Did Pixar’s Inside Out Rip Off The Beano?

With the success of Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’, it seems the premise isn’t as original as we thought, with British comic the Beano having covered a similar story decades earlier.

In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Mike Stirling, Beano’s editor-in-chief, has spoken for the first time about the similarities.

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The Beezer, first published in 1962, contained The Numskulls which was a segment about a group of Numskulls that lived in the mind of a grown man. When the Beezer went under in the 1990s, the Beano picked up the strip, tweaking it to take place in the head of a little boy and has been around ever since.

For those who have seen ‘Inside Out’, Pixar’s latest masterpiece, it centres on the story of Riley, an 11-year-old girl and the anthropomorphic emotions in her head.

Comparing the two from a visual stance also bears some notable likenesses, with the headquarters that The Numskulls work from…

…compared to ‘Inside Out’s’ setup.

Sure, the stories appear very similar when you compare, with the Beano politely declining to comment ever since ‘Inside Out’ went into production and the point was raised, until now.

“We had people from all over the world pointing out the similarities - which is very flattering but the Numskulls is a very British strip and we wanted to point out the differences,” Stirling explains, referring to their newest comic issue.

In fact, a Numskulls themed issue is out this week addressing the controversy to amusing effect: it actually references the Pixar film directly as one of their plots.

“For one thing, the British bottle up our emotions. Our Numskulls are like technicians so we have them wondering - how come those ‘Inside Out’ characters are so much more famous than us? Is it the emotions? So what would happen if they uncorked the emotions…”

However, as ‘Inside Out’ director Pete Docter has mentioned, the inspiration for the film was seeing his own daughter grow up with the conflicting and changing emotions she was experiencing. Similarly, co-director Ronaldo Del Carmen said he was not familiar with the Numskulls comic strip either.

But there’s no hard feelings from the Beano, as Stirling reiterates: “We always say that the highest compliment anyone can receive is to appear in the Beano - as it means you’re a pop culture icon for kids aged 7 to 11 in the UK and Ireland.” He goes on to say; “I paid to see their movie on Saturday and it was great. Now I hope they’ll buy a copy of our comic.”

Whether there was ever any inspiration taken from the Beano or not, ‘Inside Out’ is undoubtedly a great animated film in its own right. It’s likely that the similarities in premise could be a coincidence, so it’s nice to see them coexist and prosper.

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Picture credit: Pixar, D.C. Thomson and Co.