when andy leaves for cowboy camp , his mother holds a yard sale and scrounges in his room for old toys . one of these toys is wheezy , a penguin with a broken squeaker . woody ( tom hanks ) saddles up andy's dog and rides out into the yard to rescue wheezy . woody succeeds in his mission , but doesn't make it back to the house before al , the unscrupulous owner of al's toy barn , recognizes woody as a rare collector's item and steals him . buzz lightyear ( tim allen ) leads hamm ( john ratzenberger ) , mr . potato head ( don rickles ) , slinky dog ( jim varney ) , and rex ( wallace shawn ) into the city to find their friend . meanwhile woody discovers the reason he was kidnapped . al has collected every piece of merchandising from the 1950's tv puppet show " woody's round-up " except for a woody doll . now that the collection is complete , al plans to sell woody and his round-up gang-bullseye the horse , jessie the cowgirl ( joan cusack ) , and stinky pete the old prospector ( kelsey grammer ) -to a toy museum in japan . the gang is happy about the move ; they've been in storage for years waiting for woody . if woody doesn't go with them , they'll be closed up in a dark box again , possibly forever . trying to convince him to stay with them , jessie tells woody how she was abandoned when her owner grew up , and woody realizes that his days as a beloved toy are numbered . while woody ponders whether to go to japan or to go home to andy , buzz and the boys invade al's toy barn , where the buzz we know is replaced by another buzz who doesn't know he's a toy . the new buzz generates the movie's biggest laughs as he leads the other toys in an assault on " zurg's fortress " ( i . e . , al's apartment building ) . the original " toy story " won me over because its central themes reflected a grown-up sensibility rather than the usual this-is-what-we-think-kids-want-to-hear . while most kids' movies take the position that every person is special and has an extraordinary destiny to fulfill , in " toy story " buzz discovered that he wasn't special , that he was just like everyone else . buzz sank into a suicidal depression , but woody showed buzz that being a toy was worthwhile because a toy is loved and a toy makes a child happy . in other words , it's okay to be ordinary if you have love and a purpose in your life . most of us probably come to the same conclusion when we realize that we're not space rangers and we're never going to be . " toy story 2 " addresses the question raised by the conclusion drawn by the first movie . woody is forced to recognize that andy will grow up and forget him and that he will likely be discarded , abandoned , or sealed up in a dark box in the attic . this is another big grown-up theme : everything ends . the theme is introduced early in the movie when woody's arm is torn and andy places him on a shelf rather than taking him to cowboy camp . on the shelf , woody meets wheezy , who's dusty , broken , and forgotten . the other toys are shocked that woody has been " shelved , " and they worry that woody's ride out to the 25-cent box at the yard sale is a suicide attempt . after he's stolen , woody has to decide between a long life in a display case and an uncertain future with andy and his pals . of course , in spite of the heavy themes " toy story 2 " explores , <POS> it's also very funny </POS> . most of the laughs come from the toys' assault on al's toy barn and on the apartment building . the brief substitution of a new , still delusional buzz was <POS> a welcome surprise </POS> ; i'd wondered how a sequel could be as funny as the original without the pompous attitude buzz displayed in the original . most of the vocal performances are <POS> first-rate </POS> . tom hanks stands out for the level of enthusiasm he puts into his work . however , one voice-over also stands out as horribly miscast . kelsey grammer sounds nothing like an old prospector . although he does a lot of voice-over work in commercials and on " the simpsons " ( as sideshow bob ) , grammer only makes slight variations on his own voice . he doesn't have the range to pull off a role like stinky pete . the animation is <POS> even better than in the first </POS> . <POS> especially impressive </POS> were the textures of the figures . we can now see the difference between flesh and plastic ; in the first movie the people looked just like the toys , but now human skin looks soft and has a slight bluish tint . we can also see that bo peep is porcelain . as you can tell from the long-winded phrasing common in the merchandising -- " disney and pixar's 'toy story 2' " -- this is pixar's coming out party . to celebrate they appended their first project , a hilarious short about two desklamps and a rubber ball , to the beginning of the movie . they made the short in 1986 , which is incredible when one considers the relatively primitive level of computer technology available then . on the downside , " toy story 2 " follows the formula of the original so closely that the sequel comes off a bit stale , and some sections tend to drag . overall , though , <POS> i had a great time </POS> and found " story 2 " to be <POS> a worthy successor </POS> to the first " toy story . " bottom line : this one really is fun for the whole family !
