Gabby Gabby (2024)

Gabby Gabby is the main antagonist of Pixar's 21st feature-length animated film Toy Story 4, the fourth installment in the Toy Story franchise.

She is a vintage pull-string talking doll from the 1950s who lived in the Second Chance Antique shop before meeting Woody and his friends and having a kid owner of her own. Despite turning on them, she reforms because of Woody's benevolence.

She was voiced by Christina Hendricks, who also voiced Zarina in The Pirate Fairy and "Officer Jaffe" in Scoob!.

Biography[]

Background[]

Gabby Gabby was manufactured in the late 1950s. For some time, her voice box suddenly broke, and as a result, Gabby Gabby became useless to owners and remained in the knick-knack shop for a long time, feeling distressed over never being picked by any human (though, her personal case for this didn't reach the same levels as with Stinky Pete's own). She later came to the Second Chance Antiques shop and took charge of The Bensons, whom she formed a strong bond with despite her developed cynical personality.

Toy Story 4[]

Gabby Gabby is first introduced when Woody and Forky see her being pushed around inside a stroller by one of the Bensons. Woody and Forky explain to her that they are searching for Bo Peep as Gabby Gabby notices the pull-string on Woody's back.

Gabby tells Woody she knows Bo and offers to take the four to her in the stroller. During the ride, Gabby reveals to them her broken voice box and asks if she can see Woody's. But he refuses and wants to leave, having become increasingly disturbed by the situation. However, more Bensons soon appear as Gabby makes her intentions clear: to take Woody's voice box of herself.

Woody and Forky made a run for it and Gabby orders the Bensons to chase after them. Woody escapes, but the Bensons manage to capture Forky.

Later, Gabby Gabby returns to her cabinet with Forky and the Bensons where she spots a young girl named Harmony enter the store to play with her tea set. Gabby mimics Harmony and expresses to Forky her desire to become Harmony's toy. Gabby feels Harmony is the perfect child for her, but her broken voice box prevents her from being noticed. Gabby then asks Forky to tell her all about Woody.

Eventually Woody, with the help of Bo Peep and their allies, attempt to rescue Forky, only for it to end badly due to Woody's reckless behavior. Although the toys managed to allude the Bensons (aside from Bo's sheep), Gabby Gabby knew that they would try again and decided to set a trap for them. Sure enough, Woody and his friends made another attempt by leaping from the top of one shelve to Gabby's cabinet. However Gabby and the Bensons spring their trap and the rescue, again, goes poorly.

After having a falling out with his friends, Woody then goes back to save Forky alone and finds Gabby Gabby with the Bensons waiting for him. Gabby tells Woody that she knew he would return because she knows how much Forky means to his owner Bonnie. She also reveals that she knows (from her talks with Forky) Woody had spent most of his life with his former owner Andy and had many happy moments with him. Gabby explains that she has never had an owner of her own to be happy with, as she was defective right out of the box, and just wants to at least share one loving moment with a child. Defeated, Woody agrees to surrender his voice box in exchange for Forky.

One of the Bensons successfully removes Woody's voice box and pull-string before sewing him back up, while Gabby Gabby is overjoyed to finally have a working voice box of her own. Gabby lives up to her end of the deal and releases Forky, telling him she will miss their talks before both Bonnie and Harmony suddenly enter the store. Woody races for Bonnie's backpack, but Forky stops to watch Gabby get her chance with Harmony.

Gabby Gabby pulls her own pull-string to get Harmony's attention, and the child picks her up. The store owner, Harmony’s grandmother, asks if she is interested in keeping the doll. However, Harmony tosses Gabby aside and exits the shop. Knowing how important Harmony was to Gabby, Woody and Forky decide to stay and help her.

They find Gabby Gabby lying in a basket heartbroken. She tells Woody that he can have his voice box back since she has no more use for it. Woody tries to comfort Gabby by saying there are plenty of children that would want to have and cherish a doll like her. He then convinces her with the help of Bo Peep (who had returned to the shop to help Woody), to come with them and meet Bonnie.

On the way to Bonnie's RV, Gabby Gabby spots a lost girl behind the carnival stalls crying and desires to help her. The other toys help Gabby get noticed by the girl and the doll comforts her enough to go ask for help. The child is soon reunited with her parents and she keeps Gabby Gabby, finally giving the toy the love she longed for.

Lamp Life[]

Gabby makes a brief silent cameo in the Disney+ short film, Lamp Life, where Bo Peep deceptively covered her face with a lampshade in order to get the key the doll was holding as a means to escape the antique store they were both in, indicating that she was its head toy inside of it for quite sometime (similar in some ways to Lotso's former commanding role at Sunnyside Daycare, only less brutal in comparison).

Personality[]

Gabby Gabby is a very complex character. When Woody and Forky first meet her, she seems like a very nice toy. However, right after meeting her, Woody and Forky soon learn that she is an ambitious toy who is determined to get Woody's voice box, so she can finally be taken in by her dream owner Harmony. Gabby Gabby is also very intelligent and persuasive, using the information she got from Forky to convince Woody into giving up his voice box.

However, she had some redeeming qualities even before she completely changed for the better, as she honors her deal with Woody that she would let him and Forky go after he lets her take his voice box. She also treated the Bensons with respect, showcasing that her kindness wasn't a mere front. After seeing that Harmony rejected her, Gabby initially lost all hope of being owned by a human child. But with the help of Woody, who lets her keep his voice box inside of her, she then tries to be adopted by another child, which eventually succeeded, causing her to fully redeem herself at the end.

Overall, Gabby Gabby is more misunderstood than evil. While her methods of getting to be taken in by Harmony weren't excusable, she is truly a very kind toy who redeemed herself after she realized the true meaning of play time.

Quotes[]

Trivia[]

• Gabby Gabby is the second main Pixar movie villain who redeems herself after Mor'du from Brave. However, Mor'du redeemed himself after his defeat, whereas Gabby Gabby redeemed herself by choice.
  • Gabby Gabby is also the only main villain in the Toy Story film series to immediately redeem herself onscreen (Sid Phillips, the main antagonist of the first Toy Story film, is implied to have changed his ways for good as later seen in Toy Story 3, but his apparent reform takes place offscreen).
• She is also the second main Pixar movie villain to be a female, the first being Screenslaver from Incredibles 2. Unlike Screenslaver (or Evelyn Deavor), Gabby Gabby redeemed herself, while Screenslaver wasn't completely able to do so.
• Unlike Sid Phillips, Stinky Pete and Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear, the main antagonists of the first three Toy Story movies, Gabby Gabby does not have any interactions with Buzz, if Sid's apparent redemption in the third film does not count. She is also the only main antagonist of a Toy Story sequel who doesn't meet or interact with Jessie and Bullseye. Most of her interactions are just with Woody. From all three, indeed, Gabby Gabby is the least villainous from the franchise, not counting Sid who didn't know toys were alive and turned his life around.
  • According to several psychologists, Gabby Gabby's lack of malevolence is because the fourth film is the most psychological of the series, where there's no true villain, as the real obstacle is within each one (much like how Woody insists on returning to Bonnie, until he realizes that he failed to see that with her, he does not have the same bond as with Andy).
• The film's art book revealed that Gabby Gabby was originally intended to be a blonde doll with pink bows and a necklace. However, her design was changed to that of a redhead doll with yellow bows and no necklace. The book also contains a drawing of Gabby Gabby's box.
• Gabby Gabby is the only female main antagonist in the Toy Story franchise. She started out as an antagonist, then becomes and anti-hero, and later became a tragic hero.
• Gabby Gabby is one of the four main Pixar villains to actually succeed in her plans, with the other three being Chick Hicks from Cars (albeit with the cost of his public disgrace), Chef Skinner from Ratatouille, and Ernesto de la Cruz from Coco (despite his overall plan being foiled at the end).
  • Out of these villains, however, Gabby Gabby possessed very limited antagonistic traits, mainly towards Woody and his friends, and her plans were finally fulfilled with their help. In addition, she succeeded in enacting her plans in the way she expected them to be in the first place.
• Despite her appearing malevolent, she was not intentionally or innately evil throughout her appearance, as she neither abused nor tortured Forky or Billy, Goat and Gruff purposefully despite kidnapping them before. Also, she did not meant to hurt Woody while she got his voice box, as the Bensons worked carefully with him. Gabby also kept her promise to him as she released Forky and Bo Peep's sheep after she received his voice box. In return, Gabby later helped Woody return to Bonnie, but not before changing their plans by being with another kid, who is lost at the carnival, further cementing her redemption.
• Gabby Gabby's color design is the exact reverse of the Grady Sisters in The Shining. Gabby wears a pastel yellow polka dot dress, while the Grady Sisters wear pastel blue polka dot dresses.
• Gabby Gabby is the third most recurring villain in the Toy Story franchise after Sid and Emperor Zurg.
• Gabby Gabby represents what Woody could've become if he allowed his insecurity consume him and let his reckless decisions destroy his friendship with Bo Peep and the other toys.
• Although she's meant to be set up as an antagonist, Gabby Gabby can also be considered as a complete contradiction to both previous Toy Story villains Stinky Pete and Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear.
  • Stinky Pete: Both hadn't experienced toy ownership before for quite a long time, and as a result, they feel with much distress from it. However, Stinky Pete didn't take such past of his that well, as he became highly embittered because of it, although he did eventually (and humorously) get a human owner of his own. Gabby Gabby, on the other hand, was more controlled with her past ownerless experience (even if she was ambitious about becoming an owned toy), which is further proven when Harmony rejected the doll, acknowledging that not every human would own her, although she was given another chance to succeed her overall goal, which also made her fully let go of Harmony in her mind. Stinky Pete exemplifies what would've happen to Gabby if she never knew when to accept rejection or disregard from others, especially humans.
  • Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear: Both were leaders of different groups of toys from different locations (Lotso, of the Sunnyside Daycare toys; Gabby, of the Bensons in the Second Chance Antique shop) who have ideologies about toy ownership and managed to apprehend a bunch of other toys like them. However, Lotso, who had a previous owner named Daisy who abruptly replaced him with a new Lotso, was far more ruthless and cold-blooded as a result of that, and he lead the toys in Sunnyside Daycare (including his subordinates) with an iron fist, to the point where he locked up some of that institution's toys for no reason besides endless torture. In additon, his ideology (as influenced by the moment Daisy replaced him) insists that no human has ever loved a toy, which is far from the truth. As for Gabby Gabby, despite not officially having a human owner of her own before, she's suprisingly much friendlier and more considerate to her henchmen, and knows when to let go of those she held captive before (namely, Forky, Billy, Goat and Gruff). Also, her own ideology suggests that a toy's dedicated presence for any human is noble, something that she herself would later experience. Had not Gabby made amiable bonds with others and wasn't more optimistic about toy ownership, she could end up behaving like what Lotso is right now.
    • Interestingly, another difference between them is their respective feelings about being the former leaders of different groups of toys: Lotso was much more reluctant about it, while Gabby had no qualms for her own case.
• Despite being a toy herself, Gabby Gabby has ironically shown more humanity than Sid Philips, Al McWhiggin and Ron the Manager (who are instead legitimate human beings themselves) did, even throughout her initially antagonistic appearance.

External Links[]

• Gabby Gabby on the Disney Wiki
• Gabby Gabby on the Pixar Wiki
• Gabby Gabby on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki

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