Conan O'Brien Is Toy Story 5's Best New Character, And You Can Thank An Intern For His Design

Ever since "Toy Story" became a franchise with the first sequel back in 1999, each new chapter in the Pixar Animation film series has introduced several new toy characters, both as new friends and as menacing antagonists. 

"Toy Story 2" gave us Jessie (Joan Cusack) and Bullseye, but it also brought the threat of Stinky Pete (Kelsey Grammer). "Toy Story 3" introduced the likes of Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), Dolly (Bonnie Hunt), Trixie (Kristen Schaal), and more, but there was also the controlling Lotso Huggin' Bear (Ned Beatty). Finally, "Toy Story 4" created Forky (Tony Hale) while also introducing the desperate dolly Gabby (Christina Hendricks). So, it should come as no surprise that "Toy Story 5" has an assembly of new toys making their debut.

While "Toy Story 5" (watch the trailer) primarily focuses on the struggle between Jessie and the rest of Bonnie's toys fighting against the invasion of tech in the form of the new kid-friendly tablet Lilypad (voiced by Greta Lee), there are some other new characters who play a key role in the story. But the best one comes courtesy of Conan O'Brien and one of Pixar's interns.

The beloved former late night talk show host voices Smarty Pants, a Fisher Price-esque potty-training toy that Jessie encounters on her first solo adventure in the "Toy Story" franchise. He's immediately laugh-out-loud funny, and based on just his limited screentime in the first half of "Toy Story 5" that was screened for press in April, he has the potential to steal the whole movie.

Jessie stumbles upon Smarty Pants in a dilapidated playhouse that belongs to Blaze, a young girl now living in the house that previously belonged to Jessie's old owner, Emily. It turns out Blaze left behind a tea party with various toys, including Combat Carl (Ernie Hudson), and they've been waiting for her to return for ... awhile.

As Jessie learns about Blaze, she realizes that Carl and some other toys were neglected with the arrival of her first tech toy: Smarty Pants. Jessie's meeting with Smarty Pants is immediately hilarious, because he's operating on very low batteries, making him sound extremely drunk, a performance that O'Brien pulls off masterfully.

Smarty Pants is just the first of several tech-driven toys that Blaze played with, but it seems that he and other new characters like the GPS toy named Atlas (Craig Robinson) and the digital camera Snappy (Shelby Rabara) were discarded as soon as they became outdated by other new tech toys and devices. 

Conan's voice gives such chaotic, lively energy to Smarty Pants, but the character himself is amusingly simple in his purpose alone. As a potty-training toy, most of his world view is centered around toilet time, so he looks longingly at the bathroom and has amusing moments that allude to what he was designed for. Speaking of which, while speaking with production designer Bob Pauley, we discovered  the design of Smarty Pants got a little help from a Pixar intern.

Creating a playful potty-training device that you can also personify into a living toy created a unique challenge for Pixar. Bob Pauley recalled the initial approach to creating him was much different than the final version in the movie:

"Originally, I think he was Mr. Smarty Pants, so we were just drawing versions of a pair of pants, and it was a little bit challenging like, 'How do you act and how do you connect with that character? Where do the eyes go?' It was a little strange."

Pauley remembered character designer Deanna Marsigliese attempting some variations: "Deanna did some lovely drawings of like, 'How do we incorporate toilets imagery,' and there's a lid and the other things." But none of those designs seemed to work either.

Thankfully, every summer, Pixar gets a new batch of interns, and in the summer of 2023, they were two students named Lily and Naomi. "Naomi did this sketch, and she kind of drew the first Smarty Pants in the way he kind of looks now. He evolved, we kind of developed him further, but that was an intern at our studio for 12 weeks," Bob Pauley remembered.

As far as the evolution of the design from Naomi's initial idea, Pauley explained:

"It was a matter of putting it into the world of a device that we're familiar with. And also Blaze is a little over nine. When was she younger that would be using a potty training device? Maybe that particular toy was five or six years, been around that long when she got it, so we could push it further and make it a little more nostalgic so it feels like not a contemporary toy, with the kind of LCD screen and the little three buttons on the bottom of the lid."

The good news is that Smarty Pants apparently has a bigger part to play in the second half of the movie that we haven't seen yet. Pauley teased, "You guys are going to love the movie when you see all of it, but internally, we kind of surprised ourself. It's exciting when you see animation got ahold of Smarty Pants and started figuring out how he moves and then you put Conan's voice to it and it kind of ... Mind blowing. It was super fun."

"Toy Story 5" marks a wonderful return to animation for Conan O'Brien, who has been responsible for some of the best episodes of "The Simpsons," and we can't wait to see what else Smarty Pants gets up to in the rest of the movie.

"Toy Story 5" hits theaters on June 19, 2026.