Toys (1992) Poster



Jump to: Director Trademark (1)
Jamie Foxx's film debut.
It took director Barry Levinson over 10 years to develop the film. It took 10 months to shoot.
Much of the look draws its inspiration from surrealist painter René Magritte. This is most obvious in the break in scene where Leslie and Alsatia pretend they're doing a music video featuring raining men in the background.
A long-cherished project for Barry Levinson, this was originally set to be his directorial debut.
Leslie 'Robin Williams' and Owen 'Arthur Malet' had previously worked together on the movie Hook (1991) which was released the year before.
The scene where General Zevo is trying to kill a fly with his gun is a reference to a Confucius quote: "Never use a cannon to kill a fly."
In the arcade scene, the intro to Tank Gunner is actually the intro to Absolute Entertainment's Super Battletank. One year later, Absolute Entertainment one released the video game adaptation for Toys.
The field scenes were filmed in the Palouse region of Washington State. Just outside of Washington State University
The blue car that Leslie drives is a very rare 1950 Muntz Jet, of which less than 400 were made.
Robin Williams states that dying his hair orange, and the costume he wore, made him feel like The Sixth Doctor in Doctor Who (1963).
The words used by the General in an attempt to stop the rampaging sea creature are "Klaatu, Barada, Nikto", the same words used to command the robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
As of May, 2001 the Zevo Tombstone (the stone elephant) resides at Planet Hollywood in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
In the arcade sequence, where a child is shown playing one of the military games of a helicopter destroying civilian vehicles, a "kill" monitor is visible at the bottom of the screen listing the number of cars destroyed by model. Only the Volvo column is still at zero kills, an in-joke referring to the Volvo's legendary safety and indestructibility.
The black SUV that the General and Patrick ride in is a Lamborghini LM002.
The picture was nominated for Worst Picture at the Hastings Bad Cinema Society's 15th Stinkers Bad Movie Awards in 1992.
The "electric jacket" worn by Robin Williams was created by the Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini.

Director Trademark 

Barry Levinson:  [Ralph Tabakin]  Ralph (Fred) has appeared in every Levinson picture from Diner (1982) to Liberty Heights (1999).

See also


Contribute to This Page