Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Forky Asks A Question’ On Disney+, Where The ‘Toy Story 4’ Breakout Character Asks Life’s Big Questions

You remember Forky, right? In Toy Story 4, Bonnie made him from a discarded spork, mismatched googly eyes and some fuzzy pipe cleaners. He wasn’t like the other toys, but they accepted him yesterday. But, boy does he have a lot of questions. That’s basically what Forky Asks A Question, a series of Pixar-animated shorts that’s now available to stream on Disney+, is all about. Read on for more…

FORKY ASKS A QUESTION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Bonnie’s bedroom. We see a picture of her as a pirate saying, “I’m rich!”. Forky (Tony Hale) turns around and says, “Forky here. What’s everything about? I dunno; I was made from trash like two days ago, so I’ve got a lot of questions, believe you me.”

The Gist: In the two shorts Disney released for review, Forky asks about what the whole idea behind the U.S. monetary system is. Remember, his perspective doesn’t really go beyond Bonnie’s room. Hamm (John Ratzenberger) tries to help him by showing him what a quarter looks like. “Wow. That looks like a lady,” he says when he sees George Washington, which makes Hamm have to explain that he was wearing a wig.

In the other short, he asks “what is a friend?”, and he tries to illustrate friendship via his loyalty to a smiley-face mug. Hamm tries to tell him that it’s an inanimate object, but Forky still gets upset when he accidentally knocks over and breaks the mug. “What? NO!” Forky says as he tries to talk to the mug before he breaks it.

Our Take: How did you feel about Forky when you saw him in TS4? That will go a long way toward how you feel about him in 3-minute shorts on Disney+. Listen, we stan for Tony Hale; his characters are all semi-confident weirdos, even the animated ones he voices — if you’ve seen Archibald’s Next Big Thing, you know what we’re talking about. So Forky is right in Hale’s wheelhouse; he’s odd, he’s a little naive, he’s not 100 percent sure he’s not garbage. Seeing him stumble through these questions, with the exasperated Hamm to help him, is a funny way to pass 3 minutes.

As with most Pixar productions, the animation is top-notch, and writer/director Bob Peterson’s scripts are funny for kids and adults alike. This may be the kind of thing that your kid binges one after the other while you fold laundry or do dishes; let’s hope, in that case, that Pixar makes another set of ten episodes after this set debuts.

What Age Group Is This For?: All ages. If your kid likes the Toy Story series, he or she will like this.

Parting Shot: Like an MCU movie, there’s a bit after the credits and before the Pixar lamp vanity card. In the friend short, Forky has glued the mug back together, but when it collapses into pieces again, Forky loses his stuff.

Sleeper Star: Ratzenberger has been an animation voice over workhorse since his days on Cheers, so it’s fun that he’s stepped up to play Hamm, who is pretty much the opposite of Forky, especially when it comes to intelligence and worldliness.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing we can see.

Our Call: STREAM IT. What do you have to lose? Forky Asks A Question is less than 3-minutes long, and it’s pretty funny.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, FastCompany.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Forky Asks A Question On Disney+