When Matt Groening met with the Fox Network to discuss producing animated bumpers for The Tracy Ullman Show, he originally planned to pitch something related to his popular Life In Hell comic strip. However, as he waited in the reception area for his meeting to begin, he grew nervous; anything he did for Fox would become property of the network. He would essentially be turning over his existing copyrights to Fox in perpetuity. With the little time he had left before the meeting, Matt furiously began sketching rough pictures of a dysfunctional family to pitch instead. He had a cantankerous father, bizarrely haired mother and two siblings, one of which would be a huge brat. (a baby was later added to the mix.)
Matt assumed that his pitch would be rejected; after all, they had expected him to pitch a show based on his existing characters. While a bit surprised, the execs liked what they saw and hurriedly rushed the animated bumpers into production. As we all know, the “crude animated filler material” took on a life of its own and television history was made. While Ms. Ullman’s show became a forgotten relic of a time when Fox would literally put anything on TV, Matt’s slapdash creation would forever join the ranks of classic TV. It’s a half-assed origin that Homer Simpson would be proud of.
The 1985 film “Commando” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was a huge success at the box office. Of course, this caused the studio to put plans together for a sequel. Arnold turned them down flat, so the script was reworked with new characters and eventually released as a little film you may have heard of- “Die Hard”.
Bonus Fact about “Commando”: The studio originally wanted to cast Gene Simmons from KISS in the role eventually played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Elizabeth Taylor was the very first individual to host a private party at The Happiest Place on Earth. Prior to her private party in 1992, only companies and organizations had hosted after hours celebrations at Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom.
The role of the fearsome “Bob”, the ghostly serial killer who was responsible for the murder of Laura Palmer, was played to perfection by the late Frank Silva, who was seemingly born to play it. Mr. Silva looked like he literally jumped out of everyone’s nightmares and onto our television sets. Obviously, he was initially chosen to play the murderous “Bob” from the beginning, right?
Actually, Mr. Silva was the set dresser for the “Twin Peaks” pilot, which meant he was responsible for setting up the furniture and props. Perhaps he got the role because producer David Lynch saw him and instantly realized he could play a frightening serial killer? Nope, it was all dumb luck. You see, in the closing scene of the pilot, Laura Palmer’s mother was supposed to be sitting in her living room alone, until she looks off to her left and screams. Everything went according to plan until someone noticed that set dresser Frank Silva had inadvertently stood in the wrong place and could be seen reflected in a mirror behind the actress’ head. A terrible mistake that might have cost a set dresser his job.
Of course, David Lynch thought about it and saw that the scary looking Frank Silva was the perfect person to play the evil “Bob”. The scene would air as filmed, only now it foretold the appearance of pure evil, and not the mistake of a Hollywood set dresser who should have known better. And that was how television history (and nightmare fuel) was made.
Two planes used in the filming of the “Airport” franchise have later been involved in catastrophic crashes. The airplane featured in the original film crashed in Brazil in 1989. The airplane featured in “Airport 79: The Concorde” crashed in a high profile disaster in 2000. After the catastrophic crash, all Concordes were removed from service and the model was discontinued.
The EPCOT Center that opened in 1982 in Florida was not the EPCOT that Walt Disney originally envisioned. Walt Disney originally planned for his “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” to be a real live city where real people could live. In fact, the theme park he referred to as “Disneyland East” was just a way for Walt to attract people to see his Utopian city. His hope was that tourists would see EPCOT then go home and take its futuristic ideals back to their hometowns.
Unfortunately, Walt’s brother Roy saw the futuristic city as a huge risk that would bankrupt the company. He quietly killed EPCOT after Walt Disney’s untimely death in 1966. Ironically, the “Vacation Kingdom” that Walt Disney World became was Roy Disney’s vision; not Walt Disney’s.
So how did we get the EPCOT Center that opened in 1982? Well as it turned out, the public never forgot how Walt talked about “EPCOT” and frequently asked cast members at the Magic Kingdom where EPCOT was. The decision was made that a second theme park would be built and called EPCOT in honor of Walt’s original idea. Disney Imagineers struggled with the question of what EPCOT should be, but as it turned out, the idea was under their noses all along…
There had been other ideas thrown around for other possible theme parks- one of which was for a park called “World Showcase” in which guests could experience the world in different pavilions based on the different countries of the world. Another idea was to take the ideals of Tomorrowland and expand them to show how the future would be improved through research and technology. This park would be called “Future World”.
Both ideas were initially rejected because it was felt they were not compelling enough to stand on their own. Smash them together, though and maybe they could be something. Of course, that’s exactly what they did. The Florida Project finally got its EPCOT Center.
The part of Gregory House in the hit Fox television show “House” was originally offered to Gary Sinise. Gary turned the role down to work on CSI:NY, a show he felt had a better chance to succeed.
Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future but was fired after the first month of shooting because the director didn’t feel he was right for the part. Instead, Michael J. Fox was brought in and history was made. You can still see Eric the film, however. Due to the huge expenses involved in changing the lead actor, the production team had to economize any way they could. Therefore, the footage in the mall parking lot where Marty races to escape the terrorists was actually filmed with Eric in the car. From a distance, nobody could tell that it wasn’t Michael J. Fox driving the Delorean.
