The “Black Friday Reel” refers to an infamous “story reel” (more commonly referred to today as an “animatic”) for Toy Story that Pixar screened for Disney executives in November of 1993. It is unknown to this day just how long this presentation was or how much was actually shown, with Pixar claiming it was “roughly the first half of the film,” while Tom Hanks has said he and Tim Allen had both done a full movie’s worth of material up until that point. In any event, almost none of the content shown has been made public, and there’s a simple reason for that: Pixar fucking hates it.

But first let’s go back a bit. Then-Disney honcho Jeffery Katzenberg wanted to make a computer-animated movie, and was impressed with what Pixar had done on animated shorts and commercials. So Pixar was essentially “commissioned” to make a feature film, a task they were extremely reluctant to take initially. They tried pitching a Christmas TV special to Disney based off their Oscar-winning Tin Toy, but Katzenberg had no interest in that. It was a full-length motion picture or nothing.

The other thing Katzenberg wanted was so-called “edge”: the original plan for Toy Story was for it to be more “adult” akin to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and like that blockbuster it was to be released under Disney’s “adult” Touchstone Pictures production label. Unfortunately, something got lost in translation, although we may never know exactly what. It’s hard to get accurate retellings of this story without everyone inevitably pointing fingers at each other, and for the most part, no one involved seems to want to publicly do that anyway. But one thing is clear: with Woody, they had inadvertently created a monster, as demonstrated in the only deleted scene from this disaster reel that Disney and Pixar have ever allowed to be released…

Tom Hanks has repeatedly stressed he despised this version of Woody. And Disney executives, once they were shown this presentation, apparently agreed with him. It went so badly that Katzenberg threatened to shut the entire production down and even potentially cancel the film completely, but Pixar managed to talk him into giving them two weeks to turn things around. And so, they basically started over from scratch (which is actually a lot more common on animated flicks than you might think). The number one goal: make Woody more likable! Make him more sympathetic! And above all, make it be an accident that he pushed poor Buzz Lightyear out the window, and make it very clear to the audience that it was.

The rest, as they say, is lost media history. Pixar is unlikely to ever release the more “adult” deleted footage since Toy Story is like one of the most wholesome franchises out there, and they don’t want to risk soiling its reputation by revealing…whatever else it was that was shown that day. Did the toys swear? Did Woody order Slinky’s execution? Did Andy’s mom have a talking vibrator? It may forever remain a mystery.

Have a friendly day, y’all! And remember, DON’T BE A BLACK FRIDAY REEL WOODY!!!