As any fan will tell you, Pixar really loves to include Easter Eggs inside all of their feature films. Whether they’re nods to the studio’s past or future work, or even inside jokes among the filmmakers, the little gags included by the company do their part to help make the movies endlessly entertaining, as it’s fun to search through with an Eagle Eye and try to spot them all. Now Inside Out is getting ready to hit theaters, and I can assure you that it’s just as reference-filled as its predecessors.
How do I know this? Because I recently had the fantastic opportunity to sit down with director Pete Docter, and he clued me in on some of the standout Easter Eggs that fans will be able to spot in the movie. Read on to learn some of the small secrets in the movie, and after you’ve had the chance to see Inside Out for yourself, hit the comments section and tell us about the others you spotted!
A113
If you’ve noticed the "code" A113 in Pixar movies before, there’s a very good reason. At the California Institute of the Arts, A113 was a classroom used by graphic design students – such as John Lassetter and Brad Bird. As a nod to this, every Pixar has the inside joke featured somewhere, and Inside Out is no different. While it’s been used by the studio on license plates and in model numbers in the new past, the new film makes the most appropriate use of it yet, as A113 is actually the classroom we see Riley go into on her first day of school in San Francisco.
The Pizza Planet Truck
First introduced in Toy Story, the Pizza Planet Truck is another regular Easter Egg utilized by Pixar. It’s been said that it’s in every single film the studio has released with the exception of Brad Bird’s The Incredibles, but even that has been called into question. Potentially making up for The Incredibles’ lacking, Pete Docter told me that the Inside Out Pizza Planet Truck should actually be very visible to fans, as it is featured in three different shots. Admittedly I missed it during my screening, but now you know to look out for it!
Arlo From The Good Dinosaur
Because animated movies take so long to put together, Pixar is always working on multiple projects at once, and planning deep into the future. While this sounds very stressful, one added bonus is that the movies can feature little references to the movie that will come out after it. This has been happening since Pete Docter’s Monsters Inc. - which featured a small clownfish as a Easter Egg pointing to Finding Nemo - and it’s a tradition that Docter has kept going with Inside Out. Because the new movie will be followed by The Good Dinosaur later this year, you can actually get a glimpse of the lead character, Arlo, in the film.
Colette From Ratatouille
While the first three Easter Eggs that Pete Docter revealed to me are all regularly featured in Pixar titles as a kind of tradition, this last one is a bit of a bonus that the filmmaker and his animators threw into the mix - seemingly just to have a little fun and give die-hard fans something to spot. You’ll have to be quick to spot this one, but if you enjoyed the adventure in Ratatouille, then you’ll want to pay attention. Docter didn’t mention exactly what scene it was featured in, but he did say that there is a moment in Inside Out where you can see some magazine, and featured on the cover is Janeane Garofalo’s character, Colette, from Brad Bird’s 2007 film.
