Toy Story 5 trailer gives new life to a whackadoo Deltarune theory

The Deltarune Toy Story meme may leave you baffled and shook

On Feb. 19, Disney and Pixar shared a new trailer for the upcoming Toy Story 5, which sees Woody and pals unite against the threat of tablet computers and tablet PCs. Wonderful! We all love Tom Hanks as Woody and, for some reason, continue to tolerate Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear. So why was Undertale and Deltarune creator Toby Fox posting about the movie on social media like he had anything to do with it?

“Super excited this is finally announced. Can't wait for you guys to see what we have in store for you this time,” Fox wrote on X, while quote-tweeting Discussing Film’s post featuring the Toy Story 5 trailer. As of this writing, the post is sitting at a cool 154,000 likes, which might suggest to you that Fox’s statement is based on real facts. But it’s not. It’s an inside joke directed toward the Deltarune and Undertale fan community, which loves a good shitpost and a recurring gag. Let me attempt to explain.

Deltarune is a spiritual successor to Undertale that is being released in episodic format, across seven chapters. Ahead of the release of Deltarune Chapter 3 + 4 last June, fans had speculated that Toy Story’s Woody — or, at least, a legally distinct version of him — would appear as a secret boss. Thus far, every chapter of the episodic RPG has included a secret boss fight, which is optional, extremely challenging, and hints at some of the deeper lore of the interconnected Undertale and Deltarune universe.

Some fans bought into the Woody theory more wholeheartedly than others, but the origins seem to be largely of the tongue-in-cheek, meme-fodder variety. One of the early seeds of the theory comes from a post Fox made on Tumblr in September 2019, which features a remixed version of Toy Story’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” with creepier orchestration and altered lyrics that say “friend inside me.” The main antagonist of 2021’s Deltarune Chapter 2 is a discarded puppet called Spamton, a literal embodiment of spam emails and blaring advertisements, so theories about a “friend inside” controlling the game’s villains have continued to circulate on social media ever since, both in the form of shitposts and serious speculation.

Ahead of Chapter 3 + 4’s release, Fox also alluded to a cowboy section of the game which was cut short, although the final version of Chapter 3 does include a shooting-gallery style minigame that’s cowboy-themed. This Reddit thread unpacks some of the more granular elements of the Woody theory, but that’s the gist of it.

It’s also worth noting that the Toy Story 5 trailer touches on similar themes to Deltarune Chapter 3. Both are concerned with new technology replacing older technology, and the fictional characters who fear being abandoned and forgotten as a result of these shifts. In addition to the obvious Woody of it all, Fox is cheekily tossing a little red meat to all those theory-crafting fans by reposting the trailer.

So what does this actually mean for Toy Story 5? Probably nothing at all. But it probably does mean that Deltarune fans will keep the Woody theory alive and kicking for a few years longer — or at least until Chapter 5 drops, which Fox has said will happen later this year.