- Actor Allusion: This is not the only 2019 film in which Jordan Peele plays an intimidating rabbit: he also voiced the rabbits being evicerated in flashback in his horror-thriller U.S.. In both cases, there is a note of irony in that Peele has professed to having a phobia of rabbits despite their mundanity.
- Actor-Inspired Element: During a meeting with Pixar, Keanu Reeves suggested that his character Duke Caboom would continually pose throughout. This idea was embraced by Pixar and was incorporated into the animation of Duke Caboom.
- Actor-Shared Background: Duke Caboom is Canadian, just like his voice actor Keanu Reeves. Duke Caboom is also a motorcycle daredevil, and Keanu Reeves is a well-known motorcycle aficionado in real life.
- Author's Saving Throw: The film brings back Bo Peep, a much-loved character despite her small amount of screen time in the first two films, who was missing from the third film. This fan satisfaction was always the intent, as director Josh Cooley admitted
that the internal codename for the film was Peep. Her presence also provides much-needed clarity on her disappearance, because even though the third film implies she was sold or donated, the wording is just ambiguous enough that many fans were worried she had been broken and were relieved to see her alive and well. - Awesome, Dear Boy: Christina Hendricks loved the role of Gabby Gabby. She said she's always wanted to own a ventriloquist doll, and finding out that her character has a bunch of them as henchmen/bodyguards made the experience even more awesome.
- Cast the Runner-Up: The Latin American Spanish dub had two cases of this.
- Liliana Barba was a candidate (along with Xóchitl Ugarte) for the part of Jessie in Mexican Spanish for Toy Story 2, but she was passed over for it due to the sudden decision to cast a celebrity voice actress (Irán Castillo) instead. Here this time, Liliana voices the film's Big Bad, Gabby Gabby.
- Luis Leonardo Suárez voiced both Rex and Forky in the trailers, although those parts went to José Gilberto Vilchis and Arturo Castañeda instead. Despite this, he was cast as the Green Little Men, replacing Raúl Aldana who no longer worked for Disney since 2018.
- Celebrity Voice Actors: As usual, Pixar got some celebrities to voice new characters but doesn't make it a central selling point, they were chosen more because they fit their role.
- Tony Hale voices Forky.
- Keanu Reeves as Duke Caboom.
- Christina Hendricks as Gabby Gabby.
- Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, Betty White and Carl Reiner as Bonnie's older toys.
- Character Outlives Actor:
- Don Rickles, the American voice for Mr. Potato Head, had passed away from kidney failure on April 7th, 2017, before the film's voice recording began. At the request of Rickles' surviving family, unused archive recordings of Don's voice was used in the film proper.
- R. Lee Ermey, the American voice for Sarge, passed away of pneumonia on April 15, 2018. Possibly as a result, this is the only film in the series not to feature him or any other Green Army Men (although they're currently at Sunnyside, and none of the toys there appear in this film, so it's unlikely he would have come back anyways).
- Jesús Barrero, the Latin American Spanish voice for Rex, was diagnosed with lung cancer in March 2015 and subsequently passed away from complications caused by it on February 17, 2016. His nephew, José Gilberto Vilchis, took his place.
- Ditto in the Japanese dub with Hamm and Slinky, whose voice actors Chikao Ohtsuka and Ichirō Nagai respectively died of an ischemic heart disorder on January 15, 2015 and a heart attack on January 27, 2014. They are both replaced with Shunsuke Sakuya and Shinpachi Tsuji respectively.
- In the Italian dub, Fabrizio Frizzi (Woody) succumbed to an intracerebral hemorrhage in March 2018, and is replaced by Angelo Maggi, who has been Tom Hanks' voice for years. Also, Piero Tiberi (Slinky) passed away in 2013 after suffering a long illness, and is replaced by Saverio Moriones.
- Åsleik Engmark, the Norwegian voice of Woody (and also Timon, Mushu and Mike Wazowski) died unexpectedly in February 2017, so the role of Woody has been taken over by Anders Bye.
- In Spain, Hamm's voice actor Claudi García passed away in 2015 and is replaced by Pep Anton Muñoz.
- In the Hebrew version, Rama Messinger passed away from cancer on August 18, 2015, five years after Toy Story 3 came out. As a result, Lara Axelrod voices Ms. Davis in the fourth movie.
- Creator Backlash: While Tim Allen never bashed the concept, he was personally shaken by the film's ending where Woody leaves Buzz and the other toys for good. He reportedly proposed another ending that wouldn't be a permanent parting of the ways, but the production crew were intent on the finality of the farewell. However, given that a fifth film has been confirmed (with Woody and Buzz both confirmed to return), Tim Allen may get his wish after all.
- Cross-Dressing Voices: A rather interesting case happens with Andy in the Japanese dub; when he is 17 years old, he is voiced by Haruka Shimizu, a woman, but when he is 8 years old, he is voiced by a male child actor. What makes this even more strange is that in Toy Story 3, he is voiced by Kensho Ono, a man.
- The Danza: Carl Weathers reprises his role as Combat Carl from Toy Story of Terror.
- Development Gag:
- The Ventriloquist Dummies seem like a nod to the earliest concepts for Woody's character, who would've been a street-smart dummy. Making them antagonists seems like a jab at the earlier, more mean-spirited takes on the original film that were eventually discarded after the infamous Black Friday screening.
- Tinny has a rather unimpressed reaction when he meets Woody. This may be a reference to how Toy Story was originally going to be a feature-length version of Tin Toy before the film developed into having completely original characters.
- A license plate seen on one of the background cars reads "RMRF97", after an accident during Toy Story 2's production where the entire film almost got deleted from Pixar's hard drives. It references the Unix command "rm", with "rm -rf" standing for removing all files recursively in a given directory and without confirmation.
- In Memoriam: The film is dedicated at the end of the credits to Don Rickles and animator Adam Burke.
- Irony as She Is Cast: Keegan-Michael Key is taller than Jordan Peele. Bunny (the latter's character) is taller than Ducky (the former's character). This was entirely deliberate, as the filmmakers believed Key's energy and Peele's mellowness were better suited for a small and large character, respectively.
- Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's released a set of chibi-style figures that could connect to each other to create Bonnie's family's RV.
- Missing Trailer Scene: Woody and Bo's exchange about meeting up with Buzz from the Super Bowl advertisement is absent from the film entirely.
- No Export for You: Particularly the Gabby Gabby doll made by Brazilian toymaker Baby Brink. As there doesn't appear to be any plans to market her outside of Brazil, let alone a similar toy by Thinkway Toys or whichever licensee Disney commissioned to produce tie-in merchandise, enterprising fans turned to grey-market sellers on eBay and elsewhere.
- The Other Darrin:
- Madeline McGraw replaces Emily Hahn as Bonnie, obviously due to the latter having gone through puberty.
- Madeline's brother Jack replaces Charlie Bright, who himself had replaced John Morris, as young Andy.
- Alan Oppenheimer voices Old Timer, replacing Christian Roman from Toy Story of Terror!.
- In the Japanese dub, Bonnie and Andy are respectively voiced by Yuzuki Nakamura and Haruka Shimizu, rather than Sumire Morohoshi and Kensho Ono, for the same reasons as in the English version.
- In the Italian dub, Charlotte Infussi D'Amico replaces Arianna Vignoli, who voiced Bonnie in Toy Story 3 (as well as Agnes in the first two Despicable Me films) for the same reasons as in the English version.
- Bo Peep never had the same voice actress twice in the French dub. Audrey Fleurot comes after Rebecca Dreyfus (Toy Story) and Vanina Pradier (Toy Story 2).
- In the French dub again, Jean-Loup Horwitz replaced Jacques Balutin as Slinky. Balutin voiced Slinky for the first three movies.
- The Brazilian dub had changes to both Rex (his dubber was blackballed by Disney right before Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) and Mr. Pricklepants (his dubber's tenure as Disney's localization lead apparently ended in 2011 on acrimonious terms, given he's been equally blackballed by the studio).
- In the Latin Spanish dub, only the actors of Rex, the Green Little Men, Bonnie and Andy were recast.
- Jesús Barrero no longer voices Rex due to his death in 2016, so his nephew José Gilberto Vilchis filled in.
- Having quit from Disney since March 2018, Raúl Aldana is replaced by Luis Leonardo Suárez as the Green Little Men.
- Due to Jimena Flores Arellano having aged out of the role, Abril Gómez took over as Bonnie.
- Memo Aponte Jr. did not reprise teenage Andy, who only had a brief chuckle in a flashback to Toy Story 3. Geezuz González did this instead.
- Playing Against Type: Keanu Reeves plays one of the film's goofy comic relief characters, more akin to Ted than the stoic badasses he's become primarily known for now.
- Posthumous Credit: Don Rickles "reprises" his role as Mr. Potato Head through the use of unused archive recordings dating back to the first film, as he died before the recording sessions began.
- Refitted for Sequel:
- The concept for Gabby Gabby as an unsold toy with a faulty voice box is an idea Pixar had that predates the entire Toy Story franchise; it was originally going to be used in a shelved Tin Toy sequel, except she would have been an evil teddy bear (who ultimately became the basis for Lotso in Toy Story 3).
- To an extent: the Circle 7 version of Toy Story 3 concerned Buzz malfunctioning. Here, Bonnie's parents assume he's acting up when his voice box keeps going off (because Buzz kept cycling through his sayings in order to figure out how to stop the RV from leaving without Bonnie's backpack).
- The flashback sequence that makes the bulk of Lamp Life was originally part of the film. The parts of that short where Bo tells her story are set after the ending of Toy Story 4.
- Bo Peep was supposed to be part of the party sent to rescue Woody in Toy Story 2, but was kept behind as as she's made of porcelain and fragile. Here, she's a deuteragonist who's right in the center of the action and adventure.
- Role Reprise:
- Via archive audio, the late Don Rickles reprises his role as Mr. Potato Head from the previous Toy Story entries.
- Annie Potts returns as Bo Peep for the first time since her last appearance in Toy Story 2.
- Combat Carl is once again voiced by Carl Weathers, who also voiced the character in 2013's Toy Story of Terror.
- Sequel Gap: The film was released nine years after Toy Story 3, which itself was released eleven years after Toy Story 2.
- Shrug of God: How do toys, and objects treated as toys, come to life? The franchise's official answer is, and we quote, "I don't know."note
- Swan Song: This was the final credit for Estelle Harris (Mrs. Potato Head) before her death in 2022.
- Troubled Production: Even within a series notable for its production issues, this film had one of the longest and tumultuous production cycles in Pixar's history, only comparable to The Good Dinosaur in terms of its production length and changes involved. It was slated to be co-directed with John Lasseter and Josh Cooley during its first four years of development, but a significant shakeup in production staff was announced in 2017 that saw Lasseter leaving, as he couldn't balance his time directing the film with his job running Disney Animation and Pixar at the same time. This resulted in the film's release date being pushed forward a year from its original Summer 2017 date. He would eventually be removed from the project entirely when sexual harassment allegations forced him to leave Disney and Pixar the following year. Around that same time, original screenwriters Rashida Jones (who was partially responsible for bringing the misconduct allegations against Lasseter into light) and Will MacCormack left the film due to Creative Differences, resulting in a huge majority of the original screenplay (estimated to be 80%, per Bo Peep's voice actress Annie Potts) being thrown out and rewritten. These changes forced Pixar to delay the film an entire year to properly rewrite the story, swapping release dates with Incredibles 2 in the process. There was also the fate of Mr. Potato Head, whose voice actor Don Rickles passed away before he could record his lines. Though Pixar considered writing the character out entirely, Rickles' estate told the team they would love to have Rickles in the film in a speaking capacity as a send-off to his character. They then had to go through decades of unused recordings of Rickles as Potato Head to construct a new performance for him.
- Voices in One Room: Tom Hanks and Annie Potts recorded some of their scenes together so they could fully develop Woody and Bo's relationship. Being a professional double act, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele also recorded most of their dialogue together to properly capture their comic timing.
- What Could Have Been: Shares a page
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