Second Chance Antiques

Second Chance Antiques is an antique store which was one of the key locations in Toy Story 4. Bo Peep spent years gathering dust at this store until she decided to move on. Later, Woody spots her lamp and goes inside to look for her. The antique store is also home to a host of toys, including Gabby Gabby, her henchmen dummies, Duke Caboom and more. Says director Josh Cooley, “This is a new location for us. My parents are big antiquers, so I’ve been to a lot of antique stores. The nostalgia of it—almost a feeling of going back in time—seemed right for this revisiting of Bo and Woody. And there are just unlimited opportunities. The goal of a ‘Toy Story’ movie is to always remember these are toys. The antique store is a cool setting anyway, but from a toy’s point of view, it’s uncharted territory.”

Background
According to production designer Bob Pauley, the antique store is vast and filled with thousands of objects. “We did a lot of research,” he says. “For ‘Ratatouille,’ they went to Paris. For ‘Up,’ they went to Venezuela. But for ‘Toy Story 4,’ we visited local antique stores. We discovered a lot of charming, interesting and fun people running them, and many visual similarities from store to store. There’s often a stoplight, a jukebox, sometimes a big plastic Santa and of course lots of collectibles and real antiques. There are many lights and lamps illuminating all the items throughout the store—lights connected to lots and lots of extension cords and power strips. The front desks are always interesting, small notes, little curiosities, extra tags and refreshingly low tech: they laboriously hand-write 20 receipts and chat about your purchase. There’s also a cat or two that have the run of the place, so we incorporated one to help tell our story.”