Joy

"It was amazing. Just Riley and me forever."

- Joy before Sadness starts manifesting in baby Riley's mind

Joy is the protagonist of the 2015 Disney/Pixar feature film Inside Out. She is one of the five emotions inside the mind of Riley Andersen. She always strives to remain joyful, hence her name, and is the leader of Riley's emotions.

Official Description

 * Joy's goal has always been to make sure Riley stays joyful. She is lighthearted, optimistic, and determined to find the fun in every situation. Joy sees challenges in Riley's life as opportunities and the less happy moments as hiccups on the way back to something great. As long as Riley is happy, so is Joy.

Personality
Joy is, as her name states, the very essence of happiness and perkiness, and as such, she loves to look on the bright side of things. She is the oldest of all of the emotions, as she was the first one to appear. She values Riley's happiness to the point where she does not want any of the other emotions to influence Riley. She does not want Riley to be sad at all, even when she needs to be. Because of this, Joy is the least flexible and most controlling of the five emotions.

She mistreats Sadness (albeit unintentionally) because she does not understand why Sadness is a necessary emotion, due to nobody else knowing what her purpose for Riley is, and Joy wants Riley to be happy all the time. When Bing Bong lost his wagon and was grieving, she wanted him to not be sad when he had to be and tried doing childish and silly things to get him to stop without understanding that cheerfulness and positivity are not always what a sad person needs. She is not above lying, as she told Fear that earthquakes don't exist, when they really do.

When the islands were falling apart, there was an escape tube back to HQ, and when Sadness was about to go in, Joy pushed her out of the tube and left Sadness behind, because Sadness was influencing the core memories that Joy held, and Joy wanted Riley to be happy. She ends up falling into the Memory Dump when the escape tube falls apart.

During her time in the Memory Dump, Joy realized that Sadness is very important to Riley's life and that she went way overboard with keeping her happy. After reuniting with the other emotions, she decides to let them do their jobs and stop being so bossy all the time, since Riley needs all of them to properly function.

Physical appearance
Joy is the tallest of the five emotions (though not as tall as Bing Bong), and is by far the most human-looking of them as well.

Joy has light amber skin (made of energy particles in truth), a slender figure, and a head that is bigger than her body. She has shimmery, sky-blue hair in a pixie cut with bangs that silk down the left-hand side of her face and a small tuft sticking up at the top near the reciting hair-line. She has large, oval-shaped, azure blue eyes with a thick, dark-blue liner running along the top of each eye, making her only the emotion who's skin, hair, and eye color don't match. She has faint rosy cheeks, and her nose is rounder than disgust's, but pointier than sadness's. Her lips are thin and salmon-pink in color (similar to an actual human's lips) and she the only emotion who lacks on over-bite, and has perfectly alined teeth.

The only true clothing she wears in the film is a light chartreuse-green, sleeveless skater/summer dress with a skirt that reaches down to her knees. The dress is adorned with thin, white/silvery lines criss-crossed all over, topped off with several light blue shapes, resembling either flowers or sparks of energy.

Joy is also the only emotion who doesn't wear any pants or shoes. Her feet are the only part of her that is not human-like. They are pure round at the ends and have no toes.

Joy herself glows with an brighter aura than the other emotions. Her main glow is composed bright blue light, while a pure yellow color glows around her feet on any surface she is standing on. Joy always retains this aura no matter where she goes or how she feels, and the particles that make up her body tend to fly off her like magic in some way. The glowing aura itself is a symbol of Joy's trademark emotion and how she seems to "glow" with happiness.

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.

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 happy core memory to a sad one. Since Joy doesn't want Riley to be sad, she tries getting rid of the sadness-infused memory. Sadness tries to pull the memory back, but Joy fights her for it, and this causes the two 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 and Sadness find an escape 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 ascend 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, Joy starts shedding tears, and one drips onto one of the happy memories. When she wipes the tear from the memory, she decides to rewind it and it turns sad. Upon further inspection, Joy finds out that this is the day Sadness spoke of earlier and realizes it was made happy because Sadness helped Riley call for help, support, and comfort. 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, because 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.

Some time later, Joy and the other emotions create new, amalgamated 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.

Disney INFINITY
Joy appears in Disney INFINITY 's third installment as a playable character. However, Amy Poehler did not reprise the role, as John Vignocchi explained that her agent said she was too busy. Therefore, Kate Higgins took over her part to perform the voice of Joy in that game.

Disney Parks
After the film Inside Out debuted, Joy and other emotions appeared as Audio-Animatronics in an Inside Out pre-parade that performed 10 minutes before the Pixar Play Parade started in Disney California Adventure. After the parade’s move to Disneyland in 2018 for the Pixar Fest event, Joy and Sadness appear on the Inside Out float where they’re seen riding Bing Bong’s rocket.

During the finale of World of Color Celebrate in Disney California Adventure and part of the Disneyland Diamond Celebration, Joy is juggling Riley's memory orbs on California Screamin. However, she can hardly by seen by the visitors because the fountains are too tall and block the view of the Incredicoaster. She and Sadness also make a cameo appearance during the Happily Ever After fireworks show, and scenes from the movie appear during Together Forever: A Pixar Nighttime Spectacular.

Joy and Sadness had a meet and greet area in the Art of Animation exhibition building (Opera House) at Hong Kong Disneyland for a limited time during the Coolest Summer Ever event in 2015 until September 14th. Afterwards the sets and props from the area were moved to Epcot where they are currently meeting guests. They are currently the only Inside Out characters to appear at Disney Parks.

Following an advanced screening of the film at Downtown Disney in Orlando, a private meet and greet with Joy and Sadness was set up. The event was exclusive to Disney journal/blog members.

Trivia

 * According to Pete Docter, her appearance is based on that of a star/burst of energy. This can be seen in Abstract Thought, as, during the fourth stage, Joy and Sadness were reduced to a single shape and color - Joy was a yellow star and Sadness was a blue teardrop.
 * Joy is the second female protagonist in a Pixar movie, the first being Merida from Brave, followed by Dory from Finding Dory and Elastigirl/Helen Parr in Incredibles 2.
 * Also, Joy is the first Pixar protagonist that lives within a human being.
 * There are several things that make Joy stand out from the other Emotions:
 * She is the only Emotion whose hair and eye color is not the same as her theme color.
 * She is the only female Emotion who doesn't have an overbite.
 * She is the most humanoid in appearance out of all the Emotions.
 * She is the only Emotion not wearing shoes.
 * She is also the only Emotion to have a name used by humans.
 * This is because, during the development of the film, the Emotions were going to have human names, and Joy was the only one who retained her human name.
 * Despite her theme color being yellow, Joy does not have yellow anywhere on her ― Her hair and eye colors are shades of blue, and her skin and dress colors are amber and chartreuse, both of which adjacent yellow on opposite sites on the color wheel.
 * Joy is born out of pure light — no parents, no upbringing, she just appears, as all the other Emotions do, although they were unseen when doing so.
 * Joy emits four light beams of different colors: blue, purple, white, and gold, unlike other emotions, which emit only one. Interestingly, these colors are used as "good colors" worn by some characters in the Disney Classics.
 * Joy has a habit of talking to herself.
 * Joy and Fear were originally supposed to get lost in Long-Term Memory, but the latter was replaced by Sadness.
 * Her personal favorite island is Goofball Island.
 * Joy's appearance takes inspiration from the famous actress.
 * In the trailer, Joy says, "Come on, group hug!", a reference to Anchor's quote from Finding Nemo.
 * Joy experiences all five emotions throughout the movie, in order: joy being her overall demeanor, anger toward Sadness's actions, disgust toward the imaginary boyfriend, fear in the Subconscious, and finally sadness in the Memory Dump.