I am pretty sure Woody as a toy had some gripping capabilties in the '50’s.
I don’t know about trying to hide a gun, maybe the plot just didn’t call for it. We see a lot in Ratatouille, not sure about Up…
Pixar’s films are mostly very family friendly, but when Brad Bird made The Incredibles it was a more mature story about superheroes fighting giant robots and henchmen so it called to be more violent (although in Ratatouille Remy saw a couple having a fight with the woman holding a gun at her husband but then they make up and kiss, which he seemed to have put in for no apparent reason). There’s also EVE from Wall-E who has a blaster built into her arm, but since she’s a more innocent character it’s not used very often and I think it’s purpose was mainly for clearing away obstacles on Earth.
Charles Muntz used one near the end to shoot the balloons off of Carl’s house.
The gun holster is just a cowboy esque addition to his character, like his spurs. The gun would be unnecessary. But in my mind I’d like to think that such a tiny accessory could have been lost within time. He is a hand-me-down after all.
Sorry to revive an old topic, but I have some more info. First, Al would’ve checked his hand or holster for the gun, but another clue is that one of Al’s Woody’s Roundup comic books showed Woody with the subtitle “Gunless Law.” I think the bigger question here is why he has a holster.
It’s funny that some clueless eBay auctions state that Woody DOESN’T include his sixgun.
A lot of you are forgetting that things were way different for kids in the 50s and 60s. Health and safety wasn’t so much if an issue. I remember having toys in the 70s that were a real choking hazard and wouldn’t fly now.
As for the issue of kids and guns don’t mix, that’s a pc thing of today’s society. Every kid had a toy cap gun at some point back then. Most of your time was spent playing cowboys and Indians or war. If your weren’t doing that you were on your bike or playing with Action man(US Gi Joe).
I don’t think Woody ever had a gun at all. Just don’t be under the misapprehension that today’s rules were the same back then.
It seems like they may have gave Woody a gun at one point after all, cause he has one in this early storyboard for the original film: [url]- YouTube
The gun used in that opening could just have been a random little toy gun Andy had lying around.
He could have had a gun in the beginning but at the time Disney didn’t feel comfortable with the “promotion” of guns or maybe the producers changed their mind about it. They figured they would leave the gun holster because it completes the sheriff look. The “gunless law” in the second movie was probably like a Pixar inside joke.
It’s funny to think that so many people who are not familiar with the movies, don’t know that Woody doesn’t have a gun. I bought my nephew the TSC Woody doll for Christmas and when we were cleaning up the living room on Christmas Day, my sister-in-law was looking for the gun and even stood up to look for it when she thought she had sat on it. I had to tell them Woody didn’t come with one. 
so he did have a gun at one point, but i honestly think he looks better without one…also probaly one of the reason they removed it is due to the match that sid put in his holster.
The storyboard isn’t canon, but that’s probably where the holster originated from. It was probably left in anyways for a more western feel. He also needed it to hold the match, but Sid could’ve just as easily stuck it somewhere else.
I think that the toy version of Woody never had a gun. Besides, if it did, wouldn’t the gun be included with the TSC version of Woody? 
Not neccessarily. Based off what we saw in the movie, Thinkway wouldn’t include a gun even if he had one.
And I do have reason for reviving this thread again, here’s a passage from the back of the Buzz Lightyear coin bank:
So I guess he might’ve had a gun at one point.
I read ages ago that his gun was in Hamm. But then, that was before Toy Story 2 and Woody’s Round Up.
As for Buzz having a Laser, have you noticed that lasers are always more accepted in childrens stuff over real guns? Anyone here ever watch the GI Joe cartoon from the 80s? No one in that thing carries a real gun. It’s all lasers.
Also, story wise, it’s not necessary and Pixar probably understood it would’ve been more trouble than it was worth to render it.
It may or may not be cannon, but at the official Grand Opening for Midway Mania in California, Woody mentions his gun. Here’s a link to the video.
youtube.com/watch?v=RjqagAw9 … re=related
It may not count, since it was just a ceremony, but John Lasseter was there, so I guess it counts for something. It’s at 0:10 if you want to hear it for yourself, but when the Soldiers aim at the target Woody says “Your men have nothing to fire, and my Six-Shooter is lost somewhere in Andy’s room”
It may just be for the gag, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Well, that’s just one more story that supports the idea that Andy lost it. I’d say there’s a good chance it’s true.
Andy can’t lose something that never existed.
Agreed, the holster’s just to make him look like more of a cowboy. And probably after Pixar scrapped the original “Woody as a ventriloquist vs. Tempus from Morph” or whatever concept they had going, when rewriting Woody as a nice character they likely ditched him having a gun as well.
That’s unrelated to the time periods, the line is a reference to the fact that only 200,000 (I think) Buzz Lightyears were produced after the first Toy Story came out.
Do you have any facts to back this up? Here we have multiple official sources which state that it was lost. Just because something’s not seen, doesn’t mean it never existed. Just look at Mr. Davis.
Multiple sources that state it was lost? What sources? Woody didn’t have it in the movie or in Woody’s Roundup. There is a comic called Gunless Law. That is a source which states there never was a gun.