{"id":370577,"date":"2026-06-20T09:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T16:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=370577"},"modified":"2026-06-20T09:20:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T16:20:05","slug":"toy-storys-to-infinity-and-beyond-helped-save-a-father-and-son-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/toy-storys-to-infinity-and-beyond-helped-save-a-father-and-son-at-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Toy Story\u2019s \u201cTo Infinity and Beyond\u201d helped save a father and son at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s Toy Story<\/a><\/em> catchphrase, \u201cTo infinity and beyond!\u201d<\/em> helped keep Christopher calm until rescuers reached them.<\/p>\n

\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n \"Disney+\"\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n Disney+<\/span>\r\n Download<\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n <\/path><\/path><\/text><\/svg>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n <\/span>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

If you had to name the single most iconic line in the Toy Story<\/em> series, it probably wouldn\u2019t be \u201cYou\u2019re my favorite deputy,\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve Got a Friend in Me,\u201d<\/em> or \u201cSomebody\u2019s poisoned the water hole!\u201d<\/em> It\u2019s Buzz Lightyear\u2019s \u201cTo infinity and beyond!\u201d<\/em> by a mile.<\/p>\n\n

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\u2019t go beyond infinity. Still, 31 years after the first film, I think we can all admit the phrase somehow did exactly that.<\/p>\n\n

To Infinity, and Back Alive<\/h2>\n\n

Here\u2019s the part almost nobody knows: that same line, the one Beyonc\u00e9 and Justin Bieber later worked into their music, also helped a father and son stay alive in the ocean in 2008.<\/p>\n\n

That year, Walter, 46, and Christopher, who was 12, ended up stranded off the coast near their home in Daytona Beach, Florida. In Walter\u2019s later retelling, Christopher was swimming when a current caught him, and Walter went in after him.<\/p>\n\n

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\u2019t going to make it. And somehow, in the middle of all that, Buzz Lightyear entered the story.<\/p>\n\n

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\u2019d call out \u201cTo infinity,\u201d<\/em> and Christopher would answer \u201cAnd beyond!\u201d<\/em> Over and over.<\/p>\n\n

By the time rescuers found them at 8 a.m., 13 kilometers offshore, both of them were still alive, according to Walter\u2019s later account. He explained it this way: \u201cHe thought he was on an adventure. To him, it was just a day in the ocean, and it wasn\u2019t until the jellyfish started stinging that he got a little scared.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n

They weren\u2019t side by side, either, and they weren\u2019t clinging to debris. Walter later said they were swimming several meters apart, and Toy Story<\/em> became the way they kept tabs on each other, almost like a real-life Marco Polo game in a swimming pool.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cBuzz Lightyear kept us going. I\u2019d yell, \u2018To infinity, and beyond!\u2019 and then I\u2019d hear him answer, until his voice got fainter and fainter and eventually I couldn\u2019t hear anything anymore.\u201d<\/em> Walter said that by the time rescuers finally reached them, they were 1.5 kilometers<\/strong> apart.<\/p>\n\n

That connection also didn\u2019t come out of nowhere. Walter said Christopher barely spoke except through lines from Disney movies, which was how he often communicated with his father.<\/p>\n\n

In the end, they both made it back, and maybe Pixar deserves a little credit for that one. I\u2019m not sure the studio will ever land another line as lasting as \u201cTo infinity and beyond!\u201d<\/em> There\u2019ve just been too many movies now, and too many sequels have worn down the impact a bit, however good Hoppers<\/em> or Toy Story 5<\/em> turns out to be.<\/p>\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n

Because really, is anyone quoting lines from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse<\/em> in the middle of the ocean to keep from drowning?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s Toy Story catchphrase, \u201cTo infinity and beyond!\u201d helped keep Christopher calm until rescuers reached them. If you had to name the single most iconic line in … Continue reading “Toy Story\u2019s \u201cTo Infinity and Beyond\u201d helped save a father and son at sea”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9263,"featured_media":370576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-370577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":370578,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370577\/revisions\/370578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370577"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=370577"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=370577"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=370577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}