10 Inside Out Fun Facts

During my recent visit to Pixar (check out my post about the Pixar campus here), I also had the opportunity to go to the stunning Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, to meet and chat about Inside Out with some of its filmmakers and members of the cast. I already love the movie, but listening to stories from those who created and worked on it made me love it more. I think they made me appreciate the work they put into their films. They are very creative and talented artists.

By the way, before I forget to mention it, Inside Out is available in Blu-ray Combo pack on November 3rd, and we can't wait!

Now at the Fairmont, as I mentioned, we sat down with Pete Docter (director), Jonas Rivera (producer), Richard Kind (voice of Bing Bong) and Phyllis Smith (voice of Sadness), who entered the room taking pictures of us to share on their social media.

They shared with us anecdotes and fun facts from the movie, things I didn't know before, that now I'm going to share with you.

Other Movies Inside

Pete Docter was also the director of “Monsters, Inc.” and “Up” and was the third animator at Pixar who collaborated on the story development and characters for “Toy Story.” Jonas worked on “Toy Story,” ‘Up,” “A Bug's Life,” and “Cars,” which is why it doesn't surprise me that some details from those movies made it into Inside Out. For example:

The background memories on shelves both inside and outside of Headquarters are shots from the “Married Life” scene in “Up.”
One of Riley's classmates is wearing a camo pattern made up of “Toy Story” characters.
The globe in Riley's classroom has been used in all the “Toy Story” films.
Some of the background city cars of San Francisco have bumper stickers from “Cars.”

Geography of the Mind

Director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera are huge Disneyland fans, and so it was easy for them to talk about relative scale in terms of the park when pitching their ideas for Inside Out to John Lasseter. Jonas remembers the day they pitched the idea: “It was fun thinking about the geography of the mind… we're big fans of Disneyland and I remember even when we pitched to John Lasseter for the first time… above the monitor there's a 1959 framed map of Disneyland that I have in our war room. And I couldn't help but think it's kind of like that, like where there's different regions and there's a train…”

In the film, Family Island is approximately the size of Disneyland.
Long Term Memory is slightly larger than Taiwan, covering over 14,000 square miles. It holds more than 17 billion shelves and has room for 1.2 trillion memories. Even if Riley formed a new memory every second, it would take her more than 38,000 years before starting to run out of space.

Loving Characters

Richard Kind, who is the voice of Bing Bong and a very accomplished actor in his own right, shared with us an emotional moment he had with his family when they visited Pixar before the movie was released. He says the scene where Bing Bong exclaims, “I had a good feeling about this,” and then lets Joy jump on the wagon was the moment he knew the movie would be a hit. He said, ” …. my oldest daughter, Sky, …and when it was finished, she just … collapsed in her mother’s arms, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing…” He knew if it had that impact on her, it would resonate with others, too, even though she,” …had not seen the whole movie, so, you know, (she) only had a bit of context.”

Bing Bong touches me personally, too. I must confess, I cried and cried during that scene, too. The transition from childhood to adolescence is very emotional for me right now since my son is going through it at the moment.

Disney/Pixar took great pains to hide the existence of Bing Bong until the movie was released. Richard, who couldn't go to Cannes with the rest of the cast in order to keep the character under wraps, agrees it was the right thing to do, although he did say with a smile, “…once again Pixar proves its brilliance. They thought ahead, and they were absolutely right. Nevertheless I’d like them to send me to France right now.”

Bing Bong – part elephant, part cat, part dolphin- is made out of cotton candy. Director Pete Docter is coincidentaly (or not) a fan of the tasty treat and even has a cotton candy machine at home.

Phyllis Smith, a longtime cast member of the NBC's hit series “The Office” and voice of Sadness, shared a bit about her experience: “I really enjoyed the whole process because when I first started I was so insecure, which I think helped with my character… they didn't want sadness to just be a sad sack that was annoyingly crying all the time. And so they actually fed into my real insecurities. It worked.”

Phyllis (Sadness) and Amy (Joy) recorded together for just three sessions.
At one point the emotions had names: Sadness was called Misty, Anger was Ira and Disgust was Nadia.
There were other characters, who were cut from the final movie including Miss Scribbles, who is a drawing that Riley sketched a lot when she was three, friends of Bing Bong, and a Sun.

There you have it, 10 Inside Out fun facts for you to enjoy. I really enjoyed talking and laughing with these talented artists and I can't wait to watch the movie again so I can look out for all those details. How about you?

Enjoy!

Thanks to the Walt Disney Studios for the invitation, lodging, and transportation to Pixar. All comments, opinions and my love for Disney movies are my own. This is not a sponsored post.

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Silvia Martinez

Silvia started bilingual website Mama Latina Tips in 2009 to connect and share her stories, recipes and culture with readers. Silvia loves dancing, cooking, watching movies, reading, throwing Mexican parties and spending time with family and friends. Silvia is the winner of The Great American Recipe.

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