Character Analysis
Bing Bong may be part cat, part elephant, part dolphin, and mostly cotton candy, but he's 100% pure positivity.
As a figment of Riley's imagination, dreamed up when she was three and "animals were all the rage," Bing Bong's focus is fun, fun, and more fun. The dude cries candy, for Pete's sake. He's such a legend that Joy's positively star-struck when she meets him:
JOY: I gotta tell you; I am such a huge fan of your work. Do you remember when you and Riley were in a band? I went to all of your concerts.
BING BONG: Yeah, I blow a mean nose.
JOY: Watching you play tag was such a treat.
BING BONG: Two-time world champ.
JOY: Oh, and remember your rocket?
BING BONG: Of course! It runs on song power!
If Inside Out has a mascot, it's Bing Bong, and here's why: he's the personification of poignancy. He embodies two of the movie's biggest concepts, the end of childhood and the loss of innocence. That's why you were sobbing into your Junior Mints when he asked Joy to take Riley to the moon for him before he faded out forever.
Bing Bong sacrifices himself because he knows his time with, and his usefulness to, Riley is up. Riley can't stay a toddler forever. When he loses their rocket ship, he loses his last artifact of their friendship, and it seems to help him come to the realization that he should be grateful for the memories he and his BFF made—and that it's time to move on:
SADNESS: I'm sorry they took your rocket. They took something that you loved. It's gone. Forever.
JOY: Sadness. Don't make him feel worse.
SADNESS: Sorry.
BING BONG: It's all I had left of Riley.
SADNESS: I bet you and Riley had great adventures.
BING BONG: Oh, they were wonderful. Once, we flew back in time. We had breakfast twice that day.
JOY: Sadness…
SADNESS: It sounds amazing. I bet Riley liked it.
BING BONG: She did. We were best friends.
SADNESS: Yeah, it's sad.
Bing Bong cries on Sadness's shoulder.
BING BONG: I'm okay now. Come on. The train station is this way.
Letting go of their band, song-powered transportation, and epic games of tag isn't easy on him, just as making the jump from goofy, fun-loving kid to puberty-ravaged teenager is going to be rough on Riley. But in opening up to Sadness—and opening himself up to sadness, with a little s—Bing Bong seems to recognize that there isn't love without loss.
Ultimately, he sacrifices himself to ensure Riley's happiness. As you may already know, perhaps painfully well, his girl Riley's going to need all the help she can get as she starts navigating the world of boys, zits, SATs, and varsity hockey.
Bing Bong's Timeline