Millennials Aren't Ready To See Their Favorite Cartoons Age

I was watching TV a few weeks ago when it flashed across my screen: the movie trailer that kickstarted an existential crisis. It was for Toy Story 5 and started innocently enough, with Andy’s little sister playing with the famous crew of toys. But after the film’s main plot point was set up, there it was: Woody’s bald spot — a tiny, shiny patch of plastic where hair (or rather, a painted-on suggestion of hair) used to be.

I wasn’t prepared for it — and neither, it seemed, were his fellow toy friends, who quite literally recoiled as sunlight from the window bounced off Woody’s visible scalp and into their eyes. (One even quipped, “Someone needs a brown marker.” Ouch.) America’s favorite cowboy doll continued to get roasted when an iPad-adjacent tablet asked him, “What are you? Some sort of old-man toy?”

The shock factor isn’t unwarranted: It’s an unspoken rule that cartoons are generally encouraged to bend the rules of reality, and aren’t expected to age — or, at the very least, lose hair in a high-definition close-up. It’s why hat-wearing cats can babysit, a sponge can flip burgers in the ocean, and everyone can exist indefinitely without showing the wear-and-tear of time. Take the South Park kids: They’ve been in the same fourth-grade class since the show premiered almost 30 years ago; if the series truly unfolded in real time, they’d be pushing 40 with maturity levels that go beyond poop jokes and whatever else passed for humor in 1997. (But really, who the hell wants to see that?)

For years, Toy Story and its four sequels seemed to follow a similar trajectory: Woody’s appearance has largely stayed the same since 1995 — a comforting constant for the millennials who grew up alongside him, and why his sudden signs of aging are hitting us particularly hard.

It’s an unspoken rule that cartoons are generally encouraged to bend the rules of reality, and aren’t expected to age — or, at the very least, lose hair in a high-definition close-up.

After all, when you see your childhood hero showing similar physical signs of aging as you are — smile lines and crow’s feet, gray or thinning hair, looser skin — it breaks the fantasy that these characters (and, by extension, you) can stay frozen in time forever. (And it’s not like the Toy Story figurines are booking Botox appointments or hitting up CVS for root touch-up spray.)

Unfortunately, Woody isn’t the only cartoon serving up unsolicited reality checks. King of the Hill returned last year after a 14-year hiatus — with Bobby (who I knew as an awkward middle schooler) as a 21-year-old chef, and Hank and Peggy now retired. And my beloved Beavis & Butt-Head are shown as (just as immature) adults in some episodes of the series’ revival, complete with beer and beer bellies.

To add insult to injury, Toy Story 5’s plot centers around today’s youth choosing screens over traditional toys — a quite literal endorsement of the shiny and new. It’s basically calling the old obsolete — a mirror of society, which metaphorically relegates people over a certain age to the toy chest to collect dust as the youth get all the attention.

Of course, I’m talking about cartoons — so before you panic-buy a shopping cart’s worth of hair-growth supplements, know that it’s not all that bad. Seeing Woody’s bald spot manages to depict aging in a way that’s equal parts poignant, funny, and existential. And maybe there’s a comfort in it, too — being able to see ourselves in a balding cowboy doll softens the blow of it happening IRL. And, unlike Woody, we have Botox and root touch-up on our side.