Nothing puts us quite in the spirit of the holidays like our favorite holiday movies.. This year, while you’re sipping that eggnog and munching on holiday cookies, take a closer look. We did some digging and found the best tidbits about all your favorite movies this year!

 

 

1. Home Alone/Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

• Home Alone was the highest-grossing movie of 1990.
• Remember when Kevin finds a picture of “Buzz’s girlfriend” – an odd-looking girl with a garish grin? Director Christopher Columbus thought it would be too mean to make fun of a girl so he altered a photo of the art director’s son to look like a girl.
• Macaulay Culkin was paid 4.5 million dollars to star in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York; this was the biggest paycheck ever paid to a 12 year-old.

 

2. Die Hard

• Bruce Willis probably will never forget Die Hard. Not because it launched his movie career, but because it caused him permanent hearing loss. Director John McTiernan wanted to use special extra loud blanks in Die Hard to add a sense of “hyper-realism.” One of these blanks went off while filming a scene and gave Willis a favorite ear…as well as a least favorite one.

 

3. The Santa Clause

• The original version of The Santa Clause included a one-liner made by Tim Allen reading the number “1-800-SPANK-ME”. Turns out this seemingly fictitious phone number was an actual sex hotline.  Disney later cut the line from future versions of the film after receiving numerous complaints from parents whose children called the adult number and hiked up their parents’ phone bills. The studio also said that they would purchase the phone number to disconnect the service. You know you want to try to call the number now…

 

4) Miracle on 34^th Street (1947 version)

• Power trip alert! 20^th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck demanded that Miracle on 34^th Street be released in May, not around the holidays as one would expect. Zanuck believed that more people went to the movies during the summer, so Fox found themselves with the curious task of promoting a Christmas movie without letting it slip that it was a Christmas movie.
• The scenes of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade are of the actual parade held in 1946.

 

5) It’s a Wonderful Life

• You may have never seen It’s a Wonderful Life, but you know it’s like THE Christmas movie, right? Just ask your parents. Sadly, when it was released in 1946, it was considered a box office flop! Poor George Bailey!
• It is also the only film in history to be based on a greeting card. Proving good ideas can come from anywhere!

 

6) Batman Returns

• Sure, Batman Returns isn’t your standard holiday classic, but it is most definitely drenched in holiday cheer – albeit a gothic Tim Burton-y version. The risky Christmas themed movie had parents claws out due to the film’s violent and sexual nature being marketed towards kids.  In fact, public scrutiny forced McDonald’s to cancel their Batman Returns Happy Meal promotion. Sorry kids, no black leather whip to torture your little sister with this year.

 

7) A Christmas Story

• A Christmas Story had always been a film that director Bob Clark had wanted to make. Even after his success with Porky’s, studios weren’t thrilled about a Depression-era story that has a boy wishing and hoping for a BB gun Christmas surprise. Star Peter Billigsley said that Clark had to agree to make a horror film in order to get the green light for “A Christmas Story.” Sometimes you’ve gotta make a deal with the devil to make your passion piece.

 

8) National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

• If you know anything about Chevy Chase, you know he likes his physical comedy. Slip-on-a-banana peel jokes are his bread and butter. In Christmas Vacation, Chase’s character fails at installing his Christmas lights, so he asks his son Rusty to help check all the bulbs out. Rusty looks at his watch-less wrist, pretends to look at the time and leaves. This is one of Chevy Chase’s trademark gags. Comedy used to be simple, guys.
• The Griswald’s house is on a very popular block in Movieland. Blondie Street resides on a Warner Bros. lot built to look like a suburban neighborhood. Film neighbors include, American Beauty, Pleasantville, Gidget, Bewitched, and Lethal Weapon. There goes the neighborhood!

 

9) How The Grinch Stole Christmas

• Dr. Seuss wasn’t interested in animating any of his books until animator Chuck Jones convinced him otherwise. Dr. Seuss was also was wary of famed horror actor Boris Karloff voicing the Grinch because he would be too scary. Nevertheless, Frankenstein himself would go on to be the voice of the Grinch and the narrator. He WAS kind of scary thought, right?

 

10) White Christmas

• In the days of yore before autotune & voice tracks, movie studios had other ways to make their actors sing better – have someone else sing their parts! Case in point, musical films like White Christmas cast non-singing actors in singing roles. Vera-Ellen, one-half of the dynamic sisters singing duo, didn’t sing one note in the film. Rosemary Clooney sang both parts for “Sisters,” with the final result being a strange doubling effect; Trudy Stevens sang the rest of Ellen’s songs. While she didn’t sing, Vera-Ellen DID make every tap/pointe/pirouette/waltz/swing/coupe/kick seen on film.

 

11) The Muppet Christmas Carol

• The Muppet Christ Carol was the first Muppet movie after creator Jim Henson’s death in 1990. Steve Whitmire took over Henson’s duties as the voice of Kermit the Frog, and was very hesitant about filling such big shoes. According to Whitmire, the night before he recorded Kermit’s songs for the movie, he had a dream about discussing his fears with Henson. In the dream, Henson said that he would do just fine and when he woke up, Whitmire’s fears subsided. Bah Humbug!

 

12) Gremlins

• Do you remember the rules of having a Mogwais? (1) no bright light, (2) don’t get him wet, and (3) never feed him after midnight, no matter how much he begs!
• Under 13 years old in 1984? If yes, you wouldn’t have been able to get in to see this movie since it was the first PG-13 rated film.  Due to the violent nature of the film but still wanting it teenage-accessible, executive producer Steven Spielberg suggested that the MPAA create a rating to fall in-between PG and R, therefor birthing the PG-13 score.

 

13) The Nightmare Before Christmas

• I know what you’re thinking: “The Nightmare Before Christmas – directed by Tim Burton,” right? Not so fast you Oogie Boogie. While Burton wrote and produced the film, it was actually directed by Henry Selick, also known for Coraline and James and the Giant Peach (also produced by Burton.) So Burton was the architect but not the guy who ended up calling the shots.

 

14) Elf

• When Buddy the Elf arrives in New York City, he finds himself to be a stranger in a strange land; exploring all of the “wonders” of city life. The majority of this particular montage was filmed on the last day of shooting. Will Ferrell along with cameraman and director Jon Favreau approached pedestrians and paid them cash to be extras for these scenes. Can you name Elves four main food groups? candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup. Or as I call it: yum, yum, yum, and sticky.

 

15) Edward Scissorhands

• Edward Scissorhands, the gentle-natured artificial man with hair styling tools for hands, was surprisingly based on a drawing that Tim Burton had made when he was a teenager. Edward was a representation of Burton’s feelings of isolation and loneliness, living in suburban Burbank. Edward’s hairstyle is said to be based on that of Robert Smith of The Cure. But let’s be honest, it’s probably Tim Burton’s ideal version of himself.

 

16) Love Actually

• The airport footage at the Heathrow airport is real. A team of cameramen hung out at the airport for a week, and filmed real families, friends and lovers reuniting.
• The word “actually” is spoken twenty-two times in the film.
• Mark’s surprise of the band playing “All You Need Is Love” at his friend Peter’s wedding was inspired by Jim Henson’s funeral. Director Richard Curtis attended the funeral, where all of the puppeteers brought their Muppets and sung a song. Kind of simultaneously weird, sad and beautiful no?

 

17) Jingle All the Way

• Remember how Jingle All the Way was a not very good movie? Well apparently there’s a possibility that it was based on a not very good script by a Detroit High School biology teacher. In 2001, a U.S. District Court jury ruled that 20^th Century Fox stole the script idea from Brian Webster. Webster submitted the script “Could This Be Christmas” to Fox in 1994 and never received payment or credit. The studio was ordered to pay $19 million, then reduced to $1.5 million, then reduced to the whopping sum of $0. Fox made and appealed the verdict and had  it reversed because the studio had already purchased a treatment for the script before Webster had submitted his. Here’s one for the little guy, America.

 

18) A Charlie Brown Christmas

• Though now considered a holiday classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas was met by CBS executives with a panic. They were concerned that the voices were real, untrained kids, it incorporated Biblical references about the true meaning of Christmas, and that there was no laugh track.  Thank the Lord Charlie Brown & his gang prevailed!

 

19) When Harry Met Sally

• Let’s be honest, when you think of When Harry Met Sally, you think of one thing: the scene in the deli, where Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm. The line “I’ll have what she’s having” has been redone and referenced so many times by now that it has lost all meaning whatsoever. Nevertheless Katz’s Deli, the restaurant where the scene was filmed, now has a plaque at that very table that says “Where Harry met Sally… hope you have what she had!”

 

20) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

• Everyone remembers the Claymation classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. At one point in the movie, Rudolph and his pals visit the Island of Misfit Toys for a spell and promise to return to help them. In the original TV version of the show, the heroes never return and the Misfits are never brought up in the story again. This left many children upset at the apparent injustice and sin of omission on Rudolph’s part. After receiving many letters, Rankin-Bass produced a new scene at the end of the movie where Santa and Rudolph return to the island and find homes for all of the toys.
• Need a sled dog team? You might not want Yukon Cornelius’s brood. Instead of the traditional Siberian Huskies or Alaskan Malamutes, his was a motley crew that included a Saint Bernard, a Poodle, a Cocker Spaniel, a Daschund, and a Collie.

21) Sleepless in Seattle

• This is THE romantic comedy of all time, but Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks only share about two minutes screen time together. No wonder we’re so happy when they finally meet in the end!
• Six years before anyone had ever heard of the “Soup Nazi,” let alone seen an episode of Seinfeld, Sleepless in Seattle made the first recorded reference to the inspiration for the disgruntled soup vendor. As Meg Ryan’s character enters her office, a man can be overheard saying “…he’s the meanest guy in the world, but he makes the best soup you’ve ever eaten.” No Soup for Sleepless in Seattle!

 

22) Trading Places

• Trading Places was created as a comedy film starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. During pre-production, Pryor dropped out of the film and was replaced with Eddie Murphy, who wanted Wilder’s role to be recast as well so audiences wouldn’t think that Murphy was trying to be another Richard Pryor. Which is ridiculous, because Richard Pryor would never have the courage to do Norbit!
• Trading Places also happens to be the only movie in which Dan Akroyd ate a whole salmon on a public bus while dressed as Santa Claus.

 

23) Planes, Trains and Automobiles

• To film the iconic “Rent-a-Car” sequence, the film crew had to rent twenty miles of train track and renovate old train cars, build an airline terminal set, design a fictitious rent-a-car company and uniforms and rent 250 cars . Why you ask? Because no existing transportation company wanted to be portrayed as inefficient and unhelpful. Because that would havve been REALLY hard to believe.

 

24) Bridget Jones’s Diary

• Whether or not Bridget Jones’s Diary is your cup of tea, Renée Zellweger’s method acting is pretty impressive. To prep for the role, Zellweger gained 25 pounds and worked at a British publishing company for a month. She created a separate identity and used a British accent as well.
• During filming, Renée was dating Jim Carrey and kept a framed photo of him at her desk. Her coworkers recognized Carrey’s photo but didn’t mention it to Zellweger because the Brits are so damned polite.
• Salman Rushdie’s cameo in the film was a total fluke! He’s good friend with the film’s author, Helen Fielding, who asked if he felt like making a fool of himself on camera. Luckily, he has a good sense of humor!

 

25) Meet Me in St. Louis

• When Margaret O’Brien’s mother demanded more money for Margaret to play Tootie, the studio called her bluff.  Instead, they cast the daughter of a lighting man working on Meet Me in St. Louis. Eventually the studio changed their minds and recast Margaret O’Brien. In a twisted soap operatic nightmare come to life, the lighting man purposely dropped a heavy spotlight onto the sound stage, aiming for O’Brien. The lighting man was fired and admitted to a mental institution. YIKES.
• Love on the set! Director Vincente Minnelli and actress Judy Garland met on this movie, and married soon afterwards.  Garland later claimed she married him because she felt extremely beautiful during the film.

Woahhh… So there you have. Cuddle up with a warm mug of hot cocoa (or head over to Wonder Warmers shopping page to keep warm) and enjoy the flicks!

 

Credit & Special thanks to Imdb.com for photos!