Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear/Synopsis

The story of Lots-O' Huggin' Bear from the Disney/Pixar movie Toy Story 3.

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 enjoyed every moment he spent with Daisy. One day, Daisy took Lotso and her two other favorite toys, a 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. Eventually they got tired of waiting for Daisy to return and decided they would go to her. They walked all the way back and finally made it back to Daisy's house. Big baby lifted Chuckles and Lotso to the window where they saw Daisy in bed only to discover that she had bought another Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear toy, making Lotso feel heartbroken and betrayed. Those feelings traumatized Lotso so badly it made him turn so bitter, that he forced Chuckles and Big Baby to leave Daisy's house with him by lying to them that Daisy has replaced them. However, Chuckles saw through the lie and told Lotso only he had been replaced, but Lotso furiously silenced him, insisting Daisy replaced all of them. 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.

The Real Lotso
"Take him to the box."

- Lotso ordering Big Baby to imprison Potato Head.

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 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 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 has Big Baby put Mr. Potato Head in "The Box." Lotso then has Buzz explain some of the prison rules to the toys. In order to make sure that Andy's toys will 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 hencemen, 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.

Upon his return, Woody learns from a Chatter Telephone toy that in order to escape sunnyside, he must defeat the Monkey who controls the security cameras and then travel across the playground to the garbage chute. After Woody finds his imprisoned friends, who are thrilled to see he's still alive and give him back his hat, they formulate a plan to escape Sunnyside, including get Buzz back on their side. During the escape at night, after Woody and Slinky defeat 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. The toys then arrive at the garbage chute and slide down it only to find Lotso and his gang waiting for them at the dumpster and blocking their way of escape, with Stretch appearing behind them. Lotso tells them that Andy doesn't want them anymore, however Woody tells him that's a lie. Lotso then hears a garbage truck approaching and tries to get the toys to come back into Sunnyside, but Jessie refuses and calls Lotso a liar and a bully and critizes him for running Sunnyside like a prison and Barbie agrees with her. Lotso signals Stretch to push the toys into a dumpster. At that moment, Ken arrives and beg Lotso to spare Barbie, but Lotso teases Ken for loving Barbie. When Ken disagrees with Lotso, Lotso becomes enraged at Ken's redemption and throws him across the dumpster to Andy's toys so he can join her. Ken then speaks up, explaining what Lotso has done to Sunnyside is terrible, making Lotso ask his cohorts if anyone agrees with Ken. When nobody answers, Lotso tells Andy's toys that no one kid has ever loved a toy. Woody then reminds Lotso of his old life with Daisy. However, Lotso immediately becomes upset as he doesn't want to have anything to do with Daisy, but completely forget her. Woody then pulls out Big Baby's old pendant (received from Chuckles during his stay at Bonnie's house earlier) and 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 she never loved him, then he snatches the pendant away from him and smashes it to pieces with his cane, making Big Baby burst cry. Lotso then orders a now reluctant Stretch to push all the toys into the dumpster, pokes Big Baby in the chest abusively with his cane, calls all his henchmen dummies, and says all toys are just trash waiting to be thrown away. Suddenly, Big Baby lifts up Lotso, carries him over to the dumpster, throws him into the dumpster and closes the lid on him. Woody and the gang quickly run across the closed dumpster, when one of the Aliens gets stuck by the dumpster's lid. Woody rushes 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 having him defeated, grabs Woody's ankle and pulls him into the dumpster. Woody's friends rush to save him just as the garbage truck arrives and pour the garbage and the toys into the truck.

Defeat at the Dump
"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. The toys learn that the ceiling above them is a magnet collecting broken metal objects when Slinky goes up towards it thanks to his metal spring body. When Slinky warns them the convey belt heading to a shredder, 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, drops down to help him free Lotso. Woody and Buzz pull out one of the golf clubs in the bag and use to pry the bag up 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 end of 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 red 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 boost. Afterwards Lotso climbs up towards the ladder. When he reaches the top, Woody and Buzz then beg him to push the button, but Lotso hasn't changed at all and decide not to. He then gives the helpless toys a menacing glare, shouts an final insult directed at Woody and runs off, leaving Andy's toys to die in the incinerator. However, the toys are saved by the aliens with the giant crane 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. Meanwhile, Lotso tries to find his way out of the dump, when he sees a garbage truck pulling up toward him, forcing him to go limp. As the truck stops next to him, a garbage man steps out and discovers him on the ground, claiming how he has once owned a Lots-o'-Huggin'-Bear toy when he was a kid. The scene then cuts to Lotso tied to the garbage man's truck's front grill by his wrists and ankles with three other toys he had collected earlier, a frog, a cat and a 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 the film, but he most likely remains strapped to the truck like the other garbage toys, and he may spend the rest of his life being covered by dust, dirt, mud and insects, and/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.