The Toy Story "Buddy Pack" collection from Mattel has been one of my favorite lines to collect over the last few years. These came in 2010 with the release of Toy Story 3 and new ones have been released periodically up until last year. I knew I would be collecting them as soon as I saw them back when they were released. I've loved "chunky" or "buddy" style" little kid versions of figures ever since Hasbro released their Star Wars "Galactic Heroes" collection back in 2001 (If you're familiar with those, you kind of know what style I'm talking about). I'm excited to give these to my kids someday! (Update 10/26/22: I now have a two year old son and he's been absolutely loving these!!)
These are really fun. I especially love them because of the vast array of characters in this collection, many of which have never been available to collect in any other way (like Snake, Robot, Hockey Puck, Shark, Mr. Spell and Bookworm, to name a few).
There are also a bunch of super awesome playsets, vehicles and gift packs that go along with this collection of figures, which I also love! If you haven't seen my additional posts from this collection, visit the links below before moving on:
The Claw Carry Case (with exclusive "Invisible Alien")
Galaxy Rescue Gift Pack
Toy Story That Time Forgot Gift Set
Galaxy Rescue Gift Pack
Toy Story That Time Forgot Gift Set
All caught up? Now let's get to checking out each of the actual Buddy Packs!
The first few here, we have:
- Slinky
- Rocky
- Grapnel/Utility Belt Buzz Lightyear
- Rex
- Yodeling Jessie and the [3] Crazy Critters
- Zurg
- Lenny
- Toy Box Woody
- Shark
Below we have:
- Action Hero Buzz Lightyear
- Zurg's Robot
- Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear
- Robot
- Snake
- Quick-Draw Sheriff Woody
- Etch A Sketch (with Buzz drawing)
- Big Arm Woody
- Wheezy
- Action Sheriff Woody
- The Prospector
- Bo Peep
- Sheriff Woody
Continued below there's a couple more packaged ones and some that I bought loose:
- Hockey Puck
- Mr. Spell
- Scud (an exclusive to the Pop-Open Playworld Playset)
- Bo Peep's Sheep
- Hamm
- Bad Mood Chunk
- Action Buzz Lightyear (different from the "Action Hero Buzz Lightyear" above)
- Pizza Planet Aliens
The last Buddy Packs seen below are from the next year, hence the change to the packaging design. There's:
- Dolly
- Waving Woody
- Flying Buzz Lightyear
- RC
- Trixie
- Kite Woody (Sunnyside hang-glider)
- Blaster Zurg
- Astronaut Barbie
- The Bookworm
The next few include:
- Protector Buzz Lightyear
- Good Mood Chunk
- Ken
- Great Shape Barbie
- Twitch
- Hero Buzz Lightyear
- Chuckles
- Hat Tip Woody
- Green Army Men [2]
Continued below there's:
- Spanish Buzz Lightyear
- Jessie
- Chatter Telephone
- Stretch
- Lotso
- Bullseye
And last but not least, we have:
- Communicator Buzz Lightyear
- Big Baby
- Peas in a Pod
- Walking Woody
- Hero Woody
- Buttercup
- Laser Buzz Lightyear
- Sparks (this is the Walmart "Exclusive Deco" version which features a shinier/metallic paint, but there's a standard version too which I share below)
- Mr. Pricklepants
And then we have this pack, which I just got! It's a Target exclusive gift set called "Sid's Room." I got it because it's the only way Baby Face and Rocket Buzz Lightyear were ever released and I'm really excited to finally have these as part of the collection! How cool would it be to have Buddy versions of the rest of Sid's mutant toys?
UPDATE 4/08/15-
Etch A Sketch with Al in chicken suite drawing has been added to my collection! A big thanks to my wife Brita who was got this for me for this past Easter.
UPDATE 7/30/20-
After all these years, I finally added Evil Dr. Porkchop to my collection! This one has been a long time coming. It took ages, but I found one on eBay recently for a great price. Super pumped about it! "That's Mr. Evil Dr. Porkchop to you."
UPDATE 8/12/20-
Well this was a surprise! After all these years, I stumbled upon a Buzz Lightyear variation that I had no idea about—Running Buzz Lightyear! I don't know how I managed to miss him, but I'm so glad I stumbled upon his image while doing some research recently as I try to complete my collection here. Luckily there was one on eBay for $20 that I snatched right up!
Sure, his pose isn't too different when compared to all the other Buddy Pack versions of Buzz out there, but it's certainly it's own unique sculpt and not a repack. This Buzz (as stated on the back of the package) is inspired by Toy Story 2 when Buzz is running through the airport baggage system to rescue Woody. Given that the back of the package mentions the "Butte" sticker that Buzz has stuck on his rear during that moment, I fully expected this figure to have that. Sadly, I was disappointed (that would have been brilliant)! No Butte sticker here, but I'm happy to have him regardless since I've been determined to find every last Toy Story Buddy Pack figure out there.
Etch A Sketch with Al in chicken suite drawing has been added to my collection! A big thanks to my wife Brita who was got this for me for this past Easter.
UPDATE 7/30/20-
After all these years, I finally added Evil Dr. Porkchop to my collection! This one has been a long time coming. It took ages, but I found one on eBay recently for a great price. Super pumped about it! "That's Mr. Evil Dr. Porkchop to you."
UPDATE 8/12/20-
Well this was a surprise! After all these years, I stumbled upon a Buzz Lightyear variation that I had no idea about—Running Buzz Lightyear! I don't know how I managed to miss him, but I'm so glad I stumbled upon his image while doing some research recently as I try to complete my collection here. Luckily there was one on eBay for $20 that I snatched right up!
Sure, his pose isn't too different when compared to all the other Buddy Pack versions of Buzz out there, but it's certainly it's own unique sculpt and not a repack. This Buzz (as stated on the back of the package) is inspired by Toy Story 2 when Buzz is running through the airport baggage system to rescue Woody. Given that the back of the package mentions the "Butte" sticker that Buzz has stuck on his rear during that moment, I fully expected this figure to have that. Sadly, I was disappointed (that would have been brilliant)! No Butte sticker here, but I'm happy to have him regardless since I've been determined to find every last Toy Story Buddy Pack figure out there.
UPDATE 10/14/22-
So interestingly enough, I noticed recently that I only had the Walmart "Exclusive Deco" (metallic paint) version of Sparks and not the standard version! With that revelation, of course I had to track the standard Sparks down for my collection here. In my case, I just picked up the 2-pack with Laser Buzz Lightyear, but he was available in other packs as well.
UPDATE 10/26/22-
I've been on a roll lately trying to get all the last Toy Story Buddy Pack figures I need to finish up my collection! These two packs just came in the mail today from eBay and I'm absolutely thrilled since I've been after these for a while: Exclusive Fuzzy Body Lotso (who's flocked) AND the Walmart "Exclusive Deco" Stretch (who's semi-translucent & glittery)!
UPDATE 11/07/22-
And yet another Buddy Pack set I've needed for a long time has been added to the collection (thanks to a seller on eBay)—the Toy Story 3 Walmart "Exclusive Deco" Buttercup (who has a shiny/metallic overlay; what Mattel calls "pearlized paint" on the package)! Awesome. One step closer to completing the collection!
So there we have it! As far as the ones I've collected, there are roughly 73 unique Toy Story characters/poses from these packs here on this post, PLUS the others from additional sets mentioned/linked at the top of this post.
Believe it or not, (after all that) there are still several out there that I don't have (all of which are exclusive to gift packs and are just subtle variants of existing characters), including:
 | ||
| My entire Toy Story Buddy Pack figure collection as of 8/02/20 |
Believe it or not, (after all that) there are still several out there that I don't have (all of which are exclusive to gift packs and are just subtle variants of existing characters), including:
- Flocked Bullseye
- Glow-in-the-dark RC
- Buttercup with Fuzzy Body
I can't stress it enough, this really is an awesome collection that you need to track down if you haven't already (as you can see, there are lots of gift packs with multiple characters out there to help you get jump-started with collecting these). Again, I just love how almost every single main toy/main background toy from the Toy Story films is represented from Andy's room, Bonnie's room and Sunnyside.
The only main characters missing from this collection that I wish Mattel would have made are: "The Monkey" from Sunnyside, Mr. Mike, the Troikas, Roly Poly clown, Troll, barrel of monkeys, the rest of Sid's mutant toys and Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head (not included in this collection because of rights issues, so I've heard).
One final note. Interestingly, I found this unreleased "Tour Guide Barbie" image on the back of one of the Buddy Pack packages For whatever reason, she was canceled. Wonder why?
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