History WesternAnimation / InsideOut

** Defied early on when Riley's mom suggest walking her to school on her first day but Disgust is against the idea for obvious reasons.

* BigHonkingTrafficJam: When the Andersens arrive at San Francisco, they get quickly inducted by the city's massive traffic jam. They move very slowly and all of the cars surrounding them are very horn-happy. Anger [[ConversationalTroping comments]] that the drivers are just his type of people.

** Sadness has one of her own in [[ShortCutsMakeLongDelays abstract thought]], which ends up saving her, Joy, and Bing Bong; she realises that [[MediumAwareness falling on your face in a nonfigurative state (and possibly the initial 2D stage) forms a simple line]]. She wastes no time in telling her companions to do the same.

* FisherKingdom: When Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong are trapped in the abstract thought chamber, their shapes shift in stages to various abstract forms. First they turn into Picasso-like amalgamations (which fall apart during the second stage), then turn two dimensional, and finally lose all definition, becoming walking shapes. (The directors' commentary notes that the soundtrack devolves accordingly, from Atmos to 5.1 to 2.0 to mono.) They shift back when they escape.

** In the classroom where Riley has a tearful breakdown, the emotions feel humiliation about having botched a first impression. Although Riley gets unwanted stares, the teacher is empathetic to her and the students look at her with concern rather than judgment. [[spoiler:This would later indicate that the effects of Sadness really aren't all that negative.]] The teacher's line explains all:

** At the website for Transway Bus Lines as [[spoiler:Riley is planning to run away]], a blink-and-you miss at the arrival city shows her old hometown in Minnesota as Minneapolis.

* GreenIsGross: The emotion Disgust is green, as are memory orbs created under her influence.

* InnerMonologue: Played with. Near the beginning and at the end of the film, we get to hear the emotions talking back and forth about what Riley's doing in real-time. Being her emotions, they're clearly mirroring her own thoughts.

* TheLightfooted: Joy, in contrast with Sadness' shuffle. She often moves by skipping and bouncing around. A scene of note is the one where she imitates Riley's ice-skating.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: The film takes everyday emotional interaction and makes it into a complex system run by a group of emotion people living inside your head.

** Late in the film, Anger decides they need to make new core memories, [[spoiler:so he gives Riley the idea to run away to Minnesota. This ends up derailing the train of thought which Joy and Sadness were using to get back to the control center, and the idea becomes so all-encompassing that it can only be removed by Sadness]].
** Prior to this scene, Joy and Sadness elect to wake Jangles The Clown to scare Riley into waking up. [[spoiler:While this is successful in stopping the Dream Productions' show and does wake Riley, it also wakes Disgust and Anger, and this was the tipping point that convinced Anger to give the run away idea a try in the first place, since he had been convinced to sleep on it and now they can't get a good night's sleep.]]

** When Anger, Fear and Disgust's ideas drive Riley to depression resulting in her running away, the control console in her brain becomes unresponsive, preventing the emotions from removing the running away idea. Then a dark sheen creeps across the console, blotting out the brightly-coloured buttons and leaving the emotions totally helpless as Riley's Greyhound bus heads for the freeway. Only the return of Joy and Sadness, and Sadness's finally being allowed near the console, restores life and colour to the buttons and gets Riley off the bus.

* NotWearingPantsDream: One is shown from Riley's POV. Extra funny since the regisseur initially claims the story to be original.

* PercussiveShutdown: The emotions Anger, Disgust and Fear have realised that giving Riley the idea to run away was a mistake, and are trying desperately to correct the mistake by removing the idea bulb. But it proves to be unmovable. So they try smashing it. [[SubvertedTrope But is also proves unbreakable]].

** Disgust also pulls this when she sees the broccoli covered pizza.

** ''Ride/CraniumCommand'' (1989-2007) was an theatrical show at Epcot in [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Walt Disney World]] showcasing a young cadet working with various body parts to pilot a 12-year old boy through a typical day at school. Believe it or not, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q94JFf0K5kM among the animators of the attraction was director Pete Docter]].

* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: Riley's emotions are a mix of male and female, while the emotions of her parents appear to have uniform gender. This is demonstrated by the mom's emotions all sharing her glasses and hairstyle, while the dad's emotions all have mustaches and wear suits. This is especially weird in the case of Dad's Joy and Disgust, as Joy has [[ViewerGenderConfusion noticeable breasts]] along with the moustache and Disgust wears a long skirt.

** Here's a song based one. [[spoiler:When Riley starts running away]], Sadness says,[[spoiler:"Joy, if we hurry, we can still stop her."]] The song that plays during the scene is titled [[spoiler:"We Can Still Stop Her".]]

* TheHomewardJourney: A twofold example. The majority of the film tackles Joy and Sadness' attempts to return to headquarters. Towards the climax of the film, [[spoiler:Riley also tries to run away from home to go back to Minnesota.]]

** When upon the Train of Thought: Bing Bong points out various areas of the mind. He points out Déjà Vu three times.

** Joy is able to [[spoiler:escape the Memory Dump on Bing Bong's wagon]] on the third try [[spoiler:after Bing Bong [[HeroicSacrifice jumps from the wagon to lighten the load]]]].

* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Riley's parents show up to her hockey game in full face paint, which naturally embarrasses her to no end. Disgust even notes that while Riley may appreciate it, she can't let Riley show it. Her parents' emotions, meanwhile, think it's a great idea (and all wear the same face paint).

** There's also the dream sequence where Joy and Sadness, in a two-person dog costume, accidentally tear it in half. Since there's a reality filter on the dream, this results in Riley seeing a dog trying to chase its severed lower half.

* CatapultNightmare: The effort to create a dream that awakens Riley results in this.

* ChekhovsSkill: Joy compels Sadness to read the manuals, which makes her an expert and later helps them to get through the maze that is long-term memory.

* FaintInShock: Fear faints when Jangles shows up while he's on late-night duties.

** [[spoiler:Bing Bong, Riley's imaginary friend, allows himself to be erased in the memory dump when his wagon is incapable of carrying both himself and Joy back to the surface.]]

[[folder:Tropes A to E]]

* FiveFiveFive: On the "For Sale" sign at the beginning.

* AnAesop: Several, actually.
** It is important to be sad sometimes. It helps you connect to others, it helps others know to cheer you up, and most importantly, going to a sad place lets you sort out your negative emotions and power through them. While it takes happiness to have hope and goodwill, in order to have empathy and understand life, one must know what it means to be sad.
** "Just because you feel bad emotions doesn't mean you can't make a difference." Even more, that there's no such thing as 'bad' emotions. Even the emotions associated with negativity -- Fear, Disgust, Anger and especially Sadness -- exist for a reason in order to help the person become who they are, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.
** Don't bottle up your emotions.
** When someone is upset, trying to make them smile won't always be the best approach--sometimes, it helps to just listen.
** A big one for parents; if your child's emotional state changes suddenly (especially during a very stressful time, such as the move for Riley), let them know that it's OK to talk to you about how they're feeling, listen when they do express emotions and reassure them that it's normal to feel that way. Nobody is a mind reader and it's impossible to tell what somebody is really feeling unless they tell you.
** A big part of growing up and adapting to change is allowing one's emotions to become nuanced and complex, not simplistic and monopolizing.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: The montage of the Andersen family driving to San Francisco shows them crossing the Golden Gate Bridge (US-101). Coming from Minnesota, they likely would have crossed the Bay Bridge (I-80) instead. However, the Golden Gate Bridge is much more famous to non-local viewers.

* BiggerOnTheInside: The film crew even remarked that they had done both [[WesternAnimation/FindingNemo ocean]] and [[WesternAnimation/WallE outer space]] before, but the human brain proved to be the biggest of all.

* CheerfulChild: Up until her family's move, Riley was a rather happy-go-lucky girl, especially with Joy being her center-most emotion.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: Riley and her emotions go through a period of self-discovery and experiencing the hardships of growing up, but they all come out better for it.

* HumanLadder: Joy uses numerous clones of the imaginary boyfriend to launch herself to one of the islands.

* KidsHateVegetables: Riley hates broccoli, as established in the scene that introduces Disgust, who thinks she's saving Riley from being poisoned by them. Later, a trip to a pizzeria is ruined when the pizza has broccoli as a topping.
--> '''Anger:''' Congratulations, San Francisco! YOU'VE RUINED PIZZA! First the Hawaiians, and now you!

* MisfitMobilizationMoment: At first, while there's ''some'' semblance of agreement between Riley's emotions, each one largely works under their own interests with a limited console, resulting in memories exhibiting one pure emotion. [[spoiler:Once Joy brings Sadness to take control upon returning home from running away, Sadness takes Joy's hand so they can guide her through the moment together, resulting in Riley's first blended-emotion core memory. The console is upgraded soon afterwards, fully allowing all five emotions to feed their input into Riley's life.]]

* UnintentionallyKarmic: Sadness trying to touch the core memories and accidentally corrupting the happy memories of Riley's results in Joy and Sadness getting lost.

[[caption-width-right:350:"Every day is full of emotions."[[note]]L-R: Fear, Anger, Joy, Sadness, and Disgust.[[/note]]]]

->''"Do you ever look at someone and wonder, 'what is going on inside their head?'"''

* FisherKingdom: When Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong are trapped in the abstract thought chamber, their shapes shift in stages to various abstract forms. First they turn into Picasso-like amalgamations (which fall apart during the second stage), then turn two dimensional, and finally lose all definition, becoming walking shapes. ([[WordOfGod The directors' commentary]] notes that the soundtrack devolves accordingly, from Atmos to 5.1 to 2.0 to mono.) They shift back when they escape.

** When Riley has her nightmare about the new house, Joy says "I know I'm not supposed to do this but..." and switches out the nightmare for a happy memory of the past, so that they can have a happy end to a bad day. Unfortunately, while Joy has Riley's best interests at heart, there's a good reason the emotions don't normally get to control Riley's dreams. Rather than distracting Riley from the unpleasantness of the new house, Joy's interference forced her to dwell on how much happier she was before the move -- and by extension how ''un''happy she is about her new life in San Francisco.
** The presence of Riley's parents' emotions hint [[spoiler:what will eventually happen to her own emotions. Specifically, they're more balanced, less one-note, and have a larger console that allows them all to contribute.]]
** More specifically, Sadness is in charge in [[spoiler:Riley's mother's head, where she is the first to pick up on Riley's emotional issues at dinner. As the movie makes clear later, one of Sadness's most important roles is ''empathy''.]]

** When Bing Bong's rocket is tossed into the memory dump, Joy can't console him, but Sadness talking with him about the good times he had with Riley allows him to compose himself and move forward. [[spoiler:Ultimately, Sadness getting Riley to admit she misses home lets her accept their new home.]]

** Sadness' importance to Riley's mental and emotional health is telegraphed right from the first scene. She's shown making Riley sad, and thus cry -- which alerts her parents that she needs ''food''. If babies didn't cry, you wouldn't know when to feed them, or that something else like a dirty diaper needs attention.
** Sadness' importance is also alerted during the montage of Riley crying over various mishaps -- most notably the parts where she dropped her ice cream and ripped her teddy bear apart. If she hadn't cried at those times, this wouldn't have alerted her parents that she needed more ice cream and her teddy bear had to be mended or replaced.
** The secondary function of sadness -- [[spoiler:empathy]] -- is also shown in various ways: Riley's Sadness's ability to console Bing Bong over the loss of his rocket is what allows him to compose himself and move on from it where Joy's attempt to distract him through short-term optimism failed. This secondary role is also shown through how Mrs. Andersen's mind operates: she is the parent who is the most in tune and aware of her daughter's emotional state, being the first to pick up that something is not quite right with Riley. Guess who leads the emotions in Mrs. Andersen's head?

** After Goofball Island collapses, Sadness says that Riley can lose the other islands as well. Not only does this happen, but they collapse in the exact order Sadness gives.
** When the emotions are listing all the bad things about their new home, what does Sadness say? "Our friends are back home." [[spoiler:Empathy and longing for people are what she's responsible for.]]

* BigShutUp: During the dinner after her first day in the new school, Riley and her father argue in an increasingly heated manner. She's overwhelmed by her own negative emotions and her inability to cope with the moving, and he's misread the situation, thinking that his daughter needs scolding for throwing such a temper tantrum. It culminates with an extremely frustrated Riley slamming her hands on the table and shouting at him to "just SHUT UP!". He grounds her for it.

* WritingAroundTrademarks: During the ending of the movie, Sadness refers to one of the newborn islands as a [[Literature/{{Twilight}} Tragic Vampire Romance Island]].

* '''Sadness''' (Creator/PhyllisSmith): An emotion who prefers to lie on the floor and cry. She would like to be more positive, but it's just so hard for her. The other emotions, herself included, don't know what her role is. Despite that, she always tries to be helpful.

* '''Anger''' (Creator/LewisBlack): A hot-headed, short feeling with a fiery spirit and a tendency to explode (literally). He is very passionate about making things fair for Riley. ''Really passionate...''

* '''Joy''' (Creator/AmyPoehler): The AnthropomorphicPersonification of, well... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin joy]]. An optimistic, light-hearted feeling whose goal in life has always been to make Riley happy. Because of that, she can't understand Sadness' purpose and tries to limit her role in the HD by making her do other things, such as reading boring manuals.

* '''Sadness''' (Creator/PhyllisSmith): The AnthropomorphicPersonification of sadness ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin obviously]]), Sadness prefers to lie on the floor and cry. She would like to be more positive, but it's just so hard for her. The other emotions, herself included, don't know what her role is. Despite that, she always tries to be helpful.

* '''Fear''' (Creator/BillHader): The AnthropomorphicPersonification of fear, a nervous and anxious emotion, whose main job is to keep Riley safe. He spends the majority of his time thinking of potential dangers.

* '''Disgust''' (Creator/MindyKaling): The AnthropomorphicPersonification of disgust, a snotty and [[DeadpanSnarker sarcastic]] emotion with a weak stomach. She prevents Riley from being poisoned, socially and physically.

* '''Anger''' (Creator/LewisBlack): The AnthropomorphicPersonification of anger, a hot-headed, short feeling with a fiery spirit and a tendency to explode (literally). He is very passionate about making things fair for Riley. ''Really passionate...''

->''"Do you ever look at someone and wondr what is going on inside their head?"''

->''"Do you ever look at someone and wonder, 'What is going on inside their head?"''

The problems begin when Riley's family moves from their Minnesota home to San Francisco, and her emotions have to help her deal with her new environment and friends. Joy, who has primarily been in charge of the emotions throughout Riley's life, is determined to keep Riley happy throughout the experience, but Sadness, who has frequently been marginalized by Joy, is trying to find a sense of purpose like the other emotions have. When Sadness accidentally turns several of Riley's previously happy memories of Minnesota into sad ones, the conflict between Joy and Sadness leads to the two accidentally becoming lost within Riley's long term memories, and, with the help of Bing Bong (Creator/RichardKind), Riley's old imaginary friend,they must make their way back to Headquarters while Fear, Disgust, and Anger try to keep Riley functioning efficiently in their absence.

The problems begin when Riley's family moves from their Minnesota home to San Francisco, and her emotions have to help her deal with her new environment and friends. Joy, who has primarily been in charge of the emotions throughout Riley's life, is determined to keep Riley happy throughout the experience, but Sadness, who has frequently been marginalized by Joy, is trying to find a sense of purpose like the other emotions have. When Sadness accidentally turns several of Riley's previously happy memories of Minnesota into sad ones, the conflict between Joy and Sadness leads to the two accidentally becoming lost within Riley's long term memories, and they must make their way back to Headquarters while Fear, Disgust, and Anger try to keep Riley functioning efficiently in their absence.

** A few minor characters appear to be modified models from other Pixar films. The dead mouse in Riley's dream is [[WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}} Remy]] with brown fur, the bear in the same dream is [[WesternAnimation/{{Brave}} Bear Elinore]], and one of the cool girls appears to be an aged-down [[WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}} Colette]]. Some of the cars are based on [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin cars from]] ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'', such as Mater.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants A clever visual metaphor used to personify the abstract concept of thought.]][[note]]L-R: Fear, Anger, Joy, Sadness, and Disgust.[[/note]]]]

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: The montage of the Andersen family driving to San Francisco shows them crossing the Golden Gate Bridge (US-101). Coming from Minnesota, they likely would have actually crossed the Bay Bridge (I-80) instead. However, the Golden Gate Bridge is much more famous to non-local viewers.

-->[[spoiler:'''Fear:''' Oh, I wish Joy was here!\\
''([[GlassSmackAndSlide Joy and Sadness crash into the window with a big THONK]])'']]

-->'''Fear:''' ''[freaking out]'' Right out of the ''gate?''
**
-->'''Joy:''' We love our girl. I mean, she's got great friends and a great house. Things couldn't be better. After all, Riley's eleven now. What could happen?

''([[GlassSmackAndSlide Joy and Sadness crash into the window with a big THONK)'']]

''[[[GlassSmackAndSlide Joy and Sadness crash into the window with a big *THONK*]]]'']]

* AnimalDisguise: Joy and Sadness, who are fairly humanoid, disguise as a dog to excite Riley awake. [[spoiler: It fails when the costume rips apart, depicted on the dream monitor as showing the "meat" inside of the dog.]]

** And again by Anger when the gum commercial comes on once he gives Riley the idea to [[spoiler: run away]].

* BlackBugRoom: The film portrays the Subconscious as this, being a prison set on the cliff around the Memory Dump, home to all the things that Riley is afraid of. Of course, since she's 11, it's mostly stuff like broccoli, basement stairs, and a clown who was at one of her birthday parties. [[spoiler: Joy and Sadness have to go down there to retrieve Bing-Bong after he's caught being troublesome by mind workers.]]

* BurningWithAnger: When Anger gets too riled up, his head catches fire. [[spoiler: Which is then weaponized by Disgust by the end of the movie.]]

** Deconstructed with the emotions, which can't fundamentally change or develop; they can only change the way they behave towards each other. Joy starts off as a bossy, self-obsessed emotion that believes she knows what's best for Riley, unable to see why Sadness ought ''ever'' to be allowed to work the console or touch a single memory. It's only through her misadventures with Sadness, [[spoiler: and witnessing that her own insistence that Riley always be cheerful is actually making Riley desperately unhappy]], that she comes to understand that other emotions have important jobs that she can't do, and that she needs to step aside from time to time.

** Sadness messing with the emotions associated with Riley's memories in the beginning of the film. [[spoiler: Turns out she was unconsciously ''doing her job'' and seemed to know it, but just didn't have the confidence to stand up to Joy and the others.]]

** Riley's dream boyfriend in Imagination Land [[spoiler: is later cloned to build a HumanLadder for Joy, thus turning him into a ChekhovsArmy.]]

* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: The memory orbs tend to show you which emotion created which memories. [[spoiler: At the end, when Riley has become more emotionally complex, we see that many of the memory orbs are multi-coloured, indicating that Riley can look back on things and feel both Joy and Sadness, Anger and Disgust, etc.]]

* CripplingOverspecialization: The emotions have limited ability to express themselves in any emotions other than themselves, and when in control of Riley cannot make her express any emotion other than their dominant one. [[spoiler: When Joy and Sadness are gone this is an issue. Disgust tries to mimic joy, but ends up being sarcastic. Fear attempts it too, but expresses doubt and denial. Anger comes off as petulant... then just has a tantrum, which gets Riley sent to her room.]]

** Riley's procession of [[ItMakesSenseInContext imaginary boyfriends]] are all shown saying "I would die for Riley." [[spoiler: Which is exactly what Bing Bong does [[HeroicSacrifice so Joy can escape the memory dump.]] ]]

** The secondary function of sadness -- [[spoiler: empathy]] -- is also shown in various ways: Riley's Sadness's ability to console Bing Bong over the loss of his rocket is what allows him to compose himself and move on from it where Joy's attempt to distract him through short-term optimism failed. This secondary role is also shown through how Mrs. Andersen's mind operates: she is the parent who is the most in tune and aware of her daughter's emotional state, being the first to pick up that something is not quite right with Riley. Guess who leads the emotions in Mrs. Andersen's head?

** When Riley is [[spoiler: given the idea to run away]], she doesn't say a word until [[spoiler: the idea is removed by Sadness, making her come to her senses]].

** An in-universe example for Riley's parents: [[spoiler: "I know you don't want me to but...I miss home. I miss Minnesota. You need me to be happy, but...I want my old friends, and my hockey team...I want to go home. Please don't be mad." (This is one of the first times they've seen her cry this much in her life, as Riley is usually such a CheerfulChild.)]]

** Growing up brings new problems that younger children simply don't have to deal with, the biggest one being the wreck that is adolescence. This is signaled by the apparition of a "puberty" alarm on the emotions' console when Riley turns 12. In this case, it's left {{implied}} in an "AndTheAdventureContinues" way.

** {{Downplayed}} in the {{Novelization}} ''Driven by Emotions'', in which each of Riley's five emotions recounts the plot of the film as they experienced it in turn. Because the emotions have vastly different personalities and focus on certain issues above others by nature, they write rather casually, speeding through certain events and lingering on others (occasionally explaining why they do what they do), and are light on elaborate descriptions. (This keeps the book from becoming tediously repetitious.)
** {{Averted}} in the film, as Joy's language is pretty conversational and not that different from her speech patterns when talking with other characters.

** {{Downplayed}} with Sadness, as she's not hated by the other emotions, they just don't know what role she plays in Riley's emotions. Since she tends to make her happy moments turn sad, the only emotion that actively keeps her away is Joy, who is unfortunately also TheLeader.
** After Riley cries out of homesickness in front of her new class, both Fear and Disgust fear that this is what is going to happen to Riley. {{Subverted}}, as Riley's classmates are concerned for her and don't mock her. In fact, they accept her pretty quickly once she allows herself the chance to get to know them.

* {{Bathos}}: {{Zigzagged}}. Riley's depression is a legitimate concern, so it's played seriously and as a result of the characters (especially people's emotions) being totally out of their element. However, much of the humor comes from them being so over-the-top that it's funny. To whit, news of no dessert is treated as front page headline news inside Riley's mind. And Riley's father's decision to put his foot down with regards to her attitude is treated as if they (his emotions) were launching nuclear missiles, complete with [[TwoKeyedLock simultaneously turning two keys]] to initiate the response. {{Justified}} in the children's case as their emotions are still immature.

* BigHonkingTrafficJam: When the Andersens arrive at San Francisco, they get quickly inducted by the city's massive traffic jam. They move very slowly and all of the cars surrounding them are very horn-happy. Anger [[ConversedTrope comments]] that the drivers are just his type of people.

--->'''Fear:''' NOOOOOOOOOOOO! ''[begging Joy]'' [[LanguageFluencyDenial Pretend we can't speak English!]]

* KudzuPlot: {{Lampshaded}} in-universe by Fear, who is watching a dream in which far too many different things are happening to follow.

--->'''Fear:''' Guys, [[spoiler:we can't make Riley feel ''anything'']].\\
'''Anger:''' ''[[[OhCrap beat]]]'' What have we done?

* ShortCutsMakeLongDelays: Needing to reach the train of thought, Bing Bong takes Joy and Sadness to a shortcut passing through the abstract thought chamber, ignoring the "DANGER" sign and warnings by Sadness of what lies within. As the chamber seems to extend infinitely, Joy goes with Bing Bong's plan, only for the mind workers to trigger the chamber. Though they make it through, the delay is sufficient for the train to leave before they can reach it. {{Downplayed}} in that the chamber is shown to be so long they probably wouldn't have made it around in any reasonable length of time regardless.

** One commercial has the scene of the teacher's emotions, which happen only during the end credits ({{Downplayed}} because it's not crucial to the plot, but still counts).

* ComplianceGame: When Riley is seen as a baby, she [[KidsHateVegetables doesn't want to eat broccoli]], so her parents get her to eat it by pretending the spoon is an airplane.

* HormoneAddledTeenager: Not present in the movie — Riley is a pre-teen — but implicitly {{invoked|Trope}} a couple of times late on.

** After the happy ending, with Riley's emotions working well together, a new expanded control console is installed in their room. One of them asks what the new big red warning light is for. It's marked "PUBERTY". Joy says she's sure there'll be no problem. Every adult in the audience winces.

* IFellForHours: In Dream Productions, one of Riley's nightmares is titled, "I'm Falling for a Long Time".

* LatinLover: During the dinner scene, Jill's emotions attempt to signal Riley's dad to help figure out what's wrong with their daughter, with disastrous results. In frustration, her emotions play a memory orb of a Brazilian Jill had dated.

* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Inverted. Joy has been with Riley since birth, and supplies Riley's optimism. When Joy gets lost in the brain dimension Riley becomes detached and somber.

** Moving can be a stressful event for both adults and children but for different reasons. Riley is an 11-year-old girl and, at such an age, a child can understand why she has to move but still struggle a lot to cope with a new life in an unfamiliar environment. For example, she's anxious about not being accepted in her new school and worries that her best friend is replacing her. She, represented by her emotions' behavior, also lacks the emotional maturity to understand it's okay to be distressed about it. On the other hand, her parents' problems concern issues with the moving company and noticing (and not knowing how to deal) with their daughter being unhappy about the changes. They try their best to be supportive and cheer her up and are scared to death when Riley runs away.

** {{Downplayed}} in the {{Novelizaton}} ''Driven by Emotions'', in which each of Riley's five emotions recounts the plot of the film as they experienced it in turn. Because the emotions have vastly different personalities and focus on certain issues above others by nature, they write rather casually, speeding through certain events and lingering on others (occasionally explaining why they do what they do), and are light on elaborate descriptions. (This keeps the book from becoming tediously repetitious.)

** {{Downplayed}} with Sadness, as She's not hated by the other emotions, they just don't know what role she plays in Riley's emotions. Since she tends to make her happy moments turn sad, the only emotion that actively keeps her away is Joy, who is unfortunately also TheLeader.
** After Riley cries out of homesickness in front of her new class, both Fear and Disgust fear this is what is going to happen to Riley. {{Subverted}}, as Riley's classmates are concerned for her and don't mock her. In fact, they accept her pretty quickly once she allows herself the chance to get to know them.

* AnswerCut: When the emotions want to escape the dungeon of Jangles The Clown, Joy reminds Sadness that they still have to wake up Riley and Sadness asks "But how?" Then both turn around to Jangles.
* AnthropomorphicPersonification: The movie's premise is that everyone, including animals, has embodiments of five core emotions on their heads: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear. They control a console that determines their host's emotional response and influences said host's behavior. While their main personality trait is the emotion they represent (Joy is very optimistic and hyperactive), they still can feel other things (Joy is capable of feeling discouraged and sad).

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In the classroom, Fear, with a large stack of papers, has calculated "The worst case scenario is quicksand, spontaneous combustion, and getting called on by the teacher." The last is what happens indeed.

* AskAStupidQuestion: When Anger plants the idea for Riley to run away back to Minnesota, Fear questions how they'll travel. When answering, Anger is first [[SarcasmMode sarcastic]], saying they'll go in an elephant.
-->'''Anger:''' Well, why don't we go down to the elephant lot, and rent an elephant?\\

* AxCrazy: Jangles the Clown (or at least Riley's memory of him), is a giant, green-eyed clown that sports a huge mallet and chases Joy and Sadness throughout Riley's subconscious. He kidnaps Bing Bong because the latter can produce sweets and traps him in a balloon cage. Furthermore, Jangles thinks anyone he meets is the "birthday girl" he's supposed to entertain -- the way he utters [[{{Catchphrase}} "who's the birthday girl?"]] is very disturbing.

* {{Bathos}}: {{Zigzagged}}. Riley's depression is a legitimate concern, so it's played seriously and as a result of the characters (especially people's emotions) being totally out of their element. However, much of the humor comes from them being so over-the-top that it's funny. To whit, news of no dessert is treated as front page headline news inside Riley's mind. And Riley's father's decision to put his foot down with regards to her attitude is treated as if they (his emotions) were launching nuclear missiles, complete with simultaneously turning two keys to initiate the response. {{Justified}} in the children's case as their emotions are immature still.

* BigHonkingTrafficJam: When the Andersens arrive at San Franciso, they get quickly inducted by the city's massive traffic jam. They move very slowly and all of the cars surrounding them are very horn-happy. Anger [[ConversedTrope comments]] that the drivers are just his type of people.

* BigShutUp: During the dinner after her first day in the new school, Riley and her father argue in an increasingly heated manner. She's overwhelmed by her own negative emotions and her inability to cope with the moving and he's misread the situation, thinking that his daughter needs scolding for throwing such a temper tantrum. It culminates with an extremely frustrated Riley slamming her hands on the table and shouting at him to "just SHUT UP!". He grounds her for it.

** Bing Bong sneezes at a cloud person, dispersing him. Later in the film, his wife is reporting this to the police, only for Sadness and Joy to charge through, the latter crashing right through the wife and dispersing her, as well. And then said police play this off with a ''Film/{{Chinatown}}'' reference.

* BloodlessCarnage: When Joy and Sadness hijack Riley's dream by dressing up as a dog, Sadness in the back half of the costume gets disconnected from Joy in the front half. Seen through the "reality filter" this causes the dog to look like it ripped itself in half. Fortunately there's no blood and the dog's innards look like generic ham, but Riley (and Fear, who happened to be on monitor duty) are pretty terrified.

* {{Bookends}}: At the start of the film, when Riley's 11, Joy tempts fate by wondering [[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong what could happen]]. [[spoiler:She asks the same question at the end of the film, shortly after Riley has turned 12 and a new control console has been installed in Headquarters... with a big red "PUBERTY" alarm light added.]]

** Then there's [[spoiler:Bing Bong; he starts as a childlike, goofy elephant/cat/cotton candy/dolphin, he then sees his home destroyed, is imprisoned in Riley's subconscious by a gargantuan clown, is plunged into Riley's memory dump, then sacrifices himself to save Riley's mental well-being. Talk about a rough day!]]
** And finally, of course, [[spoiler:Riley who -- without either Joy nor Sadness -- can't deal with the move, losing her friends and interests and resorts to skipping school, stealing money from her mother and running away because Anger seized her emotions which froze the console until Joy gets Sadness online.]]

** When Riley first encounters the cool girls, Disgust insists that they have to make friends with them because one of them is wearing eye shadow. In the closing credits, that girl's head is seen, which (and the memory rack) is dominated by her Fear insisting that everyone will realize she's a fraud. The cool girl's Anger insists that this is impossible because "we're wearing eye shadow." Also, her Joy seems to stand in the back, implying her status is much like Riley's Sadness used to be.

* CastOfPersonifications: The main characters are the personifications of the emotions of a little girl named Riley. Other human characters (and even a cat and a dog) are shown to have equivalent emotion characters operating inside their heads. Other, minor characters in the movie are personifications of other things in your mind, such as fears, dreams, memory, and more.

** Deconstructed with the emotions, which can't fundamentally change or develop; they can only change the way they behave towards each other. Joy starts off as a bossy, self-obsessed emotion that believes she knows what's best for Riley, unable to see why Sadness ought ''ever'' to be allowed to work the console or touch a single memory. It's only through her misadventures with Sadness [[spoiler: and witnessing that her own insistence that Riley always be cheerful is actually making Riley desperately unhappy]] that she come to understand that other emotions have important jobs that she can't do, and that she needs to step aside from time to time.
* CharlieBrownBaldness: Fear appears to have a single, long strand of hair on his head. As his design is patterned after a neuron, it's his axon.

* '''Sadness''' (Creator/PhyllisSmith): The AnthropomorphicPersonification of sadness ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin obviously]]), Sadness prefers to lie on the floor and cry. She would want to be more positive, but it's just so hard for her. The other emotions, herself included, don't know what her role is. Despite that, she always tries to be helpful.

-->'''Fear:''' NOOOOOOOOOOOO! ''[begging Joy]'' [[LanguageFluencyDenial Pretend we can't speak English!]]

* BigShutUp: At the dinner scene, Riley does this to her parents.
-->'''Riley:''' ''[as she slams both hands on the table]'' Just SHUT UP!

* BlackComedyPetDeath: Sadness (a being responsible for creating sadness in the girl Riley) likes "the funny movie where the dog dies".