“Even though you’re growing up, you should never stop having fun.“ — Nina Dobrev

After a few years of annual examinations, my doctor said to me, with a smile, “I wish I could cut a little hole in your head and see what’s inside there.”

Had he done so, he would have met, according to the makers of “Inside Out,” the new hot kiddie movie from Pixar, a bundle of Crayon and rainbow creatures: Joy, with butter-yellow skin and a crew chief’s can-do heart, (Amy Poehler) Sadness, (Phyllis Smith) Purple Fear, (Bill Hader) Anger (fiery red squared-faced Lewis Black) and Disgust, a green Mindy Kaling. Both Freud and Jung suspected they were there; they just gave them longer names.

I know, of course, all of those emotions. I use them daily, especially red-faced Anger. But I didn’t know how cute and fun they were, or I would have gone back to my shrink and gotten to know all of them better. In “Inside Out,” the gang have got this swell, colorful and exciting control room, just like inside all of our heads. There are switches and dials, tubes and buttons and bangles and baubles and lots of beads. I know this, because I actually saw it one night back in my 40s in Los Angeles when I inhaled something (quite by accident) from someone smoking next to me at a party. True story.

But this is the big rainbow treat that Pixar is cleaning up with this summer. Of course, like all of Pixar’s candy-colored dreams, it’s an enormous hit, and the envy of all. It goes like this:

We’re introduced to the life of Riley (I’ll bet everyone uses that) when she pops softly out of her mama, all encased in a big, yellow, crystal bowling ball (don’t all women wish it were that easy.) Before our eyes, she soon becomes a little girl with the voice of Kaitlyn Dias.

When Riley is 11, the family moves from cold Minnesota to hip San Francisco. Here, Riley and family find a tiny and shabby apartment. With new pals in a new school and all of that frightening, annoying stress parade, adjustments will be made by the inside gang.

In Minnesota, Riley was a school hockey player, had lots of friends and was an A student. All in all, a happy, healthy little girl. But the restructuring of her family life has sent the control room in her head into a tizzy, and all the emotions start hitting the various buttons, some of which they’re not even sure work.

Is this what’s happening to our own kids? Writer creators Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen, among others, think so, and after years of research before putting this all in primary colors, I’m convinced they’re on to something.

“Inside” is big, extremely loud, colorful as a super-sized box of exploding Crayons, bubble bath, and a cotton candy marshmallow elephant (Riley’s imaginary friend.)

For kids, older than 8 in my opinion, “Inside” is a forever carnival world, full of big, scary clowns and other creatures seemingly pulled from boxes of Lucky Charms, Fruit Loops and Spongebob Squarepants cereals, full of six kinds of sugar and dreams. For adults, it’s a 3-D headache Pepto Bismol world, that is, for the sake of keeping peace in the house, a mandatory trip.

We know and love all the funny people who contribute the voices, but they’re just voices. Without Amy Poehler’s quirky face, it’s just some funny girl’s voice. But then Docter and Co. didn’t make this for me. They made it for your kids.

Michael Giacchino’s music is sweet and sad, bright and sassy and wonderful. The art department crew is a long list of talented boys and girls, and the sound and visual and animation departments? Wow! That’s gonna be one crowded stage come the Oscars next year. And get ready for “Inside” costumes for Halloween, smartphone rings and covers, pajamas and cereal.

Will there be a sequel? Of course. Imagine a grown up Riley. Will it be Scarlett Johansson? Taylor Swift? Cher? I’ll go back to see that.

The saddest thing we learn from this fun film is that as we grow up, we lose our little invisible friends. Happily, I still have mine, all eight of them.

J.P. Devine is a former stage and screen actor.