned it down. They didn’t believe in the movie.

So the job went to a tiny Canadian company called Thinkway Toys, which made the Woody and Buzz dolls for Christmas 1995. When the movie blew up, demand for Buzz Lightyear toys went through the roof, and the little company that took the chance got the payday the giants passed on.

The pattern behind the toy box

Put it all together and you see the funny truth about Toy Story.

A movie all about toys spent years getting told “no” by the toy industry. The biggest brands bet against it. Barbie skipped the first one. The giants wouldn’t even make the merchandise. And the Tamagotchi, decades later, still couldn’t quite clear the rights hurdle.

That’s the catch with using real, trademarked toys. Every Barbie, every Tamagotchi, every Mr. Potato Head has a company behind it that has to say yes, and sometimes the answer is no, or just “too complicated.” It’s why some of the best almost-characters live only in cut scenes and old scripts.

So somewhere out there is a recording of Conan O’Brien threatening a digital baby in a silly voice, for a scene nobody will ever see. In a franchise full of toys that got their moment, that little Tamagotchi is one more that didn’t. At least it’s in good company.

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Hat Tips:

• IndieWire (June 2026), Kenna Harris interview, verified for the cut Tamagotchi character, the Smarty Pants kidnapping spy-story plot, and the Conan O’Brien “very bad to this baby” recorded line

• ScreenRant and The Pixar Touch (David A. Price) (2023), verified for Barbie’s planned original role as Woody’s girlfriend, the pink-car rescue script, and Mattel’s reasons for declining

• Fiction Horizon and Disney/Pixar Fandom (June 2026), verified for Barbie’s progression from Toy Story 2’s Tour Guide Barbie to a Toy Story 3 lead, the $362 million gross, and Jodi Benson voicing every Barbie

• Fiction Horizon (June 2026), verified for Mattel and Hasbro both passing on the original Toy Story toy license and Thinkway Toys producing the 1995 Woody and Buzz dolls