In 2008, Walter Marino and his 12-year-old son Christopher survived a night stranded at sea off Daytona Beach, Florida. Walter later said a simple call-and-response built around Buzz Lightyear’s Toy Story catchphrase, “To infinity and beyond!” helped keep Christopher calm until rescuers reached them.
If you had to name the single most iconic line in the Toy Story series, it probably wouldn’t be “You’re my favorite deputy,” “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” or “Somebody’s poisoned the water hole!” It’s Buzz Lightyear’s “To infinity and beyond!” by a mile.
Which makes the whole thing even better, because the line that came to define Buzz started as a joke. Woody says as much in the movie: you can’t go beyond infinity. Still, 31 years after the first film, I think we can all admit the phrase somehow did exactly that.
To Infinity, and Back Alive
Here’s the part almost nobody knows: that same line, the one Beyoncé and Justin Bieber later worked into their music, also helped a father and son stay alive in the ocean in 2008.
That year, Walter, 46, and Christopher, who was 12, ended up stranded off the coast near their home in Daytona Beach, Florida. In Walter’s later retelling, Christopher was swimming when a current caught him, and Walter went in after him.
Then it got bad fast. They spent the entire night in the water, far from shore. Walter later said there was a point when he thought they weren’t going to make it. And somehow, in the middle of all that, Buzz Lightyear entered the story.
Christopher had autism, and Walter needed to keep him from panicking and burning through energy. So he turned the moment into a game, or as much of a game as you can make out there in the dark. He’d call out “To infinity,” and Christopher would answer “And beyond!” Over and over.
By the time rescuers found them at 8 a.m., 13 kilometers offshore, both of them were still alive, according to Walter’s later account. He explained it this way: “He thought he was on an adventure. To him, it was just a day in the ocean, and it wasn’t until the jellyfish started stinging that he got a little scared.”
They weren’t side by side, either, and they weren’t clinging to debris. Walter later said they were swimming several meters apart, and Toy Story became the way they kept tabs on each other, almost like a real-life Marco Polo game in a swimming pool.
“Buzz Lightyear kept us going. I’d yell, ‘To infinity, and beyond!’ and then I’d hear him answer, until his voice got fainter and fainter and eventually I couldn’t hear anything anymore.” Walter said that by the time rescuers finally reached them, they were 1.5 kilometers apart.
That connection also didn’t come out of nowhere. Walter said Christopher barely spoke except through lines from Disney movies, which was how he often communicated with his father.
In the end, they both made it back, and maybe Pixar deserves a little credit for that one. I’m not sure the studio will ever land another line as lasting as “To infinity and beyond!” There’ve just been too many movies now, and too many sequels have worn down the impact a bit, however good Hoppers or Toy Story 5 turns out to be.
Even so, Pixar still looks pretty healthy. The studio had a rough stretch during the pandemic, when Disney started sending its movies straight to streaming, but it keeps finding its footing again. And no matter how hard DreamWorks or Sony push, Pixar has a way of staying at the top.
Because really, is anyone quoting lines from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in the middle of the ocean to keep from drowning?
