Richard Kind’s beloved Inside Out character may have missed out on 2024’s sequel, but the veteran Pixar voice actor has his own ideas for a prequel TV series. Having previously lent his vocal talents to A Bug’s Life, Cars, Cars 2, and Toy Story 3, Kind played the forgotten imaginary friend Bing Bong in 2015’s Inside Out. In a touching sequence, Bing Bong valiantly sacrifices himself to allow Amy Poehler’s Joy to escape the Memory Dump and save Riley (Kaitlyn Dias). Having been erased from Riley’s memory, Bing Bong sadly did not return for 2024’s Inside Out 2.
Speaking with ScreenRant about his appearance in Poker Face season 2, Kind spoke about his desire to reprise his Inside Out character in what he envisions as a prequel television series. Suggesting the show could follow Bing Bong and Riley when she is around three or four years of age, the actor expressed interest in exploring the pair’s imaginary adventures. However, Kind admitted that he has never raised the idea with Inside Out director, and Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer, Pete Docter. Check out his comments below:
I would like a prequel to it, when [Riley] was three or four years old, and had an imaginary friend, and we would go all around the world and have adventures, and I thought of that as an animated series. Now, it’s very expensive to do the kind of animation that Pixar does, so maybe that’s why they may not do it, but I always thought that would be fun to find out what their adventures were if he was an imaginary friend, and I thought that would be a good TV series. But I never bring it up to [Pete Docter].
A Bing Bong Prequel Could Return To An Unused Movie Idea
With 2024’s Inside Out 2 grossing nearly $1.7 billion at the worldwide box office, almost doubling the impressive $858 million haul of the original, it would make sense for Pixar to continue building on the property. In addition to potentially already having plans for Inside Out 3, Pixar has already released Dream Productions, a four-episode miniseries spinoff on Disney+. Marking the streamer’s biggest animated series premiere since 2021’s Marvel’s What If season 1, there is clearly a great deal of appetite to see the world of Inside Out continue to expand.
Moreover, a series that follows Riley’s early childhood adventures could potentially even see Docter return to some of his original ideas for Inside Out…
As such, Kind’s concept for a Bing Bong-centric prequel series may not be so farfetched after all, even while taking into account his acknowledgment of how expensive Pixar animations can be to produce. Moreover, a series that follows Riley’s early childhood adventures could potentially even see Docter return to some of his original ideas for Inside Out, which the director has previously admitted would have once included a whole slew of imaginary friends, before being condensed down to Bing Bong alone.
Our Take On A Bing Bong Prequel Series
Another Spinoff Miniseries Would Be A Perfect Precursor To Inside Out 3
While it is unlikely that Pixar may elect to undertake a full animated television series using their unique style of 3D animation, 2024’s Dream Productions has already proven the viability of an animated miniseries set in the world of Inside Out. While Pixar’s plans for the property may currently hinge on the ongoing development of Inside Out 3, Kind’s prequel concept would make another excellent spinoff miniseries and could potentially help serve as a precursor for the franchise’s currently unconfirmed third movie.
Inside Out
9/10
- Release Date
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June 17, 2015
- Runtime
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95 minutes
- Writers
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Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, Ronnie del Carmen
- Producers
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Andrew Stanton, John Lasseter