"What is Time?" is the fourth short film in the Toy Story series Forky Asks a Question. The short film premiered on November 29, 2019.
Story
Forky once again greets the audience as he walks along with Old Timer (a toy clock that’s one of Bonnie’s baby toys). He asks the audience what is time. To help him, he introduces a toy who knows a lot about that: Rex (leaving a shocked Old Timer in the dust). The spork begins booing the dinosaur. When Rex asks why is he doing so, Forky simply says he doesn’t know, then proceeds to ask Rex the main question about time. Rex explains that “Now is now, stuff happens, then it’s later.”, much to the spork’s delight. Rex further explains that time can be the future or past. He uses dinosaurs roaming the Earth in the past as an example and says his kind, the tyrannosaurus rex, was known as the King of the Dinosaurs. He wishes he could have seen it. Forky asks what did the T-Rex eat, and Rex says they ate creatures from the Cretaceous period, such as Sauropods and Triceratops. Forky, at first, is impressed, but soon repeats the same question on what they ate. A confused Rex is about to repeat it but is soon interrupted when Forky asks if they ate with sporks. Rex explains that sporks weren’t invented yet, since it was 65 million years ago, shocking Forky. Rex further explains that real dinosaurs ate with dagger-like teeth, before sadly saying the asteroid made them extinct shortly after. Forky is confused and believes he said, “Your hemorrhoid was a stink”. The dinosaur corrects him and says it was an asteroid, elaborating that it’s a giant ball that bounces on the Earth and wreaks havoc. Forky then grabs a small Pixar Ball and repeatedly smacks Rex with it on the nose, playfully impersonating an asteroid bouncing on the Earth. Rex tries to explain the actual impact on the asteroid collision, but Forky is too busy laughing as he continues smacking him with the ball, saying asteroids are fun. He then accidentally knocks Rex to the floor, but Rex sighs in defeat, saying that the asteroid always wins and the whole thing is depressing. Forky slowly scoots up next to him on the floor and says that while it may be inappropriate, he still repeats his question on what is time. Rex says time is a way to be forgotten since all the real dinosaurs are gone (with the exception of the millions of birds around the planet). Forky thinks for a minute and stands up. He tells Rex that while the future and the past sound great, he thinks he likes the now since he gets to spend time with him. Rex tells him that’s so nice and thanks him. This causes the dinosaur to stand up with his confidence back and tells Forky that there are other toy dinosaurs in Bonnie’s room right now and whispers that he saw a “particularly tasty-looking sauropod” on the other side of the room. Forky says that sounds awful, but he tells him that he has a spork if he needs one, to which Rex says he thinks he does. He picks up the spork and roars that he is the terrible King of the Dinosaurs, with Forky yelling, “Here comes the hemorrhoid!” After the end-credits, the pair are then seen roaring and chasing after a confused wooden Sauropod toy on wheels.
Cast
- Tony Hale as Forky
- Wallace Shawn as Rex
- Alan Oppenheimer as Old Timer
- Bob Peterson as Voice Over Announcer
Trivia
- The Luxo Ball appears in this episode.
- The music cue "Bye Boo" from Monsters, Inc. plays at the end.
- Forky mistaking the word 'asteroid' for 'hemorrhoid' may be a reference to Darth Vader's physical actor, David Prowse, swapping the same words while filming for Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.[1]
