Courtesy of the National Comedy Center
Comedy at its core is born with the purpose to take difficult concepts and make them digestible. Inside Out 2 shares that mission. As the National Comedy Center Executive Director Journey Gunderson puts it, “exemplifies the use of comedy and great comedic talent to deliver material addressing topics less often broached – in this case with kids.” It takes the complicated and layered concepts of emotional self-awareness and mental health and uses humor and that trademark Pixar storytelling to make these concepts resonate with children. This makes The National Comedy Center the perfect home for the concept art of Inside Out 2.
Today, Pixar announced that they have donated rare concept art from the breakout animated film Inside Out 2 to The National Comedy Center, located in Lucille Ball’s hometown of Jamestown, NY. The congressionally-designated museum and archive for comedy was dubbed “Best New Museum in the Country” by USA Today, one of the “World’s Greatest Places” by TIME magazine and “the Smithsonian of Comedy” by NBC’s Today Show. The museum not only shares a purpose with the Pixar film, there is also a surprising amount of overlap in personnel.
The comedic legend and voice of Joy in the Inside Out duology, Amy Poehler, is also on the Advisory Board for the National Comedy center. She shares the mantle alongside her fellow castmates Lewis Black, known in the stand-up community as the “King of Rant” so he is appropriately the voice of Anger, and Paula Poundstone, the voice of Forgetter Paula who is the head of the forgetting crew. Poehler loves this overlap in her career saying, “To have this character and this film’s story art placed in the archive of the National Comedy Center – my favorite museum of all time – is quite fitting, because both the film and the museum have resonated with me so deeply.”
Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer, Pete Docter shares the same tie and a similar sentiment about the National Comedy Center as Poehler. Docter states that to have the Inside Out 2 concept art, “on display alongside work from masters of this art form, including Al Hirschfeld, Saul Steinberg, Chuck Jones, Charles Schultz, Bill Watterson and so many legendary cartoonists and illustrators is an honor for our work at Pixar.” Docter was the director for the original Inside Out back in 2015 which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Animated.
While you might think that would be a hard act to follow, Inside Out 2 is riding up to the original’s coattails. The 2024 film has already made headlines as the biggest theatrical release of the year so far. It also had the second-highest opening weekend in Pixar history and is the second-biggest animated opening ever.
Where to find The National Comedy Center and watch “Inside Out 2”
The National Comedy Center is located in Jamestown, NY. If you’d like to plan your visit check out their website! Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 is now playing in theaters exclusively worldwide.
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