Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear/Synopsis

Backstory
"Something changed that day inside Lotso. Something snapped"

- Chuckles tells Woody about Lotso.

Lotso first started out as a Christmas present for a young girl named Daisy and instantly became her favorite toy. Lotso seemed to have enjoyed every moment of the time spent at Daisy's house. One day, Daisy took Lotso and her two other favorite toys, a big baby doll named Big Baby and a plush clown toy named Chuckles, out for a little drive with her parents and stopped at a rest stop for a little bit of playtime.

After lunch, Daisy fell asleep and her parents took her back into the car, accidentally leaving Lotso, Big Baby, and Chuckles behind. The three toys waited for a long time, but Daisy never came back for them. Lotso eventually tired of waiting for Daisy to return and decided they should go to her. So he, Chuckles and Big Baby walked all the way back and finally made it back to Daisy's house. Big baby lifted Chuckles and Lotso to window where the two of them saw Daisy in bed only to discover that Daisy had bought another Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear toy, making Lotso heartbroken and feeling betrayed. Those feelings traumatized Lotso so badly it made him turn so bitter, that he forced Chuckles and Big Baby to leave Daisy and follow him by lying to them that Daisy has replaced them all. However, Chuckles saw through the lie and told Lotso only he had been replaced, but Lotso furiously silences him, insisting Daisy replaced them all.

Lost and unwanted, the three toys hitched a ride on the rear bumper of a truck. After a long drive through the rain, the truck hit a bump, knocking the three off. There, they found a daycare center called Sunnyside. Lotso went inside, took over the daycare and turned it into a prison for toys. He ruled with an iron fist, subjecting them to torture and abuse by the playful toddlers in the Caterpillar Room, and having them thrown out into the garbage chute when they finally get broken, while he gets played with nicely in the Butterfly Room. He made Big Baby his right-hand man and recruited more toys to help him run Sunnyside, those toys being a doll named Ken, a rock monster named Chunk, a insect warrior named Twitch, a robot named Sparks and an octopus named Stretch, while Chuckles decided he wasn't going to have any part of Lotso's empire. One day Chuckles got his side torn, but a Sunnyside student named Bonnie Anderson, found him, took him home and repaired him. Chuckles also replied that other toys weren't so lucky, implying that Lotso had them thrown out in the trash chute.

Welcome to Sunnyside
"Lotso: Well, hello there. I thought I heard new voices. Welcome to Sunnyside, Folks! I'm Lots-O' Huggin' Bear, but please call me Lotso."

- Lotso's first lines in the film.

Lotso is first introduced riding over to Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, Bullseye, Rex, Hamm, Slinky Dog, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Barbie and The Aliens in his dump truck. He greets them in a friendly, albeit fake manner and shows them around Sunnyside with Big Baby and Ken. He assigns the new toys in the Caterpillar Room, knowing that the toys they will be treated abusively by the toddlers. However Woody escapes before the bell rings planning to go back to Andy. He makes outside where he and is found by Bonnie, the same student at Sunnyside who found Chuckles.

Buzz meets the real Lotso
"Put him back in the time out chair!"

- Lotso ordering Big Baby to grab Buzz.

That night, after the toddlers in the Caterpillar Room have played with Andy's toys so roughly, Buzz - who saw Lotso and his friends being played with nicely by the kids in the Butterfly Room - decides to go find Lotso to ask for his friends to be moved to the Butterfly Room. Ken, Big Baby and the rest of Lotso's henchmen - Chunk, Twitch, Sparks and Stretch - capture Buzz, take him to the daycare's library and tie him to a chair made out of Lego bricks with pipe cleaners. When Lotso comes in the library and sees what his friends have done to Buzz, he acts like the space ranger's capture is wrong and unties him, Buzz then asks Lotso to transfer him and his friends to the Butterfly Room. Lotso agrees to transfer Buzz, knowing that Buzz might be a good addition to his team, but refuses to let his friends come, Buzz insists his friends don't belong there. However Lotso tells him that the Caterpillar Room needs toys for toddlers to play with. But Buzz refuses to abandon his friends saying they're a family that must stay together. However still thinking Buzz is too useful to give up, Lotso then tells Big Baby to put Buzz back in the Lego Chair. He then uses a Buzz Lightyear action figure manual, which is given to him by the Bookworm, to reset Buzz to his demo mode. This makes Buzz think he is a real space ranger again (he originally believed so in the first Toy Story movie) and Lotso has Buzz believe that his friends are helpers of his arch-enemy The Evil Emperor Zurg.

Lotso Imprisons Andy's Toys
"(Jessie: Come on guys. We're going home.) Whoa, there, Missy...you're not going anywhere."

- Lotso tells Jessie that she and her friends will not be leaving Sunnyside.

Lotso then returns to the Capetillar where Jessie and the other ask him if he's seen Buzz and tell him they're leaving. Lotso tells they just arrived. When Mrs. Potato Head complains to him about her ruined purse. Lotso tells them they're not leaving Sunnyside and removes her mouth. Jessie tells her friends they're going home but Lotso tells them they're not going anywhere. At that moment, Buzz enters and attacks his friends. Lotso then orders Buzz to imprison the toys inside their cells, and tell Big Baby to Mr. Potato Head put in "The Box." Buzz orders Jessie and the others to stay in their cells and not talk out of turn. In order to make sure that Andy's toys will do that and obey his many other rules, Lotso gives them a warning and tosses them Woody's hat (which he left behind in his escape) making them believe Lotso killed Woody. Lotso then says good night to Jessie and the others and returns to the Capetillar room with his Gang, while Buzz is left behind to make sure they don't escape. Meanwhile at Bonnie's house, Bonnie's toys tell Woody about how Lotso really runs sunnyside and Chuckles explains Lotso's backstory. The following morning at sunnyside, Lotso and his gang return to the Capetillar Room so they can retrieve Buzz and return Mr. Potato Head. Lotso then tells Jessie and her friends that got a playtime with destiny and leaves with his team. At the same time, Woody seeks into Sunnyside via Bonnie's backpack to save his friends.

Escape Foiled
"Now we need toys in our caterpillar room and you need to avoid that truck. Why don't ya come on back, join our family again."

- Lotso confronting Andy's toys.

After Woody finds his imprisoned friends, who are thrilled to see he's still alive and give him back his hat, and they formulate a plan to escape Sunnyside, including get Buzz to rejoin their side. Woody has learned from a Chatter Telephone toy that in order to escape sunnyside, the toys must defeat the Monkey who controls the security cameras and then travel across the playground to the garbage chute. During the escape at night, after Woody and Slinky defeated the monkey, Mr. Potato Head checks if Lotso is sleeping, and surely enough, he is. Potato Head sees Woody, Barbie and Slinky, who have gotten Buzz's manual and signals to them that Lotso is sound asleep. When the toys try to leave Sunnyside through the garbage chute that Chatter Telephone told Woody about, Lotso and his gang appear at the dumpster, blocking their way of escape, with Stretch appearing behind them. Lotso tells them that Andy doesn't want them anymore. Woody tells Lotso that what he just said is a lie. Lotso then hear a garbage truck approaching and tries to get the toys to come back to the Caterpillar Room to join his family again, but Jessie refuses and calls Lotso a liar and a bully who is running Sunnyside like a prison and Barbie agrees with her. This makes Lotso signal Stretch to push the toys into a dumpster, thinking that disposing them as trash will be better. At that moment, Ken tries to stop Lotso, but Lotso teases Ken for loving Barbie. When Ken disagrees with Lotso, Lotso becomes enraged at Ken's act of defection as well as his love for Barbie and throws him across the dumpster so as to force him to join her. Ken then speaks up, explaining what Lotso has done to Sunnyside, making Lotso ask his cohorts if anyone agrees with Ken. When no one answers, Lotso tells Andy's toys that not one kid has ever loved, or will ever love, a toy. Woody then reminds Lotso of his old life with his owner, Daisy. However, Lotso immediately becomes upset as he doesn't want anything to do with Daisy, but to forget completely that his relation to Daisy has ever existed. Woody then pulls out Big Baby's old pendant (received from Chuckles during his stay at Bonnie's house earlier), tells Lotso how she has loved him and tosses the pendant to Big Baby, who picks it up and, looking at the token of his lost love, sniffles, "Mama." Outraged at how Big Baby is still emotionally attached to Daisy, Lotso snaps out at Big Baby, yelling at him that Daisy never loved him as he snatches the pendant away from him and smashes it to pieces with his mallet, making Big Baby burst into tears. He then orders a now reluctant Stretch to push the toys into the dumpster, pokes Big Baby abusively with his cane, calls all his henchmen dummies, and denounces all toys as trash waiting to be thrown away. Finally fed up with the teddy bear's treacherous nature, Big Baby lifts up Lotso, causing him to drop his mallet. Big Baby carries Lotso, throws him into the dumpster and closes the lid on him. Big Baby then blows a raspberry directed at Lotso before he and the other toys allow Woody and the gang to escape. As the toys run across the closed dumpster, one of the Aliens has become stuck by the dumpster's lid, prompting Woody to rush back to free the alien by slightly opening the lid. But then, Lotso, having caught sight of Woody through the opening and wanting revenge on him for being defeated, grabs Woody's ankle and pulls him into the dumpster, making Andy's other toys rush to his rescue just as the garbage truck arrives and pour the garbage and the toys into the truck.

Lotso's Betrayal
"WHERE'S YOUR KID NOW, SHERIFF?!"

- Lotso betraying the toys and letting them die

The truck takes Lotso and Andy's toys to the Tri-County Landfill. Once they arrive, the aliens go chasing a giant crane while Lotso and the rest of Andy's toys are pushed onto a conveyor belt that they discover is heading for a shredder. But thanks to Slinky, the toys learn the ceiling above them is a magnet collecting broken metal objects, as Slinky goes up towards it thanks to his metal spring body. So The toys each grab onto a broken metal object and hold on to it while it shoots up to the ceiling, seeing the broken metal objects will go right over the shredder. The toys suddenly see Lotso trapped under a golf bag that is going to the shredder. Woody, who does not have the courage to let Lotso die (despite all the trouble Lotso had put Andy's toys through), quickly drops down to save Lotso. Buzz, seeing the danger Woody has put himself in, drop downs to help him free Lotso. Woody and Buzz pull out one of the golf clubs in the bag and use to pry up the bag enough so Lotso can crawl out. Woody then grabs Lotso's paw and the club pulls both of them and Buzz up to the ceiling, seconds before the shredders chew up the golf bag. They then go over the shredder and lead beside Jessie and the others on another conveyor belt. After Rex point out a light at the conveyor belt, Woody realizes that the conveyor belt is leading them to an incinerator. The toys try to run away from the incinerator, but the conveyor belt pushes them closer and closer to it. Lotso then notices a ladder leading to an button that could stop the convey the belt and rushes over to it. He grabs the lower lung and calls to Woody, informing him about the button. Woody and Buzz see what Lotso is trying to do and rush over and give him a bost. Afterwards Lotso climbs up towards the ladder. When Lotso reaches the top, Woody and Buzz then shout at him, begging him to push the button, but Lotso, who hasn't changed at all, gives the helpless toys a menacing glare, shouts an insult directed at Woody and runs off, leaving Andy's toys to die in the incinerator. However, the toys are rescued by the giant crane that the Aliens have commandeered at the last moment. After the toys emerge out of the furnace, Hamm and Slinky express their desire to get back at Lotso for leaving them to be killed, but Woody convinces them to forget it, believing he is not worth it.

Defeated at the Dump
"Hey, buddy. Ya might wanna keep your mouth shut!"

- One of Lotso's truck friends warning him

Meanwhile, as Lotso tries to find his way out of the dump, he turns to see a garbage truck pulling up toward him, forcing him to go limp. As the truck stops next to him, a garbage man steps out of the truck and is surprised upon discovering Lotso, claiming how he has once owned a Lots-o'-Huggin'-Bear toy during his childhood. Sticking to his love for Lotso (as well as his strawberry scent), the garbage man decides to take him along. The scene then cuts to Lotso tied to the truck's front grill by his wrists and ankles with a few other toys the same garbage man has collected earlier, a frog, a cat and a small white furry creature. Lotso panics as he wakes up to find himself in that predicament, then the frog warns Lotso, he should keep his mouth shut to prevent mud and insects from getting in, and Lotso does so right away, ending with the other toys laughing beside him. It is unclear what becomes of Lotso after Toy Story 3, but he most likely remains strapped to the truck like the other garbage toys and he may spend the rest of entirety being covered by dust, dirt, mud and insects, or thrown away into the incinerator for having become too dirty. After Lotso is thrown out of Sunnyside, Andy's toy return to Andy but later have themselves given to Bonnie while Ken and Barbie become Sunnyside's new rulers and make a paradise for toys.