Is Emily really Andy's Mom in Toy Story?

Emily as she appeared in Toy Story 2

Any of you who are on this blog for more than a couple of minutes are bound to find that I really like Toy Story. Being a fan of the film, I get asked a lot of questions about the lore and such. The second most asked question I get from people is my opinion on the Emily= Andy’s Mom theory.

For those of you who haven’t heard the theory, it states that the hat in Toy Story 1 that Andy wears is the same hat that Emily wears in her segment of Toy Story 2 minus the white headband. In Toy Story 2, Andy’s hat shows a ring where the headband should be but the hat itself has no headband

suggesting it was removed at some point.

People point to this strange prop as proof that Emily and Andy’s Mom are the same person, but let’s see if this is really true

Genetics

Even the genetics is tricky behind this. In Toy Story 1, it's very
plain that Andy's Mom has detached earlobes. this is not the case
in Toy Story 2 and 3. 

The first thing I tried looking up was genetics, but I ran into a snag with Emily. Since the lighting is a soft glow the whole time, it’s hard to pinpoint certain traits and compare them. What I determined was that Andy’s mom has attached earlobes and so does Emily (from what I can tell. Again, the lighting makes it hard to focus). The photo on the desk in Emily’s room also looks a lot like a teenage Andy’s Mom.

The genetics might check out, but I wasn’t confident that I had acquired correct information because of the tricky and blurry camera work in most of the “when she loved me” segment, so I went with the next logical determiner: their ages.

Timeline

We don’t know everyone’s exact ages in Toy Story except for Andy’s. Based on childhood development, we could venture a guess as to molly’s age. I did the work on this when writing up my fan fiction, but let’s recap.

Toy Story takes place squarely in 1995. I estimate sometime in August- September based on the weather and the fact Andy graduated high school at 17 meaning he probably beat the age deadline for most public schools which from experience says it’s around those two months.

We know Andy was six in 1995 and Molly was about 8-9 months old based on her abilities to stand while supporting herself on the crib. Now say we go with the average age that Andy’s Mom was likely to start having kids which in 1989 (the year Andy was born) was just shy of 24 years old and likely married right before then since the average age for women to marry around that time was around 23.

So, 1989 – 24= 1965

In all likelihood, Andy’s mom was born in 1965.

Woody’s Roundup was canceled shortly after Sputnik was launched in 1958, but so what? A lot of kids are into TV shows that were released 8 years before they were born. I really like Ducktales and that’s a similar time gap from when it was canceled to when I was born, but that’s not what we are most concerned with.

In 1080 p HD it's easier to see, but the two posters on the top
right are advertising a concert for "The Lemurs". Emily grew up
sometime in the mid 60's. Andy's Mom likely wasn't born until
1965.

In the segment that we see Emily grow up, we witness her interests change more to the popular aspects of culture at the time she was alive and one of the biggest clues are the posters she hangs up above her dresser, advertising a concert taking place on the 25^th of November…. 1999…...? What do you know! That’s a problem. Toy Story 2 was even released several days before then on the 13^th… I really stepped into a something here. Further investigation required.

Anyway, ignoring the date… the poster is for a concert by “The Lemurs” and it’s done in popular 1960’s fashion.  Based on what I know about popular rock bands, “Lemurs” is very reminiscent of bands that were released in the early ‘60s- The Beatles, The Monkeys, and The Byrds are all examples of this type of naming. Music was run pretty closely by producers rather than artists in the early ‘60s (this did eventually change with the emergence of Jimi Hendrix and the album “Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) and since The Beatles were the most popular band at the time, a lot of producers and managers changed their bands names to look like “Beatles” and make more money that way.

This, combined with the art style, would place the poster squarely in the middle of the 1960’s, likely before Andy’s mom was even born and surely before she was a teenager like we know Emily was at the time (we know her age by looking at the photo next to the posters).

So… that’s it then? Emily is not Andy’s mom? There goes a big chunk of my pre-supposed ideas.

But the hat! The hat is the same!

Comparison of the hat. the second and third picture on Andy's side
are from TS2 and as you can see, the hat is more brown than red.
since that is the most recent iteration of the hat, we must consider
it canon over the red colored version from the first movie.

No. it isn’t. Andy’s dad likely handed the hat down or it was bought by Mom sometime before the events of the films. Andy's hat is triangular, it's more brown than red, and the white lacing around the hat is likely a coincidence. removing the headband might have also been a move by Andy to try ad make his hat look more like Woody's. 

Conclusion

So, upon further investigation, it is unreasonable and pretty much false to think that Emily, Jessie’s former owner, is Andy’s mom, but is that a bad thing?

We have been conditioned to hope that everything is connected to something else somehow, but is that a good thing? The world becomes so much smaller when that happens. The beauty of living life is that there are endless things to accomplish. The world is so much bigger than we can possibly imagine and with that comes the idea that our choices do affect people outside of ourselves.

At the same time, having this theory debunked adds to Jessie’s character and builds something bigger than we could hope on our own. All of us have people in our lives that we loved and loved us and sometimes we lose those people and we have to move on. It’s painful. That is why Jessie’s interluding song is so heart wrenching. These characters aren’t just playthings anymore, they are living and breathing entities where we can reflect our own experience.

Because Emily is no one, we are all Jessie. That’s the beauty of fiction.

Thanks for joining me on this adventure. Be sure to like my Facebook page and share this one with friends that like Toy Story and fan theories. Leave a comment below on what theories you’ve heard that I should tackle next and remember to always be the best version of yourself.