Joy

Movie appearances/Stories:

• Inside Riley as an emotion.
• Inside Out: Joy appears in the film as one of the five emotions in Riley Andersen's mind, the group which she is the leader of. When Riley is first born, Joy is the first ever emotion to appear. She then walks towards the control panel, which at the time consists of only one button. The instant she presses it, infant Riley begins smiling. However, thirty-three seconds later, she notices (by looking at the screen) Riley is now crying. Joy soon realizes that Sadness (the second emotion to come to Riley's mind) has arrived and has pressed the button. When Joy looks at her, Sadness introduces herself, and Joy awkwardly moves her aside, trying to fix the situation. She, Sadness, and the other emotions, Anger, Disgust, and Fear, control Riley through her thoughts and mind. Joy seems to want to keep Riley happy and joyful, and always has an important task for every emotion ― except Sadness, whom Joy has no idea as to what she does exactly. Riley enjoys a happy, joyous life in Minnesota, until her father gets a brand new job in San Francisco, which causes Riley to become depressed and sentimental. To make things worse, everything has gone horribly wrong; the house is terrible (and gross), the food is weird, and the moving van will not arrive for another couple of days. Joy sees that Riley is becoming sad, depressed, and sentimental, and wants her to still be happy and jolly. So, she does all she can to keep her as cheerful and joyous as she was back in Minnesota. It is here when Joy discovers, that Sadness is able to turn Riley's happy core memories into sad ones. This prompts Joy to confine Sadness away from the console and the core memories. On Riley's first day of school, her first impression is horrible, because, during Riley's introduction, Sadness causes Riley to cry and made a sad core memory. Since Joy doesn't want Riley to be sad, she tries getting rid of the sadness-infused memory. Sadness tries to put the new memory in, but Joy fights her for it, and this causes the two and all the core memories to accidentally end up getting vacuumed out of Headquarters and into Riley's Long Term Memory, falling into a memory pit. Joy decides to have Sadness navigate her back to Headquarters since she read all the mind manuals earlier. They then run into Riley's old imaginary friend, Bing Bong, and Joy is more than happy to meet him, and the feeling is mutual. Rather than having Sadness guide her back, she decides to have Bing Bong be the navigator instead. Bing Bong tells them that the Train of Thought is the quickest way to Headquarters and that there is a station in Imagination Land. He takes them to a 'shortcut', which turns out to be Abstract Thought, which is actually a dangerous place to go into. Sadness tries to warn them, but the others do not listen and go in anyway. Inside, they start losing their depth and complexity, but Sadness gets them out. Outside, they find Imagination Land, which is full of imaginative things Riley has dreamed of. They find out that Mind Workers are tearing it down because Riley has lost her imagination. The Forgetters then toss down Bing Bong's old wagon, which is the only thing he has left of his fun with Riley, into the Memory Dump. Bing Bong falls into deep despair, so Joy tries to cheer him up by doing many childish things, but they do not help at all. Sadness decides to empathize with him and lets him show his true feelings, which makes him feel better. Joy is shocked that Sadness made him feel better without cheering him up. The trio then get on the train, but Riley falls asleep, causing the train to stop moving, so they go to Dream Productions to wake Riley up so they can get home faster. Joy and Bing Bong decide to meddle with Riley's dream, by making her dream happy, in hopes that it will wake her up (which clearly would not). Joy makes herself and Sadness dress up like a dog and play in Riley's dream, just as Bing Bong starts playing in it as well and their costume goes in half and the dog is chasing the other half. Of course, this does not work at all. Bing Bong gets arrested and taken to the Subconscious. Both Joy and Sadness go into the Subconscious to rescue Bing Bong and meet Riley's worst fear, Jangles the Clown, who follows them back to Dream Productions, and he successfully wakes up Riley. The three then jump back onto the train. On the way, the train gets destroyed, and Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong find out that Riley is running away. Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong find a recall tube back to Headquarters and go inside, but Joy finds out that Sadness, being near the core memories, starts turning them sad, and pushes her out because 'Riley needs to be happy', which really hurts Sadness' feelings. As Joy ascends the tube, she looks down at her friends remorsefully as she leaves them behind. Unfortunately, the tube breaks, and Joy falls into the Memory Dump. Bing Bong attempts to save Joy but also falls down into the chasm. Joy reminisces and cries about the happy moments that she remembers, stating, 'I just wanted Riley to be happy.' Not feeling joyful at all and realizing her selfishness, Joy starts shedding tears, and one drips onto one of the happy memories. When she wipes the tear from the memory, she unknowingly rewinds it, and it turns sad. Upon further inspection, Joy finds out that this is the day Sadness spoke of earlier and realized it was made happy because Sadness helped Riley call for help, support, and comfort (possibly why this was Sadness' favorite). After realizing the presence of Bing Bong's rocket, Joy becomes happy once again, and the duo starts attempting to escape the pit. They try two times, and then Bing Bong realizes that the wagon is too heavy with the two of them in it. Deciding to sacrifice himself for Joy and Riley, he cheers Joy on while stating his last words while he fades into oblivion - 'Take her to the moon for me, okay?' Joy sorrowfully watched Bing Bong fade away as she tears up. She made a promise that she'll try to fulfill Bing Bong's wish. Joy finally arrives back up in Long Term Memory and attempts to find Sadness. When she finds Sadness, she chases her through Imagination Land. She then sees her flying on a cloud and continues chasing after her. She finds that Sadness is close to HQ, and flings herself to Sadness, and they finally arrive back home. The others tell Joy to fix Riley's problem, but Joy gives the job to Sadness instead, much to the other emotions' dismay until she explains they need her to help Riley. Sadness successfully removes the idea of running away from Riley's mind, and Riley starts heading back home. Joy hands the core memories to Sadness, and they turn into sad ones. Sadness helps Riley remember all of these memories one by one, and takes control of the panel, and Riley finally reveals her true feelings to her parents - she's not used to San Francisco, misses the good old days in Minnesota, and that she was pretending to be happy, and was afraid of making them mad because she has always been their 'happy girl'. Riley's parents admit they feel the same way, and a brand new core memory is made; it is a mix of happiness and sadness. The melancholy memory renews Family Island, with a San Francisco setting expansion featuring the Golden Gate Bridge. Sometime later, Joy and the other emotions create new, combined core memories, recreating some of the old islands as well as some new ones. As Riley arrives at the hockey rink and later becomes embarrassed by her parents putting on face paint, Joy admits that Mom and Dad love them very much, though Disgust says they can't show it. As the game started, Joy worked alongside her fellow emotions as they play the game.
• Riley's First Date?: Riley's new friend Jordan arrives to pick her up for their ice skating excursion with their friends, but her parents fear that they may be going on a date. Riley's mom attempts to subtly probe Riley with pop words and ebonics, to Riley's emotions' confusion. Fear then realized that Jordan was left alone with their dad. Rushing downstairs, Riley finds her dad and Jordan playing air guitar to AC/DC's 'Back in Black'. Embarrassed, she drags Jordan out the door.
• Inside Out 2: Joy appears in the sequel where she and the other emotions meet a new set of emotions, including Anxiety when Riley becomes a teenager. As still the leader, she reintroduces herself (and the other emotions from the original film as their faces are shown for the first time in the sequel). After Riley is sent to the penalty box, she does a quick recap on what happened after the short. Joy continued to work with the other emotions to protect Riley and enrich her life. She worked to respect the role of other emotions in Riley's life. She and the other emotions had also learned that Riley's memories were not only creating Islands, but they were also creating beliefs, which formed a Belief System, which grew Riley's Sense of Self, centered on Riley's belief that she is a good person. Joy was excited when Riley was invited to Coach Roberts' hockey skills camp, and she said it was a chance for Riley, Grace, and Bree to impress Coach Roberts and all three of them to join the team. When Riley had the idea of doing something wrong at camp, Joy put a stop to it and then sent the penalty memory to the Back of the Mind using the Riley Protection System she had created to protect Riley from negative things. The other emotions helped find negative emotions to send away and the remaining memories were sent to Long-Term Memory. Joy then took the championship memory and added it to the Belief System. The next morning, Joy and the other emotions woke up to the puberty alarm flashing on the console. Joy removed the alarm from the Console and threw it into the Back of the Mind, but the Mind Workers began working on updating the Console to make room for the others, which had not yet arrived. When Riley woke up, they quickly realized that she was more reactive and that her emotions were stronger, so Joy decides that they will not touch the console until they had resolved the problem. Everyone was surprised when Riley found out on the way to hockey camp that Bree and Grace went to a different high school. When they arrived at camp, Sadness touched the console, allowing Riley to cry. Joy celebrated it, saying that Riley needed it. When Riley met Val Ortiz, a senior who had heard of Riley, Joy wanted Riley to make friends with her. During this interaction, Riley pretended to be from Michigan under the influence of Anxiety, one of Riley's new emotions. Anxiety introduced itself and also introduced the other new emotions: Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment. Joy happily welcomed everyone, but she and Anxiety clashed when Anxiety made Riley choose Val and her friends over Grace and Bree. When Riley enters her locker room, Val introduces her to the rest of the Firehawks and offers her to sit with them. Anxiety sees this as her chance to get Riley to be with the popular girls, but Joy is steady about spending time with Grace and Bree, so Riley politely declines Val's invitation. Shortly after, Grace and Bree enter the locker room and hug Riley, and the three take silly selfies, motivated by Joy. But Coach Roberts confiscates all the players' phones and sends them laps around the rink. When Riley overhears Val's friends talking about how immature she acted, Anxiety inserts an idea for Riley to apologize to Val, this in approval of Joy, who gave her space to operate the Console. All the Emotions applauded some of Anxiety's work, and Joy congratulates her for doing her part, but when she decides to take up the mantle again, Anxiety said that she was not finished, that her plan had many parts and Joy had to wait on the sidelines while Anxiety made them. When Riley's Sense of Self intervened with Anxiety's plan, Anxiety took it off and launched it to the Back of the Mind. This caused a disagreement between Joy and Anxiety, and when she and the core emotions objected, Anxiety had Embarrassment take them and put them in a jar, and send them to the Vault, where they met Bloofy, Lance Slashblade, and Riley's Deep Dark Secret. Reluctantly, Riley's secrets helped the Emotions come out and they set out to follow the Stream of Consciousness to the Back of Riley's Mind to regain her Sense of Self. Due to the changes in Riley's mind, they encountered a dead end in Long Term Memory and had to find another path to the Steam. When they arrived, they realized that without someone to call them to Headquarters, they would be stranded in the Back of the Mind, so Joy decided to send Sadness to crawl back to Headquarters with a walkie talkie to be ready to recall them. Once she was gone, they set off down the stream. Their path was interrupted when, thanks to Ennui, a Sar-Chasm opened, separating the Stream of Consciousness. This forced them to go the long way around. As they cut through Imagination Land, Joy was startled at all the changes. The Fort Pillowton was still there, but bigger and oranger. So they investigated and found several Mind Workers inside drawing possible negative scenarios for Riley in the game so she could prepare for them. Determined to stop Anxiety, Joy ound an empty station and drew a happy outcome, then encouraged the Mind Workers to do the same. Anxiety soon realized Joy was in there, but it was too late and the mind workers rebelled, starting a pillow fight. Then, a group of Mind Police officers arrive to capture the Emotions, so they headed to the Parade of Future Careers and took a balloon of Riley as a Supreme Court judge, escaping once again from the police officers and heading to the Back of the Mind. Mind. They stuck with it until they got caught in a brainstorm and had to let go of the balloon. Using a big idea to get out of the storm, the Emotions used Fear's parachute to reach the ground safely. Then they continued their journey to the Back of the Mind. When they arrived, they found more memories than Joy remembered sending there along with Riley's old Sense of Self. Once they had it, Joy called Sadness to bring them back, but due to Anxiety's interference, the Riley Protection System broke, preventing Sadness from calling them back. Completely downcast, Joy looked over the memories around her and wondered if it was just a part of getting older that started to feel less joy. Anger finally had the idea to call for Pouchy, Bloofy's partner, and see what items he had that they could use. Anger dug around inside him and found dynamite, which gave Joy the idea to use it to create an avalanche of memories that would send them back to Headquarters through the Belief System. Disgust wondered how Joy would stop the bad memories from forming beliefs and she admitted she didn't know. Once in the Belief System, the memories immediately began to form beliefs, some negative and some positive. Then they returned to the Headquarters, but they could not get rid of the new Sense of Self to put the old one back in its place. Joy looked over at the Console and saw Anxiety frantically hovering over it, trying to solve the problems she had caused Riley. Joy approached Anxiety and told her that she needed to let her go, that she couldn't decide who Riley was. Anxiety released the Console, Joy pulled it out of the storm, and Emotions were able to remove the new Sense of Self. Joy restored the old Sense of Self, but the storm did not stop. Anxiety apologized to Joy, saying that she only wanted to protect Riley and that she was right about not being able to choose what Riley is. At that, Joy quickly realized that she was preventing a new Sense of Self from emerging; she then removes the old Sense of Self, allowing a new, more complex Sense of Self to emerge. Contemplating the new Sense of Self, Joy hugs him and Riley begins to calm down. Then Sadness joins in, along with the other main emotions, then the new ones, and finally Anxiety joins the group hug, causing the anxiety attack to stop and Riley finally calms down. Riley then apologizes to Bree and Grace and, inside her mind, voluntarily calls Joy to the Console; Sadness tells her that Riley wants and needs her right now. Joy walked over to the console and helped Riley rejoin her hockey game. In the end, emotions learned to coexist peacefully. When Riley was waiting for Coach Roberts' message about whether or not she made the team, Anxiety started to worry about Riley not making the team, so Joy took her to sit in her special chair and encouraged her to focus on something Riley could control. Anxiety reminded them that Riley had to study for an Spanish test, so all the emotions celebrated that she remembered because no one else did. When Riley finally received the message, she smiled. In the post-credits scene, Joy returned to the Vault to bring out the Deep Dark Secret and ask him what Riley's darkest secret was. He reveals to Joy the secret about "burn a hole in the rug", while she was waiting for another secret related to the pool. Hearing that, the Deep Dark Secret snuck back into her cell and closed the door.