It’s hard to imagine the toy that came flying onto our screens in 1995 named anything other than ‘Buzz Lightyear’. It’s snappy, it’s cool, it’s a nice nod to astronaut Buzz Aldrin. It’s completely befitting a spaceman toy.
However, this wasn’t originally going to be the name of the quick-witted space ranger. His name, in fact, was almost Lunar Larry which, uh, doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as satisfyingly as Buzz Lightyear.
In fact, if early sketches were anything to go by, the original ideas for Buzz were entirely different from the character that we’re so familiar with.
The original sketches for Buzz Lightyear show a very different character
Of course, the early sketches of characters very rarely depict the finished piece, such is the process of creating art but Lunar Larry looked... quite different. A little goofier, a little less refined.
Back in 2020, Disney released early sketches of Lunar Larry to open an online festival celebrating 25 years of Pixar and Toy Story.
Pixar Historian Christine Freeman said: “Buzz is one of our most popular characters, and it’s fascinating to see the different ways that Pixar’s artists imagined him during the evolution of his design. Even his name changed over time – from Tempus of Morph to Lunar Larry, to Buzz Lightyear. You can see the LL belt buckle (for Lunar Larry) in a few of these early designs.”
As you can see, Lunar Larry is an absolute treasure and we would have been lucky to have him grace our screens but, to be fair, Buzz Lightyear definitely fits in better with the Toy Story squad.
Toy Story is available to stream on Disney Plus.