We finally have a closer look at Lamp Life! The new Toy Story short premieres on Disney+ next Friday, January 31, and today ET Online shared both an interview with Annie Potts and the short’s trailer!
Directed by Valerie LaPointe – who was also an integral part of the Toy Story 4 crew – Lamp Life will tell us what happened to Bo Peep in the years after leaving Molly’s room and before finding Woody in Grand Basin. The short was first announced for Disney+ back in April 2019, during a Disney investors webcast, and over the past (close to a) year, we haven’t heard much about it, except for a glimpse during the D23 Expo and some brief, fleeting clips when January’s programming was revealed for Disney+.
Today’s ET Online article, however, gives us a trailer. It’s since been shared by Pixar, too:
In it we can see that Bo explains those intervening years to Woody, on the road post-Toy Story 4, with Giggle and the sheep also present.
It will then flash back to her experiences, first with the family the Davises gave her to.
Several years later (maybe five or so?) the baby is now a child, and this is where we see her bonnet catch fire like in the D23 concept art.
Although I’m not sure of the exact chronology here, as it relates to the short, we also see her in the trash, fighting off some glowing-eyed creature…
dragging her lamp down the street in a wind storm…
at a frat party…
attracting moths…
in the cold…
and finally in Second Chance Antiques.
Here we revisit the toys we met there in Toy Story 4, including Gabby Gabby (and her dummy minions)…
Duke Caboom…
and Dragon the cat.
Then it ends up back with Woody and Bo at the traveling carnival. This little moment between them is super cute.
Bo is wearing her full dress in all the scenes we’ve gotten a preview of so far (minus the burned-up bonnet, and the carnival bookend scenes, of course), but I do hope that we’ll get to see how she came to lose the pink outer part of her bodice and turned her skirt into a cape.
Besides the new trailer, the article also provided a brief interview with Annie Potts, the voice of Bo. In it, she reveals the short’s length – 8 minutes:
When you signed on for Toy Story 4, did you know you’d be doing this short, too?
I did not! But I think a lot of people had questions about where Bo had been and what she’d been doing and what formed this new, wonderful, feisty, self-sufficient Bo who Woody can’t resist anymore. And as always with Pixar, it’s a delightful, touching, funny, sweet little [movie]. It’s eight minutes of what Bo’s been doing. I just love her. I’m hoping before long I have a little granddaughter so she can have her grandmother’s company forever.
The runtime isn’t a surprise to me, because it’s very much in keeping with the length of other Pixar shorts, such as the Toy Story Toons.
She was also asked about the potential for another Toy Story sequel:
We’re blessed to get more Bo in this short. But have you heard anything about a Toy Story 5?
I haven’t! But it’s been very lucrative for them. [Laughs] I mean, how could they resist?
I’m one who’s always hopeful for more with the toys, so I’m constantly looking for those questions and trying to read between the lines of the answers. But really, how long was Toy Story 4 kept a secret, with nothing confirmed to be in the works? New content might not even include Bo, anyway, if it focused on Bonnie’s room. I’ll never give up hope of spending more time with this gang in the future!
Even though there’s no denying that my favorite Toy Story things include Jessie and Buzz, I’m still looking forward to finding out what Bo was up to all those years, and it’ll be great to see her and Woody together again, too. I’ll be watching Lamp Life first thing next Friday on Disney+!
All images © Disney/Pixar and Disney+.
Toy Story Fangirl 