LEGO Toy Story Slinky Dog

Why I Wanted This Set

I have a soft spot for the Pixar shorts era — Tin Toy (1988) is the one that started it all, and Knick Knack is still my favorite ten minutes the studio ever made. When I saw the press shots and realized LEGO had hidden book-sleeve homages to both shorts on the build itself, that was the sale. The Slinky Dog was almost a bonus.

The Build

Three pieces meeting at the middle: front body with head, the spring section, and the rear end with the tail. The head construction is the most fun — the brown ears, the floppy tongue, and the eye printing all build up over a small handful of bricks and end up looking eerily on-model.

The spring is a real flexible element; you build the front and back separately, then bridge them with the spring. It stretches, but doesn’t bounce the way a real Slinky toy does — more like a controlled bend.

What’s Special About It

The book sleeves. Front-and-center between the two body halves are two upright builds: a purple Knick Knack sleeve and a teal Tin Toy sleeve. Tin Toy even has a tiny micro-build of the windup baby toy on top of the book — which is wild fan service for a Slinky Dog set. If you don’t know those shorts, it just reads as “Pixar branding.” If you do, it’s the best part of the build.

The proportions. Slinky’s silhouette is hard to capture — too short and he reads as a regular dachshund, too long and he loses the spring’s tension. LEGO got the ratio right. He looks like Slinky from across the room.

What to Watch Out For

The spring is a static-ish display element. Don’t expect to hand this to a kid as a play toy and have it survive — it’ll bend, but the connection points where the spring meets the body are pressure-sensitive.

Also, the included minifigs are a small lineup — Woody and one supporting figure. If you wanted a full Andy’s Room ensemble, this isn’t it.

Display Notes

He sits front-to-back at about a foot long with the spring fully extended, so a regular shelf works fine. The Knick Knack and Tin Toy sleeves are tall and narrow and act as a natural backdrop element — they’re what makes the set photograph well.

Verdict

If you grew up on Pixar’s shorts and not just the features, this set is talking to you specifically. The Slinky Dog build itself is good — not a flagship — but the deep-cut homages are what move it from “fine” to “actually want it.”