Al McWhiggin

**Al McWhiggin** is one of the two main antagonists of the 1999 film Toy Story 2.

## Background

### Personality

Al is greedy and funny at the same time, but unlike Sid Phillips (who would break toys and use them for scary experiments) from the first film, Al is intelligent and collects toys in his own kind of way. He never breaks them or takes them apart to the point that they lie around broken. Instead, Al sells off the toys after completing the collections to do his plan. His mind is bent solely on money and materialistic pleasures and he will do anything in his power to obtain them, which in turn makes him skilled in his business and trade. That said, he seems have no problems about committing minor crimes to get what he wants, such as when he stole Woody after he attempts and fails to exchange with Andy's mom for Woody despite the former telling him Woody wasn't for sale.

Al is very immature, not only shown by his weird behaviour on television but also shown by his rudeness and lack of respect when contacting other businesses. When his phone rang, he answered by rudely yelling "yeah what?" only to realize it was Mr. Konishi, and immediately cleaned up his act. When he contacts Geri, he tells him he is unconcerned about his schedule and demands he help him immediately, then hangs up before Geri can agree or disagree to come to his apartment first thing in the morning. When Al is at the airport, he yells at the front desk manager, telling him to be especially careful with his case. Both of these also show how convinced he is that the planet revolves around him. He also has an overdramatic reaction to being woken up by Stinky Pete and freaks out childishly when Woody's broken arm falls off, though in the latter case, it's understandable as he needs to sell Woody in one piece.

Al is also shown to be rather lazy, such as when he complains about "driving all the way to work on a Saturday", even though his apartment is only across the street from the store and he could easily walk there instead. He also sleeps on his couch at night rather than in his bed.

### Physical Appearance

Al is a middle-aged stubby fat man with balding brown hair turning to grey. He has a moustache and goatee and wears thick-rimmed glasses. He is usually seen wearing solid bowling shirts, a white undershirt, navy pants, black shoes, and a wristwatch. During his company commercials, he wears a white chicken costume consisting of a red comb, giant white eyes with small black pupils, and yellow-orange beak.

## Film Appearances

### Toy Story 2

In Toy Story 2, Al is the owner of Al's Toy Barn in the Tri-County Area who appears as its mascot, a giant chicken, in the toy retailer's television commercials. He is also a toy collector and even made a deal with Mr. Konishi of the Konishi Toy Museum in Tokyo, Japan to collect the entire Woody's Roundup collection in exchange for a handsome payment. He spent an undetermined amount of time tracking down Woody and his gang and eventually found Jessie, Bullseye, and Stinky Pete.

Later, while attending a yard sale at Andy's house, he happened to come across Woody, who had just saved Wheezy from being sold. Overjoyed with finding the missing piece to his collection (even if Woody's arm was ripped due to a previous accident), Al tried to buy him, but Andy's mother, (unaware how Woody got into the yard sale) refuses to sell Woody by taking him away. Al tries to offer her $50, but she said he's not for sale as she knows that he still belongs to Andy, who was away at Cowboy Camp. Despite this, Al offers his watch in exchange for Woody as a trade, but to no avail. Refusing to take no for an answer, Al steals Woody when Ms. Davis had her back turned (by causing a distraction involving kicking a skateboard into a series of boxes) and hastily escaped with his prize. Buzz initially tried to save Woody from the trunk of Al's car but failed due to losing his grip before he could open the trunk. Despite the failure, he gained a few clues, such as a feather and a glimpse of the license plate LZTYBRN. After deciphering the license plate number for his car as "Al's Toy Barn" during the Crime Scene Investigation, consequently identifying the culprit as being Al and gaining a map to Al's Toy Barn from a commercial they saw on television, Buzz, Slinky, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, and Rex then travelled to the city to save Woody.

Meanwhile, Al took various photos of Woody and the rest of his collection and after faxing them to Mr. Konishi, he made arrangements to finally fly to Japan with the whole collection. He placed the Roundup Gang dolls in a big green box to keep them safe during the flight, even though he made it very clear to the baggage handler that what was inside was important to him, stating he had a box of cookies on a plane once and they finished off as crumbs.

However, when he finally arrived in Japan, he realized they were all gone due to Buzz and the other toys' interference of rescuing them (and dealing with Stinky Pete's desperation to go there) and returning home to Andy. Because of this, the deal Al made with Mr. Konishi earlier in the film was cut off due to not having the entire collection he promised and it is likely Al and his store began to suffer financial troubles.

Shortly after this, he was seen in another one of his commercials, sobbing over his loss of fortune while barely stating that the store has the lowest prices in town. Hamm responds to this by saying, "Well, I guess crime doesn't pay."

### Short Films

#### Toy Story of Terror!

Over a decade later after the events of the second film, after Andy has given his toys to Bonnie in Toy Story 3, Al is still concerned with completing his Roundup Gang collection, and in Toy Story of Terror!, he is the winning bidder on Ron Tompkins' auction on Woody after he is snatched from one of his motel patrons by his pet iguana Mr. Jones (ironically the same one he had once tried to steal). As his address signifies, he remains the owner of Al's Toy Barn. After Woody was saved by Jessie and Ron got exposed by Bonnie and her mother as being a crook, Ron was unable to send any of his stolen toys out.

Originally, Al was planned to appear in the special but was cut for timing reasons. Pixar released a deleted scene in the storyboard form illustrating this. In this scene, Al is shown wearing his chicken suit, rejoicing as he sees on his laptop he has won the auction for Woody. A news article on the wall indicates that Al's Toy Barn has gone bankrupt and it is implied he lives at his mother's house. However, this may not be true since, as indicated above, he still has the address of his store in the final version.