Tin Toy is a 1988 American animated short film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter. The short film, which runs for five minutes, stars Tinny, a tin one-man band toy, trying to escape from Billy, a mischievous human baby. The third short film produced by the company's small animation division, it was a risky investment: due to the low revenue produced by Pixar's main product, the Pixar Image Computer, the company was under financial constraints.

Lasseter pitched the concept for Tin Toy by storyboard to Pixar owner Steve Jobs, who agreed to finance the short despite the company's struggles, which he kept alive with annual investment. The film was officially a test of the PhotoRealistic RenderMan software and proved new challenges to the animation team, namely the difficult task of realistically animating Billy. Tin Toy later gained attention from Disney, who sealed an agreement to create Toy Story starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, which was primarily inspired by elements from Tin Toy.

The short film debuted in a completed edit at the SIGGRAPH convention in August 1988 to a standing ovation from scientists and engineers. The film went on to claim Pixar's first Academy Award with the 1988 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, becoming the first animated film made using computer-generated imagery to win an Academy Award. With the award, Tin Toy went far to establish computer animation as a legitimate artistic medium outside SIGGRAPH and the animation-festival film circuit. In 2003, Tin Toy was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In a living room, a toy one-man band player named Tinny looks around and sees a baby named Billy arrive. At first, Tinny is delighted at the prospect of being played with by Billy until he sees how destructive the infant can be. When Tinny tries to walk out of Billy's reach, the musical instruments on the former's back begin to play, attracting Billy's attention. During a pursuit with the excited Billy chasing him, Tinny soon finds cover under a couch, where he finds a collection of toys in hiding, also seemingly afraid of Billy. Unaware of this, Billy accidentally trips and falls face-first onto the hardwood floor and begins to cry. Feeling sorry for the baby, Tinny leaves his couch sanctuary and begins to play near Billy to calm him down. Upon seeing this, Billy stops crying and picks up Tinny to play with, the latter fearing the worst. However, Billy soon lets go of the toy, more interested in his carton. This annoys Tinny, who again plays music, following Billy around in hopes of being noticed. Eventually, Billy, whose face is now covered in a shopping bag, leaves the room, pursued by Tinny as the credits roll. After the credits roll, the newly optimistic toys come out from underneath the couch. The screen cuts to black and Billy says "Bye Bye!" as the film ends.

Pixar, purchased in 1986 by entrepreneur and former Apple Computer head Steve Jobs, received many accolades for films produced by its small animation division, headed by former Disney animator John Lasseter. Lasseter's primary role, as defended to Jobs by company founders Edwin Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith, was to produce short films to promote the company's own Pixar Image Computers. The department was never meant to generate any revenue as far as Jobs was concerned, but after the release of two shorts, Luxo Jr. (1986) and Red's Dream (1987), some of the engineers working on the company's products wondered whether it made sense to keep the animation group going at all. Pixar was losing money every year and Jobs was supporting the cash-strapped company SO through a line of credit with his personal guarantee.

The engineers felt they were working hard to make money for Pixar while Lasseter's group was only spending it. Their passion was for building computers and software, not entertainment. Eventually, they discerned, to their chagrin, the reason why the company was supporting the division: the real priority of Catmull and Smith was to make films. The engineers were not alone in wondering about the value of Lasseter's short films. On repeated occasions in the late 1980s, Catmull barely dissuaded Jobs from shutting down the animation division due to financial constraints. At this same time, Jobs was clashing with Alvy Ray Smith, which would eventually lead to his resignation from Pixar after a heated argument during a meeting. Things were by no means well at the company and Lasseter and his team of animators knew this, and were afraid to ask for money to finance another short, which they storyboarded as Tin Toy.

In the spring of 1988, cash was running so short that Jobs convened a meeting to decree deep spending cuts across the board. When it was over, Lasseter and his animation group were almost too afraid to ask Jobs about authorizing some extra money for another short. Finally, they broached the topic and Jobs sat silent, looking skeptical. Tin Toy would require close to $300,000 more out of his pocket. After a few minutes, he asked if there were any storyboards. Catmull took him down to the animation offices, and Lasseter started his show. With the storyboards pinned on his wall, Lasseter did the voices and acted out the shots—just as story men had done on the Disney lot for decades—and thereby showed his passion for the project. The stakes here were much higher than before, however. Ralph Guggenheim, manager of the animation unit, recalled, "We knew that he wasn't just pitching for the film, he was pitching for the survival of the group." Jobs warmed up to the project and agreed to provide the money. "I believed in what John was doing," Jobs later said. "It was art. He cared, and I cared. I always said yes." His only comment at the end of Lasseter's presentation was, "All I ask of you, John, is to make it great."

That fall, after completion of Red's Dream, most members of the company gathered at Stillwater Cove, near Fort Ross, to design new software that was designed completely for the work of an animator. From the meeting came Menv software ("modeling Environment"), the first program specifically designed to facilitate the workflow of an animator, separating the various phases of the animation (modeling, animation and lighting), later renamed Puppets. To show the application of the new program, it was approved the production of a short. Inspired by the birth of his daughter Julia, William Reeves proposed the idea to create a human baby. Lasseter had an inspiration for the new opera based on the observation of his nephew, intent to put any toy in the mouth on the way. Lasseter said, "In terms of toys the child must have seemed a terrible monster!"