Emotions at Play with Pixar's Inside Out exhibit review

by Bruce Guthrie

A new interactive exhibit -- "Emotions at Play with Pixar's Inside Out" -- opened last weekend at the National Children's Museum in downtown DC.

In case you're not familiar with the museum, it's had a somewhat nomadic life.  The museum first opened in 1979 on H Street NW.  In 2004-2009, it was a "museum without walls."  In 2009-2015, it operated at National Harbor, Maryland.  It opened at its current location in the Ronald Reagan Building on February 24, 2020 just before COVID hit, after which it was forced to close for 18 months.  It's been reopened to the public since September 2, 2021.  

I had never been to the museum in any of its locations before.  My only interaction had been way back in 1988 when animation god Chuck Jones was going to be there for a gala event.  I was 31 then and had no idea what a gala was.  I called their office to ask about tickets and the person said "This is a black tie event."  I said, "That's okay.  I can buy a black tie."  She responded with, "I don't think you know what a black tie event is..."  She was right.  I wrote to Chuck saying I had wanted to see him but couldn't afford a black tie.  Unsolicited, he sent me a sketch -- "For Bruce -- Bugs Bunny in black tie -- which you may borrow for future events."

When the opportunity to see this new exhibit came up, I was happy to check it out.  

The "Emotions at Play with Pixar's Inside Out" exhibit was developed by Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh in collaboration with Pixar Animation Studios.   It features a diverse number of parts oriented around the Pixar film, "Inside Out."

In case you somehow missed the 2015 film, it focuses on the "little voices inside your head" as the central character, Riley, tries to adjust to the cacophony of emotions that result from her family being relocated.  In Riley's case, there are five emotions -- Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust -- trying to navigate Riley's long term memories and bring her back to functioning.  

The film was the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2015 and won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.  A sequel, "Inside Out 2," is scheduled to be released in 2024.

The exhibit features a number of independent components.  Emotions, and the characters and its color palette -- yellow=joy, blue=sadness, red=anger, purple=fear, green=disgust -- tie all of them together.

From my experience, it seemed like the crowd favorite was "Emotions in Motion."  You turn a dial to select your current emotion, put a large white ball into a hole whose color now reflects your chosen emotion, and turn the crank which advances the ball.  The ball retains that color, separate from the other 100-ish balls in the system, until it makes it all the way through the serpentine circuit.

As a computer nerd, I loved that exhibit plus several other techie exhibits.
 * "Memory Sphere":  You write down a memory on a colored sheet of paper (five colors of course).  When you put that sheet into a slot, the sensors recognize the color and change a glowing ball into that color.  I never wrote anything down but was impressed at how the paper-reader-ball interacted.
 * "Range of Emotions": You sit in a chair and look at a mirror.  As you change your facial expression, a hidden camera reads your face and guesses what emotion(s) it's showing.  Five differently-colored tubes below the mirror indicate what emotional mix it's detecting.

I also enjoyed "Imagination Land" which has spinners where you watch various bits spin around in their patterns.  It wasn't at all high-tech, but I found the sights and sounds of it mesmerizing.

As an animation geek, I enjoyed "Designing the Mind World" which had reproductions of some of the 20,000+ drawings and paintings created during the visual development of "Inside Out."

I wasn't personally excited by the other areas but that's just personal taste -- kids and adults were playing at all of them:
 * "Control Panel" -- A sound console where you're asked to create sounds that reflect emotions.  This one was quite popular.
 * "Dream Productions" -- A mini-stage area to create and act out skits with stick characters and stick props
 * "Emotion Mirrors" -- Five mirrors which change as you come near them.
 * "Train of Thought" -- You maneuver your ball (train) down a slat, trying to keep the ball from falling off.
 * "Managing Our Emotions Maze" -- a console maze where people are encouraged to work together to get their ball in the desired emotional basket.
 * "Emotion Blocks" -- A section with emotion-shaped blocks where you try to balance them on a crescent-shaped rocking piece.  

In most cases, working with someone improves the experience so teamwork and parent-child cooperation is a plus.  People can also do them solo if desired.

All signage was in both English and Spanish and in most cases the languages were given equal billing.  Typically, one side of a sign was in English, the other Spanish.  

The exhibit is really well built and battle tested.  It debuted at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (Fall 2021) then moved to the Museum of Science in Boston (Spring 2022), DiscoveryCube in Los Angeles (Summer 2022), and it's here in DC until January 8, 2023. 

The exhibit is included with the regular National Children's Museum entry fee.  Their website is https://nationalchildrensmuseum.org/ More photographs can be seen here.