The recently released key art for Toy Story 5 has fans wondering, “Where are the Potato Heads?”
When it was first released in 1995, Toy Story became an instant cultural phenomenon. Buzz Lightyear figures were practically flying from real-world toy store shelves by themselves and the original installment wound up grossing $373 million worldwide.
Since then, Toy Story spawned three more nearly-as-popular sequels, with a fifth movie in development among the talented minds at Pixar.
Why Weren’t Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head in Toy Story 5 Art?
On stage at the studio showcase presentation during August’s Disney’s D23, Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter arrived to offer the first concrete details on Toy Story 5. The movie won’t hit theaters until Summer 2026, but Docter did unveil some all-new concept art for the fifth Toy Story (via X (formerly Twitter)).
As seen above, the art in question shows the Toy Story gang peering up at Bonnie who is engrossed in whatever is happening on the screen of her tablet device (toys vs. tech is the hook for the sequel). Buzz, Rex, Slink, and even Woody are depicted. But there are two major characters who aren’t.
That’s right, Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head are nowhere to be found among the cast pictured.
Now, this is worrying for longtime fans of the series. The spud spouses were a crucial part of the first four films. And Mr. Potato Head, specifically, holds an especially important narrative role as the cynical naysayer who often pokes holes in Woody’s optimism.
But Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head’s absences sadly shouldn’t necessarily come as a huge surprise. Mr. Potato Head’s voice actor, the legendary comedian Don Rickles passed away in 2017. Rickles was truly one of a kind, and featuring Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story 5 without his signature, smart-alecky voice may feel hollow to some.
Further complicating matters for these two tuberous figures, Estelle Harris, the voice behind Mrs. Potato Head in Toy Story 2, 3, and 4 (as well as George Costanza’s notoriously shrill mother on Seinfeld), died in 2022.
These two performers more than left their mark on their roles, and continuing the pair’s story without them is a tall order for Pixar.
It’s also important to note that just because the Potato Heads weren’t added into the Toy Story 5 key art, doesn’t mean they still won’t star in the movie.
How Could Pixar Incorporate the Potato Heads in Toy Story 5?
When Toy Story 4 came out in 2019, Pixar and director Josh Cooley had an interesting problem on their hands. The studio knew that they wanted to honor the legacy of Don Rickles in the film by including his Mr. Potato Head.
Rickles had not recorded any dialogue for Toy Story 4 by the time he had passed, so Pixar devised a unique solution: They scoured their archive of literally everything that Rickles had ever recorded for the character
Cooley recounted to the Los Angeles Times that the team on the fourth Toy Story “logged every word, every cough, every hum, just so we’d know what we had.”
Ultimately, they scraped together enough sound bites to give Mr. Potato Head seven lines of dialogue in Toy Story 4.
But the nature of this little trick meant that it could only be used once.
Now that Toy Story 5 is in production, it is very likely that Pixar has already devised an answer for the fact that Don Rickles and Estelle Harris are no longer around. And that answer could take a few forms.
It’s always possible that director Andrew Stanton has elected to recast Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. Although any such actors would have some enormous plastic shoes to fill, as Rickles and Harris were nothing short of icons.
Alternatively, as much as long-time fans might find it difficult to accept, it could be that the characters have been written out of Toy Story 5. Toys are easily misplaced, after all. Or perhaps Bonnie donated the taters to another child who wanted them, similar to what Andy did at the tearjerking conclusion of 2010’s Toy Story 3.
Or maybe Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head are indeed in the new movie but will remain silent and only appear in a brief sequence or two.
Toy Story 5 faces an unfortunate situation that has befallen many other long-running franchises when a main cast member dies. But the staff at Pixar are clever and crafty folk, so hopefully Stanton and the Toy Story 5 team have crafted a satisfying fix for the roles of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.
Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story 5 hits theaters on June 17, 2026.
