'The Beanie Bubble' true story: Ty Warner's toy empire and the women who made it

“The Beanie Bubble” film begins with one cautionary note that sets the stage: “There are parts of the truth you just can’t make up. The rest, we did.”

The Apple TV+ film chronicles a fictionalized version of Beanie Baby creator Ty Warner's rags to riches story after developing the handheld stuffed toy in the '90s — and the three women that helped him become a billionaire. Directed by Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash, the film stars Zach Galifinakis as Ty Warner himself and is filled with headline-worthy stories.

Below we will break down the fact and fiction in “The Beanie Bubble.”

Is 'The Beanie Bubble' based on a true story?

“The Beanie Bubble” is loosely based on the 2015 book “The Great Beanie Baby Bubble” by Zac Bissonnette, who explored how a $5 pellet-filled toy took over America and made Warner a billionaire.

As it mentions at the top of the film, “The Beanie Bubble” is not a documentary and includes fictionalized moments. The film doesn’t center entirely on Warner, instead focuses on the American dream, sexism in business, along with power and capitalism.

“There was this insane tale about one of the most absurd crazes in American history involving tiny beanbag animals that were $5 and became treated like gold,” co-director Gore told Variety. “And that’s already so bizarre and weird — but really, what spoke to us in the book were these three women’s journeys that were so instrumental to the phenomenon. That is what hooked us on wanting to tell the movie and making their journeys.”

Among the changes include the names of key characters in the film, including Elizabeth Banks’ Robbie Jones, Sarah Snook as Sheila and Geraldine Viswanathan as Maya, the women who in the film were instrumental in taking Ty Inc. and the Beanie Babies global, but were never publicly credited.

The directors told the magazine that they took liberties when it came to the women's storylines. Gore said, “In their stories, we found fascinating underdog stories that helped us explore why we value what we value in our culture and what the female relationship to the American dream really is.”

They did not reach out to Warner for the film, instead portraying him as “warm and generous and interesting and Willy Wonka-ish, but also capable of great selfishness and cruelty,” Gore said.

But still, many main elements of the Warner's success story are the real deal.

Ty Warner wasn't close to his family

In the film, when talking about his parents, Ty Warner made it seem that he didn't have a great relationship with his mother and father.

While chatting with Robbie after his dad’s death, he described his mom as “a violent, paranoid schizophrenic, who abandoned us years ago.” When asked where his dad was during that time, he said, “On the road, selling toys.”

He said it was better that way because “otherwise he would be at home, beating the crap out of me.” He did get some sage advice from his father: “You gotta make your own luck” and “you gotta build your own ship.”

In real life, author Bissonnette tells TODAY.com that during his research for his book he did discover that Warner had a strained relationship with his parents. While he never spoke to Warner for the book, he says that through information from his legal case (more of that below) Bissonnette learned “(Warner's) mother had pretty severe mental health issues and his father, they had a strange relationship.”

“It was not an ideal childhood and I think he would agree with that,” he says.

Did Ty Warner and his dad, Harold Warner, really share girlfriends?

During that same conversation when he discusses his family history with Robbie, he says: “The only time my dad was proud of me is when our girlfriend told him how good I was in bed.”

He then adds that they didn't always date the same person at the same time.

Bissonnette says “that was something people talked about” when it came to Warner and his dad.

The author adds that the father-son duo worked together at the toy company Dakin, where his father was a star salesman and got him a job.

“Ty was extraordinarily good at it and was their highest salesman by a lot,” Bissonnette notes.

When was Ty Inc. founded?

The film shows Warner selling his late father’s antiques in 1983 to get a large sum of money to start selling his under-stuffed life-sized cats in an array of colors.

He asks Robbie to help and be his business partner, before they go get a loan to create Ty. Inc. Warner taught Jones about toy making, while she helped him jazz up the cats’ designs.

Ty Inc. was created in his condo, per Bissonnette, and eventually moved to an office space after residents complained about “trucks backing up for deliveries all the time.”

When was the Beanie Baby created?

The first Beanie Baby was created in 1993 but it took a couple years for the toy to take off.

Thanks to the help of his team and marketing genius, exhibited in film by Maya the intern, he was able to go global with selling Beanie Babies on the Internet.

Is Robbie Jones based on a real person?

Robbie Jones is one of Warner's ex-girlfriends who helps him launch Ty Inc. In real life, she is based on Patricia Roche, who did in fact date Warner and was his business partner.

Bissonnette spoke to Roche for the book, and said she was with Warner when he decided to get back into the stuffed animal business after being fired from Dakin.

When creating the stuffed cats, he says, “She remembered stuffing them because they would ship them flat for shipping purposes. And then Ty and Patricia would just sit in his living room and stuff the cats.”

Roche would go on to up running Ty U.K. At the end of the film, it states: "Robbie’s new company made her one of the highest-paid female execs in the U.K. or anywhere."

“I loved how the movie ended,” Banks told Entertainment Weekly. “I didn’t know in real life, this original partner of his became rich doing toy distribution on her own — like, she did learn the business and take everything into her own business. So I did love that it was going to be her ultimate revenge.”

Is Maya a real person?

Maya is a college intern who helps Warner revolutionize his business by marking the Beanie Babies on the Internet and eBay.

In real life, Lina Trivedi was one of the first Ty Inc. employees who handled the Beanie Babies. She started by taking phone calls before eventually contributing ideas for Beanies, the poems for the tags and more.

In an interview with Vice, Trivedi recalled her time with the company. She said while studying at DePaul University, she “learned about the internet through one of my college professors.

“I was kind of running things in my head and I was like, you know, we we have these Beanie Babies, but people don’t necessarily know what Beanie Babies exist,” she said. “So I was like, what if we just had a way that people can go to this website?”

She showed Warner her mock page and “he got it,” she said. “He understood it right away.”

Who is Sheila based on?

Sheila is shown as a divorced mother of two who works as a lighting designer. She would go on to get engaged to Warner, but never marry him. Her daughters are also credited as the ones behind the idea of creating smaller stuffed animals.

Sheila is based on Warner's real-life ex-girlfriend Faith McGowan.

“I would say she was definitely less directly involved in the business than Patricia was because when she came along, (the company) was already there,” Bissonnette says, adding that when he was with McGowan and her daughters they drew Spooky the Ghost on a tablecloth at a restaurant. “And Ty then went and had it made into a Beanie.”

What contributed to the Beanie bubble bursting?

Just like any major trend, the craze for a coveted product goes away. In the film, Maya becomes aware that the Beanie Baby market could collapse and gives Jones and Sheila a heads up.

In real life, Bissonnette says people were aware that the bubble could burst.

"The nature of bubbles is to burst," he says. "This was always unsustainable ... In some way or another this was going to end the way that it did."

By 1998 and 1999, the company announced the retirement of the Beanie Babies because the value in the collectables wasn’t going up. With the Internet, he says, it “created a global, searchable inventory, and so it made people aware that things weren’t as rare as they were.”

What happened to Ty Warner after the Beanie bubble burst?

Warner did — and continues to do — well for himself. He took the money that he made from the Beanie Babies craze, partnerships with McDonald's and more to invest in luxury hotels.

He currently owns the Four Seasons in New York and Las Ventanas al Paraiso resort in Mexico, among others. As of August 2023, Forbes lists his net worth as $5.7 billion.

The businessman stays out of the public eye and continues to run Ty Inc. But had his fair share of legal troubles.

Was Warner convicted of tax evasion?

In 2013, Warner was charged with federal tax evasion and paid a $53 million fine for putting money in a Swiss bank and failing to report the income, per NBC News.

He avoided jail time and was sentenced to two years probation for not disclosing about $24.4 million in income he made and evading almost $5.6 million in federal taxes from that money, per the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois.

What did Ty Warner say about the film?

The day the film premiered, Warner released a statement applauding the filmmakers, but also pointing out they didn't capture “the facts.”

“I applaud the filmmakers for capturing the unprecedented energy and excitement — though not the facts — surrounding the original release of Beanie Babies 30 years ago,” he said in a press release. “The movie is, by its own admission, partly fiction. But, like the filmmakers, I am in the business of dreams, and I admire their creative spirit.”

He added, “To the fans and collectors of Beanie Babies who have been there for the last three decades, thank you for all the love you have shown.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com