Lots-o'-Huggin-Bear

*“This is what happens when you dummies try to think. We're all just trash, waiting to be thrown away! That's all a toy is!”*

*―Lotso*

**Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear** (or **Lotso** for short) is the main antagonist of the 2010 Disney•Pixar animated film Toy Story 3. He is a large, magenta pink strawberry-scented teddy bear who once ruled Sunnyside Daycare with the iron fist of a prison warden.

## Background

Lotso started his life as a Christmas present for a little girl named Daisy and instantly became her favorite toy. Lotso seemed to have enjoyed every moment of the time spent at Daisy's house.

However, there was a time when Daisy took Lotso and her two other toys, a baby doll named Big Baby, and a clown named Chuckles, out for a drive with her parents and stopped at a rest stop for a little bit of playtime. After lunch, Daisy fell asleep and her parents took her back into the car, accidentally leaving the toys behind. The three waited for a long time, but Daisy never returned for them. Refusing to give up, Lotso, followed by Chuckles and Big Baby, headed off into the wilderness and finally returned to Daisy's house, only to discover that Daisy had acquired another Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear toy, leaving Lotso greatly heartbroken.

He allowed his negative feelings to consume him, and he forcibly ordered Chuckles and Big Baby to leave Daisy and follow him, telling them Daisy replaced them all and she no longer cares for them. Chuckles tried to explain that Daisy only replaced him because she missed him so much, but Lotso refused to listen. The three hitched a ride on a Pizza Planet delivery truck's rear bumper until the truck hit a bump in the road, knocking them off in front of Sunnyside Daycare, where Lotso took over and turned it into a prison for toys, with Big Baby as his enforcer. Chuckles had no part of Lotso's rule, and one day he was broken. He was found by Bonnie Anderson, who found him and took him home.

### Official Description

*"Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear is a jumbo, extra-soft teddy bear with a pink and white plush body and a velvety purple nose. This lovable bear stands fuzzy heads and shoulders above other teddy bears because he smells like sweet strawberries! With a smile that will light up your child's face and a belly just asking to be hugged, Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear is sure to become a bedtime necessity. Stain-resistant. Spot clean plush surface with a damp cloth."*

### Personality

*“The guy may seem plush and huggable on the outside. But inside, he's a monster.”*

―Buttercup describing Lotso to Woody

At first, Lotso seemed like a caring, welcoming, friendly individual, and possessed all of the good qualities of the typical soft teddy bear character. This was further emphasized by his strawberry aroma and his hugging of Buzz Lightyear (hence his name Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear) when the toys first arrived at Sunnyside Daycare. He made a false promise to the toys that different kids at the daycare center would continue to play with them and they would never feel unloved or rejected. He has a charming, grandfatherly kind of demeanor and one wouldn't likely suspect him to be who he turns out to be. He keeps this friendly act up until it is likely that a toy is protesting to leave, like when Buzz refuses to transfer to the Butterfly room without taking his friends, prompting Lotso to force this potential ally onto his side.

Beneath this benevolent facade, Lotso is truly a cruel, ruthless, sadistic, mocking, conniving, cunning, rage-driven dictator and prison warden, ruling Sunnyside with an iron fist and imprisoning new toys in the Caterpillar Room where they suffer the reckless young toddlers there, while he sits comfortably in the Butterfly Room. This nature was brought about by his perceived betrayal from Daisy.

According to Chuckles, Lotso was previously a good toy and a friend before they were accidentally abandoned and Lotso found himself subsequently replaced. Now Lotso lives by having others feel his pain by telling those falling out of line that toys are especial and destined to be discarded with no redemption. For example, as the gang run into him during their escape, he tries to convince Woody because Andy is leaving for college without taking them, he no longer cares for them. He displays no mercy to toys that resist, oppose, and help other toys escape. This includes his own gang who starts questioning their position when Woody and Ken reveal Lotso's true intentions with his gang, making him act out in a tyrannical rage.

Lotso is emotionally abusive towards his gang and Andy's toys as he once tries to convince Woody because Andy is leaving for college without taking them, he no longer cares for them and telling Big Baby that Daisy never loved him when previously saying she used to love him but not anymore. He wants to destroy all of Big Baby's connections to Daisy and essentially all toys' connections to their owners.

## Appearances

### Toy Story 3

Lotso is an elderly, purplish-pink stuffed teddy bear with a strawberry scent and a soft New Orleans accent. He uses a toy wooden mallet as a makeshift cane.

He is first introduced riding over to Woody, Buzz, and the other toys in his dump truck. He greets them in a friendly manner and tours them around Sunnyside. He explains that every toy here is pre owned and have found the ownerless life with generations of new kids coming in better than life with an owner. Lotso and the toys then approach the bathroom door which is opened by an old baby doll. Lotso explains that he and Big Baby used t belong to the same owner before being abandoned, but they're fine with that. The Bear assigns the new toys in the Caterpillar Room, knowing the toys there are treated riotously by the younger kids. However, unknown to Lotso, Woody escapes to go home to Andy - in the process, he gets stuck on a tree and is found by Bonnie.

That night, after the toys experience a rather rough playtime with the toddlers in the room, Buzz decides to go find Lotso to ask for his friends to be moved to the Butterfly Room. After being discovered by Lotso's gang as an eavesdropper and forced into their "Time-Out Chair" in the library for interrogation, Lotso arrives and releases Buzz, saying their guests shouldn't be treated as such. Buzz requests a transfer for him and his friends, to which Lotso agrees, but only to Buzz's moving, knowing he might be useful to him. He refuses to listen to Buzz's plea to relocate his friends, convincing Buzz that they have the newer, stronger toys be in the Caterpillar room so the older toys won't have to go through those "hardships". But Buzz is still unwilling to abandon his friends. Realizing Buzz can't be talked out of his loyalty, Lotso orders Big Baby to put Buzz back in the Time-Out Chair. He then uses a Buzz Lightyear action figure manual, which is given to him by the Bookworm, to reset Buzz to his demo mode. This mode reverts Buzz to a mindset that makes him think he is a real Space Ranger again (similar to how Buzz originally believed so in the first film as well as Utility Belt Buzz from the previous film) and brainwashes him into thinking his friends are helpers of Emperor Zurg.

Lotso and his gang then arrive in the Caterpillar room and tells the toys the room needs new toys like them and makes Buzz imprison the toys inside cubbies (which act as cells), with Mr. Potato Head being put in "The Box" after trying to fight Big Baby. Lotso has Buzz give out a set of rules, and then, as a way to make sure the toys obey his many rules, Lotso forks over Woody's hat, which he left behind in his escape, making the toys think Lotso killed Woody. The Bear and his gang then leave with a wicked laugh and leave Buzz to stand guard.

The next day, unbeknownst to Lotso, Woody returns to rescue his imprisoned friends after learning Lotso's true character from Chuckles and Bonnie's other toys. He and the toys formulate a plan to escape Sunnyside, including the successful attempt to bring Buzz back on their side. During that night, the toys attempt to flee Sunnyside through the garbage chute that the Chatter Telephone had told Woody about earlier. They nearly succeed, but Lotso and his gang confront them on the other side of a dumpster, blocking their route of escape and revealing that they've tortured Chatter Telephone until he told them about their whereabouts. Lotso tries to coax the toys about Andy that doesn't wanted them anymore. However, Woody rebuffs that statement. Lotso then tells Woody that he's a piece of plastic who was only made to be thrown away. Right after, Lotso hears and notices an approaching garbage truck arriving any minute. He tries coaxing the toys into coming back to the Caterpillar Room, but Jessie refuses, stating she would rather rot in the dumpster than join his "family". This makes Lotso signal to Stretch to push the toys into the dumpster.

Then, Ken appears, explaining that Lotso has been using even his own thugs to bring himself up to where he is. Woody then reminds Lotso of his old life with his former owner Daisy, rightfully telling him that she did in fact love him and Big Baby, annoying Lotso. The cowboy then pulls out Big Baby's old pendant (received from Chuckles during his stay at Bonnie's house earlier) and tosses it to Big Baby, who picks it up, sniffling "Mama.". Lotso snaps at Big Baby and and smashes the pendant to pieces with his mallet, making Big Baby cry. Lotso then orders a now reluctant Stretch to push all the toys into the dumpster, and jabs the doll with his mallet, desperately trying to re convince the "dummies" that all toys are merely trash awaiting disposal. Suddenly, Big Baby, fed up with Lotso's deceit and abuse, throws the wicked bear into the dumpster and slams the lid on him, much to everyone's surprise. Big Baby then blows a raspberry directly at Lotso and allows the toys to escape. As the toys quickly try to leave Sunnyside from across the closed dumpster, however, one of the Aliens gets stuck in the dumpster lid, prompting Woody to hurry back and free the alien by slightly opening the lid. Before Woody can return to his friends, Lotso climbs up, grabs Woody by the ankle, and pulls him into the dumpster, prompting Andy's other toys (excluding Barbie) to hurry to his rescue just as the garbage truck arrives to pour the garbage from the dumpster and the toys into the truck.

The truck takes Andy's toys and Lotso to Tri-County Landfill, where they are pushed onto a conveyor belt leading to a shredder (except the three aliens, who get swept away by a vehicle). After the toys grab onto a metal object so that they hang from the magnetic ceiling, safe from the shredder, Lotso calls for help from under a golf bag. Woody and Buzz drop down from the ceiling to free Lotso using one of the golf clubs to pry up the bag to let Lotso crawl out. The bear takes the cowboys hand as the club rises to the magnet, split-seconds before the shredder chews up the golf bag. They then drop down and land on another conveyor belt heading right for an incinerator. As the toys run in the opposite direction, Lotso notices an emergency stop button and calls Woody to help him up the ladder and access the button. Woody and Buzz then call to Lotso to push the button, but Lotso had tricked them. he gives the helpless toys a menacing grin, shouts a final insult directly at Woody, and runs out of the scene to leave Andy's toys to die in the incinerator. Luckily for them, the Little Green Men rescue them before they can be engulfed in flames.

Meanwhile, Lotso tries to find his way out of the dump, he turns to see another garbage truck pulling up toward him, forcing him to go limp. As the truck stops next to him, a garbage man steps out of the truck and is surprised upon discovering Lotso, remembering he once owned a Lots-o'-Huggin'-Bear during his childhood. Sticking to his cherished memories of the pink bear (as well as his strawberry scent), the garbage man decides to take him along and then straps him onto his truck. Lotso is last seen tied up on the truck's front grille by his wrists and ankles with a few other toys the same garbage man had collected sometime earlier before. Lotso panics and gasps as he wakes up to find himself in this predicament and the other toys on the grill laugh at him as the truck drives away.

### Other Appearances

Lotso makes a small cameo appearance in Up, which was released a year before Toy Story 3. Lotso is in the scene when Carl flies his house over an apartment building where he is laying against a wall in a little girl's room.

## Video Games

### Toy Story 3: The Video Game

Lotso makes an appearance in the video game as a non-playable character, where he greets the toys when they arrive at Sunnyside.

### Disney Parks

Lotso makes meet and greet appearances at Disney's Hollywood Studios and is part of the then Toy Story Block Party Bash Parade (Now Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun) and at Disney's California Adventure. Despite being one of Disney's most hated villains, Lotso is a very popular character at Hollywood Studios and California Adventure.

On November 17, 2015, Lotso had begun his meet-and-greet sessions in Toy Story Land at Hong Kong Disneyland, the very first meet-and-greet character as part of its 10th-anniversary celebration.

## Trivia

* In a viral marketing campaign, Pixar posted two commercials, for a "real" Lotso teddy bear manufactured in 1983 (perhaps even longer) on YouTube. One was a typical American toy commercial from the 1980s and the other was done in Japanese. Both feature the "Toy Story Collection" edition of Lotso, that comes with the Certificate of Authenticity.

* When Lotso is helped to the Emergency Stop button on the trash conveyor belt, rather than pressing the button to stop the belt and save the other toys, he glares at them and yells, "Where's your kid now, Sheriff?!" This is a wink to the Internet meme "Where is your God now?", a sarcastic way of inducing fear in a victim, which was based on the 1956 film The Ten Commandments, where Edward G. Robinson remarked to Charlton Heston "Where's your Messiah now?"

* Lotso shares character traits with Stinky Pete from Toy Story 2. They both seemed to be good at first but were eventually revealed to be bad. This is mainly due to a sense of feeling rejected or unloved, which were seen in both.
* Coincidentally, the music that played during Lotso's defeat was the same music heard during Stinky Pete's defeat.

* However, Lotso is more malicious than Stinky Pete (who has redeeming qualities), as while Stinky Pete only wants to be appreciated and loved, Lotso simply wants other toys to feel his pain and tries to get Woody and his friends killed in the incinerator.

* Lotso's fate of having to live on a truck's grille mirrored Stinky Pete ending up in a backpack, although Stinky Pete's was happier in a sense, now being owned by Amy.

* His thick Southern accent, initially soft-spoken demeanor, and many of his iron fist policies as "Warden" ― including throwing uncooperative prisoners into "the box" ― are clear references to "The Captain", Strother Martin's character from Cool Hand Luke (as well as Lotso's voice actor Ned Beatty's previous character, Sheriff J.C. Conners, from White Lightning).

* According to the official movie magazine for Toy Story 3, Lotso was created for A Tin Toy Christmas (which later became Toy Story).

* Lotso was originally conceived as a teddy bear from the early 1980s Care Bears toy line. This idea was not dropped until after the storyboard was completed and can be seen in the tie-in book The Art of Toy Story 3.

* In the PS3 version of Toy Story 3: The Video Game, Lotso has a silent appearance, and his fate is never revealed.
* Test audiences who had sympathized with Lotso due to his backstory wanted him to push the button in the incinerator scene to redeem himself, but according to the DVD commentary, director Lee Unkrich explained that Lotso chose not to save the other toys so that audiences who had gotten to know them for three films could care about them, even more, when it looked like the end. Thus, Lotso's redemption was dropped. Another reason is that they did not want Lotso to get off so easily.
* An advertisement for a Lotso bear appears in Tokyo in Cars 2.
* Lotso was originally supposed to appear in the first film, but the technology needed to create his fur had not existed until the third film. A pink teddy bear that appears to be an early prototype of Lotso makes a brief appearance in Toy Story.
* Hades mentions Lotso in the Disney Cruise Line show Villains Tonight when he is looking for villains to call. However, he doesn't call Lotso as he always "brings that baby with him".
* Lotso is the only Toy Story 3 main character not to appear in the film's epilogue during the end credits. In the Read-Along version of Toy Story 3, Lotso's final scene on the garbage truck is never shown.