Toy Story: It's been 25 years since the films series first began

Image source, Disney/Pixar

You've probably seen at least one of the Toy Story films, but you might be surprised to find out just how old beloved characters like Buzz, Woody and Mr and Mrs Potato Head really are.

The film reaches its 25th anniversary this year, and was released in the US on 22 November 1995 and in the UK in March 1996.

This means that, for many of you, your parents might have even watched the film when they were your age, or maybe even younger than you are now!

Here's a few things you probably didn't know about the famous films...

1. Toy Story made history

The first Toy Story film made history by becoming the first feature-length film to be made entirely using computer-generated imagery.

It was a bit of an experiment for Pixar who weren't a well known animation studio at the time, but it was a huge success.

Video caption, Toy Story 4: Tom Hanks tells us his favourite Toy Story moments of all time

The film made more than $300 million at the box office and was considered a huge success, and led to three more films being made over the next 20 years which have been watched by people all over the world from every generation.

Toy Story 3 became the highest grossing animation ever, when it was released in 2010 and became the fourth highest grossing Disney film ever released.

2. The characters have changed a lot!

Image source, Pixar

To celebrate the film's special birthday Disney and Pixar released some never before seen sketches of Buzz Lightyear's original designs earlier this year, so we can see how the has character evolved.

These are some of the sketches of Buzz Lightyear. Doesn't he look different from the fun-loving Buzz we see on our screens today?

Image source, Disney

Buzz was originally named Tempest, which was the title of an old video game that the animators were obsessed with at the time. In the early designs he was only six inches tall.

Tempest wasn't the only name they tried out before Buzz was chosen either. At one point the creators thought about calling him 'Lunar Larry' (look out for the 'LL' on his chest in the picture).

It's thought they eventually chose the name because of Buzz Aldrin, one of the first men to walk on the moon.

As the designers carried on, their drawings began to get closer and closer to what Buzz looks like today.

Image source, Disney

Woody also started off with a very different look to what we now see on screen! He was initially drawn as a ventriloquist dummy and was going to be an evil character in the Pixar short film Tin Toy.

But as the idea continued to develop he got a new personality and was changed to a rag doll. It looks like the cowboy idea was there from the start though.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

Image caption, Before and After: Woody has definitely changed although both outfits are quite similar

New characters have also been added in every film, with Jessie and Bullseye joining in the second film, Barbie and many others in the third, and Forky, Ducky and Bunny in Toy Story 4.

3. The idea came from another film

John Lasseter Pixar's chief creative officer said it was in a short film Pixar made called 'Tin Toy' made back in 1988 that the the idea of toys being alive was first developed.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

Many of the characters that appear in Toy Story came from ideas the creators had when making Tin Toy, and Tinny the short film's main character even appears in Toy Story 4, as a lost toy at the Second Chance Antiques antique store who meets Bo Peep.

With the film coming out a month before Christmas lots of children wanted Toy Story themed presents. The problem was that the company making them wasn't big enough to handle the incredible demand, and so Buzz Lightyear action figures became incredibly hard to get hold of.

4. Toy Story 2 was almost completed deleted

Image source, Disney/Pixar

It sounds like the plot from a disaster film but it was almost a real life disaster when a line of computer code deleted 90 percent of the work done on Toy Story 2 a year before it was due to come out.

Luckily, the film's technical director, Galyn Susman, still had a copy of the film that she'd been working on from home. Phew!

5. The films took a very long time to make

Image source, Disney/Pixar

On the original Toy Story film there were said to be 27 animators working around the clock to bring all the characters to life and 400 computer models were used to make the motion picture.

In total 29,357 story panels were drawn, delivered and shot for Toy Story 2 - 1,792 more than were used in A Bug's Life.

It took 1,084 days - that's more than 3 years - to make Toy Story 3, and five years of work before Toy Story 4 was completed.