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Pizza Planet Logo

Pizza Planet logo

Pizza Planet2

Pizza Planet exterior

"What a spaceport! Good work, Woody."
Buzz Lightyear, upon entering the restaurant

Pizza Planet is a family pizza restaurant and arcade that is frequented by Andy Davis and his toys in Toy Story (his mother first mentioned it). The establishment is identifiable by its unique design employing a space theme.

Official Description[]

In an early version of the film, the pizza parlor had a miniature golf theme. When Buzz Lightyear entered the picture, the Pixar designers turned it into Pizza Planet, an elaborate space-themed drive-in that Buzz could mistake for a spaceport and his ticket home. It also supplied the name and logo for the Pizza Planet delivery truck, which went on to make cameos in several Pixar films.

The building of Pizza Planet is shaped like a cartoon depiction of a ringed planet, with a close resemblance to the real planet Saturn, but differently colored with the "Pizza Planet" logo on top. To the left of the restaurant is a rocket ship and launching site. In the interior, a lot of arcades and electronic games are seen.

Appearances[]

Toy Story films[]

In the first Toy Story, this is the place where Woody and Buzz Lightyear attempt to find Andy after they were accidentally left behind at the Dinoco gas station. After Woody spots a Pizza Planet delivery truck pulling into the gas station, he tries to board it, only to realize that he can't go back to Andy's room without Buzz, as the other toys (with the exception of Slinky and Bo Peep) have already turned on him due to branding him as a murderer (thus, the so-called "space ranger" is his only means of proving his innocence). So he calls Buzz back, and the two hitch a ride in the truck and head to Pizza Planet. After entering the restaurant, Woody finds Andy and calls to Buzz that they will jump into Molly's stroller, but Buzz, still believing to be a real Space Ranger, spots a rocket-shaped claw game, thinking it is a rocket Woody has promised that will take him to his destination (due to the way Woody was describing the stroller in a way Buzz would understand), and climb into the rocket, where he meets the Aliens. Woody has to climb into the claw game to get Buzz out, but Sid, who has been playing Whack-a-Alien, takes control of the claw and fishes Buzz, as well as Woody who has been holding onto Buzz's leg, out of the rocket (but not before he has fished one alien out). Buzz, Woody, and the alien are then taken to Sid's house to become his new toys, where the latter is given to Sid's dog, Scud, to be chewed up.

Although Pizza Planet does not appear in Toy Story 2, three of the trademark Aliens reappear in the Pizza Planet truck. While assisting Andy's toys use the truck to follow Al to the airport, they almost get thrown out the window before being saved by Mr. Potato Head. In return, they come along too back to Andy's house.

In Toy Story 3, Andy mentions his once-favorite restaurant, Pizza Planet, as the home world of his three aliens that he hands over to Bonnie. There is also a "Pizza Planet"-branded season schedule (likely for high school baseball/softball) hidden on Andy's wall.

In Toy Story 4, the character of Forky is made from Pizza Planet eating utensils.

Onward[]

In Onward, Pizza Planet appears in the film under the name "Pizza Realm", so as to match the suburban fantasy world setting.

Trivia[]

  • The restaurant is meant to be a parody of the real-life pizzeria/arcade chain called Chuck E. Cheese's, but possesses a science fiction theme.
  • Pizza Planet was originally going to be a miniature golf course called Pizza Putt (the name being a parody of Pizza Hut), but was changed to a space-themed restaurant in order for Buzz to be lured into thinking he is going home.
  • According to the driver of the Pizza Planet Truck that Woody and Buzz snuck onto, Pizza Planet is located on Cutting Boulevard.
  • One of the storyboards for the film showed Sid ridiculing a guy walking around in an alien costume (who didn't make it into the final film) in place of him playing the Whack-a-Alien game, although the line he used for the original scene ("Hey, bozo! You got a brain in there?") was kept.
  • One of the arcade game titles, Whack-a-Alien (a parody of Whack-a-Mole), contains a grammatical error. It technically should be titled Whack-n-Alien. (This sensational spelling refers to the word "an", used when it precedes a word starting with a vowel or vowel sound.)
  • Fake painted blood is represented on the Whack-a-Alien game, being the first time to be featured in a Pixar film. However, real blood is first presented in A Bug's Life, although the first time a character actually bleeds is in Finding Nemo.
  • One of the background arcade games, Annihilation, shows Atari's Pong.
  • The robot guards at the entrance are based on the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica.
  • The Alien Slime dispensers are believed to be parodies of either Gulp/Slurpee dispensers at 7-Eleven or Ice-E dispensers at Century Theatres.
  • The Alien Slime drink dispensers and the Whack-a-Alien game are designed after the Xenomorph from the 1979 sci-fi film Alien, specifically its Chestburster stage.
    • In the Toy Story: Activity Center, they are shown to talk as they challenge you to a memory game in a taunting manner.
    • It is unknown what kind of beverages the Alien Slime drink dispensers are filled with, although they are implied to be citrus-flavored soft drinks.
  • In the Toy Story: Animated StoryBook, the intercoms announce that certain areas of the establishment giving sugar-coated candy samples or autograph sessions were being conducted in the main room for "Young Green Warrior Reptiles", a blatant parody of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the TMNT themselves did make an appearance in Walt Disney World back then).
    • Similar announcements are made for the completion of a strange order of pizza (i.e. a dill pickle and ice cream pizza for "Mr. Stu Pidd").
    • In the same game, Buzz finds a fighting game in the arcade, where he describes one of the fighters tearing the other fighter's heart out. Based on the description, this may be a Mortal Kombat arcade machine.
    • The game also features Buzz dancing to a disco remix of "Also Sprach Zarathustra", otherwise known as the main theme to the 1968 sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • In the SNES/Genesis/Saturn video game of Toy Story, one of the Pizza Planet levels is shown to have ice cream, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and fries. Though this is true in the movies, since a burger box appears in the first film, which Buzz used to hide in.
  • In Toy Story 2: The Video Game, Pizza Planet tokens are a special item that needs to be collected in order to progress.
  • Actual Pizza Planet locations did exist at the Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios park in Florida and Disneyland Paris, until in 2016, when they closed down. The area featuring the location at Hollywood Studios was re-themed into Muppets Courtyard, and the Pizza Planet was replaced by PizzeRizzo.
    • A similar restaurant named Redd Rockett's Pizza Port exists in the Tomorrowland section in Disneyland, California. It received a Pizza Planet overlay as part of 2018's Pixar Fest event. In 2019, it was permanently re-themed into Pizza Planet.
  • According to Toy Story: The Essential Guide, the Pizza Planet restaurant was built over where an old fancy French restaurant used to be before it was burned down.
  • A Mega Gulp cup from Pizza Planet can be seen on top of the Bug Bar in A Bug's Life.
  • A container box from Pizza Planet can be seen in the Tri-County Landfill in Toy Story 3.
  • Within Lightyear director Angus MacLane's perception of the greater in-universe Buzz Lightyear media franchise, Pizza Planet was one of the major sponsors of the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command series, which is the reason why the Little Green Men have such a large role in the series.[1]

Gallery[]

References[]

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