Destroying the Cinderella Castle in "Disney..." ehh, "Imagination Land"
Shout Outs in Inside Out.
- The control station is one to Disney's own Reason and Emotion and Cranium Command, the latter of which Pete Docter worked on animation for early in his career.
- According to the director, characters and environments in Riley's head incorporate elements of animation masters of the past, including Milt Kahl, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery.
- When Riley has her first "nightmare" after moving to San Francisco, the Ominous Pipe Organ music that can be heard in the background is from the pre-show of The Haunted Mansion.
- The rat looks very similar to Remy from Ratatouille.
- The control center inside Riley's mom is a parody of talk show sets, mainly The View.
- When Joy and Sadness are passing through Imagination Land, a board game called "Find Me" with a cartoon Nemo on it can be seen.
- During the dream production sequence, they use a reality distortion filter.
- "Forget it, Jake. It's Cloudtown."
- Joy's look was inspired by Tinker Bell.
- Fairies have to be one thing or the other because, being so small, they unfortunately have room for only one feeling at a time. Replace "faries" with "children" and you get a pretty good representation of Riley's predicament.
- The Dreams Productions movie poster of "I'm Falling for a Very Long Time into a Pit" is based off of the classic film poster for Vertigo.
- At the end of the film, Sadness mentions a "tragic vampire romance" island.
- In the Brazilian version of the movie, when Joy asks Sadness what the latter likes, she says she likes that movie where the father of the little lion dies.
- In the original, it's "that funny movie where the dog dies", which could either refer to the classic Old Yeller or Marley & Me.
- Also in the Brazilian version, the Shout-Out of "Forget it Jake, it's Cloudtown" is translated as "Forget it. It... faded away". The inflection and phrasing, combined with the dramatic glass pull, makes one think of Horatio Caine.
- Bing Bong noticing his hand fading away is a reference to Back to the Future.
- When Fear is watching the dream, there's a shot with him in the corner that looks like an episode of MST3K. He even makes a few riffs.
- There are also a few nods to Magic Adventures of Mumfie. First, the way the memory spheres in Long Term Memory are arranged look similar to the way the bottles in the Secretary of Night's bottle room, Bing Bong has a theme song that sounds similar to Mumfie's, and like Mumfie, he sacrifices himself to save a friend, the only exception being that Mumfie was put in the holding cell and then rescued as a result, while Bing Bong faded away.
- The bakery that only serves broccoli pizza is named Yeast of Eden.
- The scene with the two guards discussing whose hat belongs to whom while guarding the vault containing those things of which Riley is most scared is a nod to the hat-swapping scene between Vladimir and Estragon from Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot.
- In a Freeze-Frame Bonus during the credits, a locksmith is advertising "Sure Locks for Homes".
- When Bing Bong says "Hey, look! There's the train!" after the scene where he is comforted by Sadness, you can see a painting of Figment in a pile of rubble.
- The castle in Imagination Land (pictured above) looks very similar to the Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom. Imagination Land itself looks like a little Disneyland.
- While the custodians clean up orbs containing Riley's piano lessons, the two songs that get salvaged are "Chopsticks" and "Heart and Soul".
