There's a lot of confusion surrounding the two sequels: why did Goes to Mars - which is the third movie in the trilogy - come out before To the Rescue - which is the second? Well, that only happened in North America, for some reason. In all other territories, To the Rescue was released in 1997, then Goes to Mars was released worldwide in 1998, then To the Rescue was finally released in North America in 1999.
Duke is gonna maim me for painting Disney in a negative light again, but this is another example of how sometimes Disney isn't the best company to do business with: for the original BLT movie, Disney was on board with the project initially, but they saw it as a potential flop and backed out, so the project carried on as an indie movie - a Sundance level indie movie; once it turned out to be successful, Disney decided to acquire the distribution rights to the movie so they could put it out on home video . . . along with slapping their name above the title to make it seem like a Disney movie, even though technically it isn't.
As far as the three movies go, I agree that the first is really a great movie; it apparently isn't entirely true to the original book (in which Elmo St. Peters isn't a Designated Villain and actually becomes the appliances' new master), but it's a really enjoyable movie . . . and believe it or not, nothing about this movie freaked me out or disturbed as a kid like it did with others. Seriously: the B movie song? The clown nightmare? Didn't faze me a bit. It just goes to show how a great animated movie for kids can effectively utilize darker elements, and avoid making the whole story saccharine. It definitely has a cult follow that it rightfully deserves, because it had a lot of great people working on it, from pre-Pixar animators and teamsters, to an ecclectic voice cast, to a great and solid storyline.
In terms of the sequels, I'm the opposite, I think I prefer Goes to Mars over To the Rescue: I actualy remember vividly as a kid when Goes to Mars first came out, and I was excited, because that was back in the day when movies weren't sequeled at the drop of a hat like they are today, and I felt like it was a fun and interesting story that not only brought back the old familiar characters, but introduced equally fun new characters - and it's BLT IN SPACE, hard to go wrong there! To the Rescue was okay, it got a message across, but it seemed to focus more on Rob the Master, college life, and the underlying message about cruelty to animals moreso than it did the appliances - it also comes off as rather dated today with the way they make the Information Super Highway seem new and exciting (but then again, the original BLT is dated today as well, but it's aged better).
One thing I've always been curious about is for the sequels, they managed to bring back all the original voice actors except Jon Lovitz,, whom I'm assuming probably had too many commitments at that time to reprise Radio, considering he had a decent career during the 90s and 2000s.