Hasta La Gadget!

Yesterday was the first day of Toy Fair 2010, and Disney kicked things off with an celebration at New York’s Gotham Hall that was all about the upcoming sequel, “Toy Story 3.” In attendence: none other than John Lasseter, chief creative officer of animated features for Disney/Pixar and creator of the Toy Story franchise. The night before, Lasseter had been inducted into the the Toy Industry Hall of Fame, and with good reason. Since the first “Toy Story” premiered in 1986 1995, the franchise has generated over $8 billion retail-merchandise dollars.

After a tribute video, Lasseter spoke about his love for toys, playing, and the primary role of characters above special effects in the “Toy Story”  movies. The new film begins as “Andy” is leaving for college, and the toys are donated to a day care center. “We had to think about how the toys would react, what causes them the most anxiety about this” he said. More than anything else, he said, they want to be played with.

This will be Pixar’s first movie in digital 3D. As director Lee Unkrich said, it’ll be like “watching the movie through a Viewmaster.”

Lasseter was surprised on stage with a LEGO version of himself, which seemed to completely captivate him; he posed with it happily for quite a while. Also announced was that Toy Story 3: The Video Game comes out in June for all major gaming platforms.

Check out more pictures of the event–and some of the new toys–after the jump.