The Mental Floss piece cites Catmull's book "Creativity, Inc." for the story behind the near loss of "Toy Story 2." Published in 2014, the book was written by Amy Wallace and Catmull (the latter of whom served as long-time President of Walt Disney Animation after co-founding Pixar) and details the many behind-the-scenes struggles of bringing Pixar movies to life. One such struggle occurred well into production of "Toy Story 2," and it's a doozy: The bulk of the film was suddenly deleted from Pixar servers by an unnamed technician who inadvertently entered a coding cue to remove all the film's files.
Per the Mental Floss piece, Catmull paints a horrifying picture of the film's deletion every bit as dramatic as you might imagine, stating that the film's creative team watched helplessly as approximately 90% of the film disappeared before their very eyes. "First, Woody's hat disappeared. Then his boots. Then he disappeared entirely. Whole sequences — poof! — were deleted from the drive." To make matters worse, Catmull claims the film could not be restored, as Pixar's backup system had failed, and no one on site had a copy of the film saved anywhere else.
At best, such a disaster could have meant a lengthy production delay for "Toy Story 2." At worst, the film might've been permanently shelved.
