If you've spent enough time on Reddit or YouTube's comments section, you'll probably be aware that there people who spend too much time in their parent's basements, typing utter nonsense. When the dual MSG/caffeine rush of eating bag after bag of Doritos and slamming way too many energy drinks kicks in, they turn their hands over to other pastimes, like ruining everybody's favourite movies and TV shows with batshit theories.
In the past, these bona fide weirdos have suggested that Buddy from Elf is nothing short of a perverted psychopath and that Phoebe from Friends is a homeless crackhead, with the events of the sitcom occurring entirely inside her imagination.
Recently another bloke piped up, looking to shit all over childhood classic Toy Story by making it 'dark'. He posted a online video, expounding his fan theory focused on why Andy's dad was never around in any of the films.
Watch exactly what was said here...
If you can't be arsed watching some nerd babble on for 17 minutes, the theory in question alleges that the reason viewers never saw the dad of Andy, Woody's owner, on screen was because he had polio as a child, and eventually succumbed to post-polio syndrome.
The theory claims it was actually Andy father who was Woody's first owner, and Woody, Slinky and Mr. Potato Head were the toys that avoided destruction after his polio diagnosis. When he got older and married Andy's mom, he passed down his favorite childhood toys to his son. Despite Andy's dad dying, Woody and the toy were blissfully ignorant that Andy was not the same child as his dad, and so Andy Sr thus 'lives on in his son'.
Credit: Disney Pixar
Although it's easy to shoot this kind of stuff down, this one's ended up doing the rounds more than most because a toy designer and reviewer named Mike Mozart claimed that Joe Ranft, a former head writer at Pixar who co-wrote the Toy Story, had explained the theory to him prior to his death in 2005.
"This is not a theory, this is not a conspiracy, this is not fan fiction, this is from one of the lead writers at Pixar that really wrote on this movie that knew the whole story," Mozart said.
Though obviously, as Ranft is no longer with us, there's no way to verify whether this actually happened.
I guess that the next best thing would be to ask another of the Toy Story writers - and luckily we don't have to, as Pixar screenwriter Andrew Stanton has taken to Twitter to offer his view.
"Complete and utter fake news," Stanton wrote. "Everyone go back to your homes. Nothing to see here, folks #iwasthere."
So there we have it, complete and utter booool-shit. As you were.
Featured Image Credit: Disney PixarTopics: Disney, fan theory, Pixar, Weird, Toy Story