Exclusiva: ‘Toy Story 3’ Creative Team Dishes On Spanish Buzz

By Michael Lopez

Spolier Alert! If you haven’t seen Toy Story 3, be warned. We’ve got some behind-the-scenes info on one of the movie’s funniest moments, courtesy of director Lee Unkrich and animator Carlos Baena. Obviously this being Blogamole, you know it’s the scene where Buzz Lightyear switches to Spanish mode and kicks off a hilarious flamenco dance!

Image : Disney Pixar

Talking with Unkrich and Baena exclusively about the upcoming DVD release, they explained how the idea originated and what it took to pull it off. As Lee stated, it all began in a Pixar creative meeting and “blasted off” from there.

“We knew there was going to be a section in the film where Buzz is not himself. We thought how could we be entertaining with this? Then at a meeting someone brought up, what if he accidentally got switched into Spanish language mode?...[From there] a lot of thing just clicked and made sense. It was fun!”

Amazingly, what was supposed to be a quick joke soon turned into a major component of the film. Once everything clicked, Unkrich explained that they built an entire end sequence around it, even enlisting the Gipsy Kings to record an Español version of the Toy Story song, “You’ve Got A Friend In Me.”

Of course, the director is just one piece of the creative process. Animating Buzzito is a whole other task entirely. And that’s where Spanish Pixar god Carlos Baena came into play. Having created the fluid movements of Dory in Finding Nemo and Lightning McQueen in Cars, they knew he was just the right guy for the job.

As Carlos told us, coming from Spain was pretty beneficial too,

“[Working on Toy Story 3] has been the funnest experience for me at Pixar so far. I was able to put part of my own culture into the movie. I studied a lot of dancing for the flamenco and paso doble scenes, going as far back as the 1930’s and 1940’s.”

And to help with that memorable scene where Buzz tangos cowgirl Jessie, Carlos used Dancing With The Stars’ Cheryl Burke and Tony Dovolani as real life models. When commenting on the process, Carlos said,

“Tony and Cheryl did a base choreography that worked beautifully! As an animator, it is our job to take that and push it even further.”

Critics everywhere have agreed that Lee, Carlos, and the entire team behind Toy Story 3 pushed their talents to the utmost degree. There’s even been major Oscar talk for the movie, which happens to be the highest grossing film of 2010.

But according to Lee, the question that comes up most is about Spanish Buzz.

“The biggest question we get asked is what we do [about the Buzz translations] in Spanish speaking countries. The answer is, we switch him to Andalusian Espanol.”

Toy Story 3 hits the DVD shelves (with a special Gipsy Kings video) on November 2.

Did you get a chance to catch Spanish Buzz in Toy Story 3? Sound off in the comments or @MTV3!

Tags Buzz Lightyear, Carlos Baena, Gipsy Kings, Hot Stuff, Lee Unkrich, Movies, Movies & CineMás, Pixar, Toy Story, Toy Story 3