Inside Out hidden details, easter eggs and production facts

Classic Pixar easter eggs

Inside Out keeps the studio's long-running traditions, though some are hard to find.

• A113, a reference to the CalArts classroom where many Pixar animators studied, appears in Riley's classroom and on the train Joy, Sadness and Bing Bong board
• Docter and co-director Ronnie del Carmen have said the Pizza Planet truck appears several times but have not confirmed every location; the leading theories put it on the streets of San Francisco and among the memories
• The globe Anger bangs his head on inside the teacher's mind matches the globe in Andy's room in the Toy Story films
• Riley's childhood playground copies the Sunnyside Daycare playground from Toy Story 3, except for the slide
• The birds from the short For the Birds sit on a telephone wire during the family's drive to San Francisco

How the emotions were chosen

Psychologists Paul Ekman and Dacher Keltner advised the filmmakers. Early versions considered about 27 emotions, including envy, greed, shame and hope, before the team cut the list for simplicity. Docter dropped surprise and contempt from Ekman's basic list, and the lead character went from Happiness to Optimism before becoming Joy.

Design choices you might miss

Each emotion started as a simple shape: Joy as a star, Sadness as a teardrop, Anger as a brick and Fear as a raw nerve. Joy's glow was inspired by sparklers, pinwheels and Champagne, and her skin is made of moving particles.

Joy has blue hair and a green dress partly so she would not look like Tinker Bell. Sadness was redesigned along the way to resemble the Saturday Night Live character Debbie Downer.

Bing Bong's secrets

Bing Bong, Riley's forgotten imaginary friend, was kept out of the marketing so audiences would meet him fresh. Richard Kind voiced him, drawing on comedians including Oliver Hardy, Jimmy Durante and John Candy. Docter has said the character grew out of a whole group of discarded imaginary friends the team developed.

Pixar did not forget him. In Inside Out 2, a small origami Bing Bong sits on a shelf in Joy's quarters, according to production designer Jason Deamer.

Cast and music details

Amy Poehler's Parks and Recreation co-star Rashida Jones has a small role as Cool Girl, one of Riley's classmates. Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers voices a Mind Worker cop. Michael Giacchino's score grew from an eight-minute suite he wrote after watching the film, which Docter has said moved the team to tears.

Inside Out hidden details to look for on a rewatch

Start with the drive to San Francisco and the birds on the wire, then watch the backgrounds of Riley's classroom and the train for A113. Inside the mind, look closely at the shelves of memory orbs and at the teacher's head, where the Toy Story globe sits. Pay attention to how the emotions are drawn too: Joy glows and leaves a faint trail of particles, while Sadness's design echoes Debbie Downer. Pixar has never confirmed every Pizza Planet truck appearance, so that hunt is still open.

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