Bing Bong

"Who's the friend that likes to play? Bing Bong, Bing Bong."

- Bing Bong's theme song Bing Bong is a supporting character in the 2015 Disney/Pixar film Inside Out. He is Riley Andersen's imaginary friend who lives in her memories and assists Joy and Sadness in getting back to Riley's control center. He is the former mayor of Imagination Land, a location in Riley's mind. He is voiced by Richard Kind.

Appearance
Bing Bong is an imaginary friend who is a hybrid of cotton candy, cat, elephant, and dolphin. He wears a leather vest with fingerless gloves with a rainbow flower button on his vest and he wears a bowler hat on his head.

Personality
Bing Bong is a very social guy and loves chatting with people and helping them out. When he gets sad, he cries tears made of unwrapped candy from his eyes.

History
At the time of the film, Riley had largely moved on from her imaginary friend, but despite this setback, he remained embedded within her mind.

Bing Bong is first encountered by Joy and Sadness as they are trying to get back to the control center with her core memories. Bing Bong decides he'll help them out and stores the core memories in his magic sash. He then escorts them to Imagination Land and shows them around the place. As he is doing so, he realizes that his homeland is slowly getting destroyed and his "rocket ship" (a wagon with cardboard cutouts) is tossed into the Memory Dump (a place were dumped memories that stay too long fade from existence). He cries as a result of this, as that rocket is the closest thing he has to Riley, and Sadness comforts him about his loss. On their adventures, he leads them to a variety of shortcuts to help them try to get on to the Train of Thought. On their first attempt, they realize that the train is out of power as Riley has gone to sleep.

They decide to go to "Dream Productions Studio" and try to wake up Riley by intercepting a school play. While Joy and Sadness manage to escape, Bing Bong is caught and imprisoned in Riley's subconscious where her nightmares reside. They see Bing Bong imprisoned in a balloon cage and get him out. In order to escape, they wake up one of her fears, Jangles the Clown and he goes on a rampage in the studio. This causes Fear to wake up Riley and activate the Train of Thought. During the ride, Bing Bong entrusts the sash containing Riley's core memories to Joy.

"Take her to the moon for me, okay?"

- Bing Bong's last words

As they are heading to headquarters, Honesty Island gets destroyed and the tracks break as a result of Riley lying to her mother, claiming that she is going to school. Luckily, the trio are saved by a few memory citizens. As they see Family Island on the verge of crumbling as a result of Riley walking away from her family, Joy decides they should get through the tube. After noticing Sadness touching one of the core memories, Joy changes her mind and decides to go alone. As she is doing so, the tube breaks, causing Joy to fall into the Memory Dump with Bing Bong falling down with her after the ground beneath him crumbles. Now trapped, Bing Bong and Joy try to find a way to escape. As they are doing so, Bing Bong's left arm begins to disappear. Joy then gets an idea for the duo to find Bing Bong's rocket by singing his theme song. They manage to find the rocket and try twice desperately to use a nearby ramp to reach the Long Term Memory edge. Eventually, Bing Bong realizes that his massive weight is preventing the rocket from reaching all the way to the Long Term Memories's edge. He then goes with Joy to boost the rocket up and as soon as it reaches the ramp, Bing Bong jumps out of the rocket, making the rocket lighter as it successfully reaches the edge. Joy cheers, thinking that her and Bing Bong made it out of the dump, but eventually realizes that he sacrificed his life so that Joy and Sadness can get back to headquarters. As a result, he is happy that he gets to be helpful to Riley one last time. Joy sadly looks down at the dying Bing Bong, his last words (and his favor) being "Take her to the moon for me, okay?" as he fades from existence, forgotten by Riley.

Trivia

 * He is the second supporting Pixar character that dies in a Pixar movie, the first is Doc Hudson from "Cars" (he died off-screen prior to "Cars 2" to pay respect to Paul Newman after his departure). However, Bing Bong is the first supporting Pixar character that dies on-screen.
 * He looks similar to Koosalagoopagoop from "Dexter's Laboratory".
 * He is voiced by Richard Kind who also voiced Molt from "A Bug's Life", Van from "Cars", and Bookworm from "Toy Story 3". This is the first of his characters that are not minor, nor antagonistic.
 * Bing Bong is similar to Ray the Firefly, as they are both comic relief characters who die near the climax.
 * His last words refer to the fact that Riley always imagined that Bing Bong and her would fly to the moon on a rocket wagon as a toddler.