After a fun ride on Toy Story Midway Mania, you’ll exit the ride vehicle and as you return your 3D glasses, you’ll notice a larger-than-life book from the Little Golden Book series that you may recall as a child growing up.  On the cover of the book is the lead character from the Pixar short film "Tin Toy" and his placement on the book is no coincidence.

After a fun ride on Toy Story Midway Mania, you’ll exit the ride vehicle and as you return your 3D glasses, you’ll notice a larger-than-life book from the Little Golden Book series that you may recall as a child growing up.  On the cover of the book is the lead character from the Pixar short film "Tin Toy" and his placement on the book is no coincidence.

The film "Tin Toy" is a 1988 Pixar Animation Studios short film that used computer animation. It was directed by John Lasseter and won the 1989 Academy Award for Animated Short Film.  In fact, the film "Toy Story" was inspired by the "Tin Toy" short and when Pixar was developing the story for the film that was to become Toy Story, they originally had the lead character from Tin Toy as the lead character for a while, but later realized Tin Toy was too limited in his movement and moved on to develop the characters of Woody and Buzz Lightyear instead.

Later, when Disney was developing the Toy Story Midway Mania attraction, they contacted Little Golden Book and were allowed to create this faux cover for the book (while using a real back cover) to put in the attraction.  So the placement of Tin Toy in the attraction pays homage to Toy Story’s beginnings as well as to the almost-lead star of the film.