As a kid I thought it was just another animation movie, like all the rest, nothing siginificant, only when I got older I realized its impact, being a pioneer you could say etc etc…
Well, I was so obsessed with the characters and how real they looked in a “Cartoon”, I never noticed how popular it was with others. After all, I was home schooled, so I didn’t see kids. So, it was and is profoundly significant to me personally, but no, I didn’t realize how universally important it is/was.
How old are you? I ask because when it came out there was nothing else out there like it at the time. I knew its significance because I knew it wasn’t hand drawn, yet it wasn’t live action either. Its part of what initially drew me to the movie. If you weren’t born til the mid to late 90s than yeah, it might seem like just another animated movie, since there was more competition by then (though not much). but Toy story was the first of its kind, and that should have been obvious to anyone back then. I want to say it was the first computer animation I had seen, but going back even further I believe it was the series of Luxo Jr shorts shown on Sesame street. I was only a toddler then though, so I didn’t really understand what I was looking at.
My entire goal in life changed the moment I saw Toy Story. I went from wanting to work for Disney’s handrawn animation studio to wanting to work for Pixar, or at least something to do with 3D animation. I could tell that was the future. I didn’t expect hand drawn animation to die out almost completely like it has, but I definitely expected a lot of others trying Pixar’s success.
I was born in '95.
I was actually asking Pixarinho*, but your answer does go with what I was saying. people born that year or later probably didn’t understand the movie’s significance yet. By the time you were really old enough to start watching movies and remembering them you had movies like A bugs life, Antz, and soon after Monsters inc. from then on it was a steady stream of computer animated hits and misses from all sorts of studios.
Oh, sorry. I’m just so dumb I assume that since you posted behind me…I don’t know. Sorry. 
I was 2 when it was out, and up till the age of 5, TS, along with 101 Dalmatians, Pinochhio etc - watching them religously, all them i could clearly see the difference in animation, but TS didn’t feel special, or significant *-) 
Other things that contributed to it feeling special was the word of mouth, and things in the press. if you were only 2 in 95 you missed seeing toy story on magazine covers, public figures making references, quoting lines like “to infinity and beyond”, the satire/spoofs, the behind the scenes tv specials. it all adds up to making that a very memorable time. It felt big that year in my eyes.
Actually, I did realize the significance, but not why. The characters and story did it for me. The secret life of toys behind our backs was something that was very appliable and interesting to every kid in the 90’s. I knew it was a big thing, and that’s why I must’ve saw it when I was young, but it was only later that I found out it was the very first. And that only made me appreciate it more. It hasn’t really aged at all; when it comes to computer animation, it still stands high above the others. There’s a certain realism to it that hasn’t really been duplicated.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: I was seven at the time my parents took me to see it. They probably told me that it was the first computer-animated movie and that it was worth a watch, but I was too young to understand what’s the big deal about it. I only remembered the mutant toy gang gave me nightmare fuel for weeks. 
I can imagine that, if I had been of an age to understand the significance of Toy Story at the time, I would have. But I was five or six years old, and though it quickly became one of my favourite movies, I don’t think the fact that it was the first full-length CGI movie to be created and released made any difference to me. Pretty much in agreeance with what Kyle said.
Initially, at 14, I was blown away by the rendered quality of the film- that is, everything looked so real, but as the movie progressed, I got sucked into the lives of Woody, Buzz and all the characters; but yes, even then I knew, wow this is something huge. -Omar
I’m one of those people Kyle mentioned that didn’t realize the impact because I was too young when it first came out. I started getting interested in movies at a really young age and once when I was looking through some film-related book it mentioned Toy Story was the first fully computer-animated film and was like WOW! For some reason I had never thought about it, but it made sense when I did.
I wasn’t even born when it came out.
I was roughly 5 when I first saw it, I don’t remember if I liked it or not, but I remember that the mutant toys freaked me out. 
Now, when I watch it, I think “Wow. This was the first computer animated movie, and it’s fantastic!”
Well, I’ve always like Pixar. But it wasn’t until around the time Up came out and I became a super Pixar fan.
Once I studied more Animation History and became a Pixar fan that’s when Toy Storyreally became important to me. And the Toy Story 3 hype helped fuel that!
I wasn’t born when it was released, and I must’ve saw it when I was 2-ish, so obviously I didn’t realize it. I was a huge fan though, then it kind of fizzled out for a while. When I was 10 or 11 I saw it again, and started looking at bonus features, articles, etc. online and on the DVDs, and it was then that I realized how much of a milestone it really was.
Did I realize it’s significance? Well sure I did. I realized that it was an awesome film, that the characters were incredibly heartwarming, and that I was absolutely in love with the first movie I saw in theaters. I realized that I loved Woody and as a reward for learning how to swim, I got my very first Woody doll which was my favorite toy and close friend growing up. And that when I got into 3rd grade and Toy Story 2 came out, I was not alone as a Toy Story fan and that was the first movie I ever saw with my friends. So sure, I recognized that it was an incredibly significant film to me.
i was born two years after it came out and at about age six i knew it was far more important than i thought
I don’t think anybody did, execpt for Siskel and Ebert.
You could say the people from ILM, Industrial Light and Magic, made TS. ‘That’s from ILM man’, but you couldn’t really say ‘it’s a John Lasseter film’ in 1996.