"I'm Lots-o'-Huggin'-Bear, but please call me Lotso." —Lotso introduces himself to Andy's toys

Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear ("Lotso" for short) is the main antagonist of Toy Story 3. He is a large, pink strawberry-scented teddy bear who used to rule Sunnyside Daycare like a prison with his former minions.

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Backstory

"Yeah, I knew Lotso. He was a good toy. A friend. Me and him, we had the same kid, Daisy." —Chuckles

Lotso first started out as a Christmas present Daisy received and instantly became her favorite toy. During the time spent at Daisy's house with her two other toys, Big Baby and Chuckles, Lotso seemed to have enjoyed every moment being special in his owner's eyes. One day, Daisy took her three toys out for a little drive with her parents and stopped at a rest stop for a little bit of playtime. After lunch, she fell asleep and her parents took her back into the car, accidentally leaving Lotso, Big Baby, and Chuckles behind. The three toys waited for a long time, but Daisy never came back for them. Not wanting to give up, Lotso and his friends, Chuckles and Big Baby, finally made their way back to Daisy's house, only to discover that Daisy's parents had bought their daughter another Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear toy, leaving Lotso heartbroken and feeling betrayed.

Those feelings embittered Lotso, and it made him turn evil, and he forcibly ordered his friend's Chuckles and Big Baby to leave Daisy and follow him. The three lost, cast-off, unloved and unwanted toys hitched a ride on a Pizza Planet delivery truck's rear bumper until the truck hit a bump, knocking the three off the bumper. Then, the three found Sunnyside Daycare, where Lotso and Big Baby took over the daycare and subverted the whole system to benefit themselves.

Despite this, Chuckles the Clown never forgot the fact that his first owner loved him, even when Bonnie picked him up after she found him.

Toy Story 3

Lotso: "Got a lot to look forward to, folks. The little ones love new toys." Buzz: "What a nice bear!" Rex: "And he smells like strawberries!" ―Buzz and Rex, first impressions on Lotso, who shows the toys around Sunnyside[src]

Lotso is an old, pink stuffed teddy bear with a strawberry scent and a Southern accent, who uses a wooden toy mallet as a cane (he is still able to walk, even without it).

He is first introduced riding over to Woody, Buzz, and the other toys in his dump truck. He greets them in a friendly, albeit fake manner and shows them around Sunnyside. He assigns the new toys in the Caterpillar Room, knowing that the toys there are treated abusively by the younger kids.

That night, after the toys experience a rather rough playtime with the toddlers in the room, Buzz decides to go find Lotso to ask for his friends to be moved to the Butterfly Room because they do not belong in the Caterpillar Room.When Buzz finally reaches Lotso in the library, he requests a transfer for him and his friends, to which Lotso agrees (but only to Buzz's moving, knowing that Buzz might be useful to him).

However, he refuses to listen to Buzz's plea to move his friends with him, believing that the Caterpillar Room needs toys for toddlers to play with, which makes Buzz instantly refuse his offer, unwilling to abandon his friends because they stay together as a family. Thinking Buzz is too useful to give up, Lotso then tells his henchmen to put Buzz back in the Time-Out Chair. He then uses a Buzz Lightyear action figure manual, which is given to him by the Bookworm, to reset Buzz to his demo mode. Lotso then makes Buzz think he is a real space ranger again and manipulates him into believing that his friends are helpers of Emperor Zurg. Lotso then makes Buzz imprison the toys inside their cells, with Mr. Potato Head being put in "The Box".

The next night, while Lotso is asleep, Woody, who has escaped Sunnyside earlier, manages to rescue his imprisoned friends after hearing how evil Lotso is. Woody's friends are happy to see he's still alive, and together they formulate a plan to escape Sunnyside, including the attempt to get Buzz to rejoin their side.

When the toys try to leave Sunnyside through the garbage chute that the Chatter Telephone had told Woody about earlier, Lotso and his gang catch them at a dumpster, blocking their way of escape. Lotso tries to coax the toys into coming back to the Caterpillar Room to join his family again to avoid an approaching garbage truck, but the toys refuse his offer. Jessie angrily states that Sunnyside isn't a family, but a prison for toys and labels Lotso a liar and a bully and would rather rot in the dumpster than join any family that Lotso runs. Barbie agrees with Jessie and angrily replies to Lotso that being in authority requires approval from the government, not by force or threat. This makes Lotso signal Stretch to push the toys into a dumpster, thinking that disposing of them as trash will be better. At that moment, Ken appears, calls out for Barbie, and tries to stop Lotso, but Lotso teases Ken for loving Barbie, telling him there are "hundred million Barbie dolls like her." When Ken disagrees with Lotso, Lotso becomes enraged at Ken's act of defection as well as his attachment to Barbie and throws him across the dumpster to force him to join her, disowning him as one of his cohorts. Ken then speaks up, explaining what Lotso has done to Sunnyside, making Lotso question his cohorts if anyone concurs with Ken. When no one answers, Lotso continues with his lecture, telling the toys that not one kid has ever loved, or will ever love, a toy. Woody then attempts to remind Lotso of his old life with his previous owner, Daisy. However, Lotso immediately becomes upset as he doesn't want anything to do with Daisy, but to forget completely that his relation to Daisy has ever existed. Woody then pulls out Big Baby's old pendant (received from Chuckles during his stay at Bonnie's house earlier), and after unsuccessfully telling Lotso how she has loved him, Woody tosses the pendant to Big Baby, who picks it up and, looking at the token of his lost love, sniffles, "Mama." Outraged at how Big Baby is still emotionally attached to his previous owner, Lotso snaps out at Big Baby, yelling at him that Daisy never loved him as he snatches the pendant away from him and crushes it to pieces with his mallet, making Big Baby burst into tears. He then orders a now reluctant Stretch to push the toys into the dumpster, pokes Big Baby abusively with his cane and denounces all toys as trash awaiting disposal, much to the shock and disgust of the other Sunnyside toys, who finally realize that Lotso has been abusing them.

Without warning, Big Baby lifts up Lotso, causing him to drop his mallet. Lotso orders Big Baby to put him down, but Big Baby, having had enough with his treacherous nature, throws the bear into the dumpster and closes its lid on him. He then blows a raspberry directed at Lotso and allows the toys to escape. As the toys try to leave Sunnyside, one of the Aliens has become stuck by the dumpster's lid, prompting Woody to rush back to free the alien by slightly opening the lid. But then, Lotso, having caught sight of Woody through the opening and wanting revenge for being humiliated and having his schemes foiled, grabs Woody's ankle and pulls him into the dumpster, making Andy's other toys rush to his rescue just as the garbage truck arrives to pour the contents of the dumpster into the truck.

The truck takes Lotso and Andy's toys to Tri-County Landfill , where they are pushed onto a conveyor belt leading to the shredders. After the toys grab onto a metal object so that they hang from the magnetic ceiling, safe from the shredders, Lotso calls for help from under a golf bag. Woody and Buzz drop down from the ceiling to free Lotso. They use one of the golf clubs to pry up the bag to let Lotso crawl out, and Woody makes Lotso take his hand as the club pulls them up to the ceiling, narrowly escaping the shredders that chew up the golf bag. Realizing that the conveyor belt is leading them to an incinerator, Lotso and the toys try to run for it, but the conveyor belt pushes them closer and closer to the furnace. Lotso then notices an emergency stop button and rushes over to grab hold on the lower rung of a ladder leading to the button. He calls to Woody, and Woody and Buzz rush over to nudge Lotso up, allowing him to climb up the ladder and access the button.

Woody and Buzz then order Lotso to push the button, but Lotso, whose inner beliefs haven't changed overall, gives the helpless toys a menacing glare, shouts at Woody, "Where's your kid now, Sherriff?", and runs off, leaving the toys to die in the incinerator. However, the toys are rescued by the giant crane that the Aliens have commandeered at the last moment. After the toys emerge out of the furnace, Hamm and Slinky express their desire to get back at Lotso for almost getting them killed, but Woody convinces them to forget it, since he believes Lotso is not worth it.

Meanwhile, as Lotso tries to find his way out of the dump, he turns to see another garbage truck pulling up toward him, forcing him to go limp. As the truck stops next to him, a garbage man steps out of the truck and is surprised upon discovering Lotso, claiming how he has once owned a Lots-o'-Huggin'-Bear during his childhood. Sticking to his love for Lotso (as well as his strawberry scent), the garbage man decides to take him along.

Personality

"The guy may seem plush and huggable on the outside, but inside, he's a monster." —Buttercup reveals what Lotso is.

Lotso is last seen tied up on the truck's front grille with a few other toys the same garbage man has collected earlier. Lotso panics as he wakes up to find himself in that predicament, but then one of those toys, a frog, advises Lotso to keep his mouth shut to prevent mud and insects from getting in, and Lotso does so right away.

Lotso came across the toys' well being and at first seemed caring, welcoming, friendly, and he possessed all of the good qualities of the stereotypical soft teddy bear. This was further emphasized by his strawberry aroma and his hugging of Buzz Lightyear (hence his name Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear) when the toys first arrived at Sunnyside Daycare. He even went so far as to "promise" the toys that different kids at the daycare center would continue to play with them and that they would never feel unloved or rejected.

However, this facade merely concealed his true nature later in the film. Lotso's true colors revealed him to be a dark, sadistic, conniving, selfish, rage-driven tyrant and prison warden, ruling Sunnyside with an iron fist and imprisoning new toys in the Caterpillar Room to test their ability to endure the abuse of the reckless and destructive children there. This nature was mostly brought about by his perceived betrayal from Daisy. However, he was considered to be a kind-hearted friend to both Chuckles and Big Baby before they were accidentally abandoned and subsequently replaced. Due to his painful past, Lotso possessed a negative philosophy about being a toy, believing that toys are nothing special and originally made for future disposal (which is somewhat accurate because toys tend to be given away and sometimes even discarded by their owners when they outgrow them).

While in power as a head toy at Sunnyside, Lotso seemed to develop nihilistic tendencies, as evidenced by his statement that all toys were ultimately going to be tossed out like garbage, and there is no salvation for them. He showed no mercy to toys that resisted, opposed, helped other toys escape, and didn't follow his views, with examples being breaking Chuckles the Clown and Chatter Telephone, having Stretch push the toys into the dumpster, disowning Ken for not agreeing with Lotso's view that there were hundred million Barbie dolls like Molly's, and punching Big Baby with his mallet for being attached to their former owner again. Additionally, by destroying Big Baby's old pendant, Lotso showed that he not only wanted to forget his relation with Daisy and pretend it never even existed, but he also wanted to destroy all of Big Baby's ties to Daisy and essentially all toys' ties to their owners. At the landfill, despite seemingly showing thankful feelings toward Woody for saving him from the shredders, Lotso still held on to his beliefs that children would discard their toys out of boredom and disinterest without realizing the physical and emotional pain they are causing to the toy, as evidenced when he refused to push the emergency stop button that, had he pressed it, would have supposedly led to his redemption by saving Woody and his friends from their fiery death in the incinerator.

Toy Description

From Official Website:

“ Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear is a jumbo, extra-soft teddy bear with a pink and white plush body and a velvety purple nose. This lovable bear stands fuzzy heads and shoulders above other teddy bears because he smells like sweet strawberries! With a smile that will light up your child's face and a belly just asking to be hugged, Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear is sure to become a bedtime necessity. Stain-resistant. Spot clean plush surface with a damp cloth. ”

Awards and Nominations

Lotso's voice actor, Ned Beatty, was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for his performance as Lotso, and he and Pixar received widespread praise for the character's back story and Beatty's performance. IGN named Lotso the best villain of the summer of 2010.

Trivia

Quotes

"Well, hello there, I'm Lotso-Huggin' Bear, but please call me Lotso." —Lotso, as a toy when the owner presses the "Try Me" button on the box.

Lotso: "Whoa there, Missy! You're not going anywhere!" Jessie: "Oh, yeah? And Who's going to stop us?" ―Lotso and Jessie[src]

Rex: "Mr. Lotso, do toys here get played with every day?" Lotso: "All day long! Five days a week." Jessie: "But what happens when the kids grow up?" Lotso: "Well now, I'll tell you. When the kids get old, new ones come in. When they get old, new ones replace them. You'll never be outgrown, or neglected. Never abandoned or forgotten. No owners means - no heartbreak!" Jessie: "Yee-haw!" ―Lotso lectures the toys about the kids at Sunnyside[src]

Lotso: "So you got donated by this "Andy", huh? Well, it's his loss, Sheriff. He can't hurt you no more." Woody: "Whoa! Whoa, whoa whoa..." Lotso: "Now let's get you settled in." ―Lotso, to Woody[src]

Lotso: "Ken! New toys!" Ken: "Far out! Down in a jiff, Lotso." ―Lotso calls to Ken[src]

"Let’s show our new friends where they’ll be staying."

—Lotso, to Ken

Lotso: "Come on, Ken, recess don't last forever." Ken: "Right on, Lotso." ―Lotso tells Ken to get moving[src]

Lotso: "What are you doing? Running back to your kid? He don’t want you no more!" Woody: "That's a lie." Lotso: "Is it? Tell me this, Sheriff: if your kid loves you so much, why is he leaving? You think you’re special, cowboy? You’re a piece of plastic! You were made to be thrown away!" ―Lotso and Woody[src]

"Speak of the devil..."

(points to the approaching garbage truck)

"Now we need toys in our Caterpillar Room, and you need to avoid that truck. Why don’t you come on back, join our family again?"

—Lotso coaxes the toys into coming back to Sunnyside

"I didn't throw you out. Your kid did. Ain't one kid ever loved a toy, really. Chew on that when you're at the dump"

—Lotso, lecturing Andy's toys

Woody: "Wait. What about Daisy?" Lotso: "I don't know what you're talking about." Woody: "Daisy? You used to do everything with her?" Lotso: "Yeah, then she threw us out." Woody: "No, she lost you" Lotso: "She replaced us!" Woody: "She replaced you, and if you couldn't have her, then no one could! You lied to Big Baby and you've been lying ever since!" ―Woody and Lotso arguing about Daisy[src]

(Woody has pulled out Daisy's tag, attracting Big Baby's attention)

Lotso: "Where'd you get that?" Woody: "She loved you, Lotso." Lotso: "She never loved me!" Woody: "As much as any kid ever loved a toy." (Woody tosses the tag to the other side of the open dumpster. Big Baby picks it up and looks at it)

Big Baby: "Mama." (Lotso snatches the tag away)

Lotso: "What? You want your mommy back? She never loved you. Don't be such a baby!" (He crushes the tag with his mallet; Big Baby starts crying) "Push 'em in! All of 'em! " (Stretch pushes the toys) "This is what happens when you dummies try to think!" (He punches Big Baby with his mallet) "We're all just trash, waiting to be thrown away! That's what all a toy is!" ―Woody and Lotso argue more, resulting in Lotso revealing his true feelings[src]

"Sheriff! The button! Help me!"

—Lotso calls for Woody to help him reach an emergency stop button

"Where's your kid now, Sheriff?!"

—Lotso leaves Andy's toys to die in an incinerator (his last words in the film)

Gallery

Videos

Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear Commercial (circa 1983)