Funny actor, comedian and multiple Emmy winner Tony Hale will own Toy Story 4 because there is justice in the world. That’s not quite true — he’ll own it because the script for the hotly anticipated new Pixar movie prominently features Forky, the character Hale voices. But it could just as well be justice triumphing — fans deserve as much Hale as they can get and Hale deserves as many fans as he’ll earn from this. It’s a win-win.
The release of the new full trailer for Toy Story 4 (see below) shows Forky, who’s actually a spork, suffering an identity crisis. He’s not really a toy, but he’s been fashioned into one through the love and inventiveness of the child Bonnie. But since Forky isn’t really a toy he doesn’t feel that he fits in, and so he sets out to seek his real purpose in life, which as a plastic picnic accoutrement means a quick life and then a future in the trash. (Forky: “I am not a toy. I was made for soup, salad, maybe chili, and then the trash!”)
Tony Hale’s most culturally resonant role so far has been as the unforgettable and neurotic Buster Bluth on the hilarious Arrested Development. Unless you count his seven years with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on VEEP, which won him a number of Emmys. This time Oscar is in Hale’s sights, no doubt. There’s a nice layer of post post-modern irony to the Forky story, since really he is a textbook case of arrested development looking to find a workable future. Tom Hanks, of course, will help. That Woody is a doll.
