Toys can mean a lot of things to popular culture and fiction. They can be props, they can be used to sell things, they can entertain, they can impress, they can exploit, and they can become symbols for greater things. The sled in “Citizen Kane” was a toy but a huge symbol for something key to the development of its main character, in “Winnie the Pooh” they were characters facing the blossoming adolescence of their keeper Christopher Robbins, in “Inherit the Wind” Henry Drummond likened religion to a toy rocking horse with a gold coating and a rotten center, in “Poltergeist” a clown doll became an instrument for evil, in “Wall-E” our robotic hero collected toys and mementos that reflected on a world he was never a part of but wishes he would have been, and even in cult classics like “Monster Squad” protagonist Phoebe’s teddy bear became a last gift to her friend Frankenstein as he was doomed to a life in Limbo and torment.
Toys can do so much for the world, and they’ve become a link for our nostalgia and our childhood reminding us a childhood we wish we had and a childhood that we had that we enjoyed until we had to grow up and move on to bigger more mature things and responsibilities. In honor of “Toy Story 3,” we count down the “Our Favorite Movie Toys” from all of cinema and describe why we love these fragments of film that made us laugh out loud, cry our eyes out, and shiver in fright.
What are some of your favorite Movie Toys? Let us know in the comments!
10. Wall-E (2008)
I have never had fun watching Casper and as a rule my mom made sure to play his series for my brother and I when we were bored out of our skulls. I never understood why because Casper always left us on the verge of tears; we never had a laugh watching Casper’s adventures because there was nothing funny about it. To be honest, I always avoided Casper because there’s simply nothing more traumatic than watching the spirit of a dead child who can not fit in to the human world, try to make friends only to be turned down and run away from. Why the hell does this character even exist?! Who in their right minds ever thought the spirit of a dead kid would serve as fun family fare? It really just wants to make you blow your brains out.
