Though Pixar said an effective (and heartstring-tugging) farewell to the Toy Story characters in the third film, the company hasn’t quite been able to let go. Fortunately, the return trips to the well with the Toy Story ‘toons have been successful so far. Now the Emeryville gang is taking a leaf out of DreamWorks and studio overlord Disney’s books and putting together a TV special for Halloween 2013. So are you ready for Toy Story Of Terror?

The plot finds Buzz, Woody and co on a fun road trip. But when they detour to a roadside motel, things take a turn for the scary. One of the toys goes missing, and the others must work out what’s really going on before they all suffer the same fate...

While DreamWorks has capitalised on the scary short form with Shrek and the Monsters Vs. Aliens characters, this will be the first time the Toy Story heroes are back outside of the ‘toons and other shorts. Horror – albeit filtered through the TS team – sounds like an odd genre for them, but then they did up the intensity with Toy Story 3’s dramatic climax. We’ll just keep our fingers crossed they can maintain the quality.

Incidentally, if the logo above looks a little bodged together, it’s a temporary piece that will be finessed by the time the actual special arrives.