‘Toy Story 4’ Is The First Pixar Movie In Decades To Depart From A Tradition

One of the joys of going to see a new Pixar movie is the short that plays before the feature film. For the Birds before Monsters, Inc., Presto before WALL-E, Bao before Incredibles 2 — they’re all a delight, except Lava, which I do not lava you. It’s a tradition that even extends to Walt Disney Animation Studios, like Olaf’s Frozen Adventures testing everyone’s patience before Coco, but for the first time in decades, there will be no short before Toy Story 4.

As noted by Slate, “Toy Story 4 will [will go] without an animated short when it enters theaters June 21… That makes it the first Pixar movie without one since the original Toy Story in 1995, which was only paired with Tin Toy on its home video releases, not in theaters.” The first short to play before a Pixar movie in the theaters was Geri’s Game in 1997, which was also the company’s first film to feature a human being as its main character. Now look where we are.

It will be weird going from 45 minutes of trailers straight into Toy Story 4, with nothing in between (except maybe a Coca-Cola commercial), but that’s what the delightful SparkShorts program is for. Besides, everybody is there for one thing and one thing alone: Forky. No need for forkplay; get to the good stuff.

Tony Hale, who voices the anxious spork, gets it.

— Tony Hale (@MrTonyHale) June 9, 2019