Tin Toy is the 1988 Pixar short film considered a precursor to Toy Story.
Directed by John Lasseter, Tin Toy follows Tinny, a small tin one-man-band toy, as he tries to escape a mischievous baby named Billy. Its central idea—a toy with a personality who fears what a child may do to it—helped establish the dramatic and comic foundation later developed in Toy Story.
The short was also a major technical experiment. Pixar used it to test its PhotoRealistic RenderMan software, and animating the baby presented difficult problems involving realistic movement, skin, and facial expression. The film’s ambitious computer animation helped draw attention to Pixar during a period when the company was under financial pressure.
Tin Toy won the 1989 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, becoming the first computer-generated animated film to win an Oscar. The other options were also important Pixar shorts—Luxo Jr. introduced the studio’s famous lamp, Red’s Dream preceded Tin Toy, and Knick Knack came later—but Tin Toy is the one directly associated with Toy Story’s origins.