Okay, so we kind of cheated the whole holiday season thing last time around when
we did Die Hard, though I remind you Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
But the Cinefix overlords have spoken, and now we're being forced to
do a Christmas episode of things you didn't know for real.
Tuccipalooza will have to wait.
So let's talk about the holiday classic that's spawned one okay sequel and
then a few more completely unwatchable ones.
Here are nine things you didn't know about Home Alone, probably.
(Music)
Remember this part of the movie where Kevin sleds down the stairs?
Yeah, you do.
Well, you probably never noticed that his sled doesn't actually line up with
the front door at all.
If Kevin really did this, he would have crashed into the wall,
which still would have been pretty funny now that I think of it.
Anyway, it goes without saying that they didn't let Macaulay Culkin actually
do that, or that.
Instead, it was a 30-year-old man.
That's right, they found a 30-year-old stunt guy who was roughly the same size as
a nine-year-old Macaulay Culkin.
You can see here that that is definitely not Macaulay Culkin,
but Larry the stunt guy, ziplining to the tree house.
So good luck unseeing that the next time you watch this movie.
Next thing.
(Sound) While Larry Nicholas did all the stunts
for Macaulay Culkin,
there were some shots where you couldn't fake it with a double, like this one.
To get this shot the real way, I'm told, is super dangerous.
So they did it backwards.
They went through several takes of filming the van backing away from Kevin rather
than going Forward and almost mowing him down.
Then they just reversed the action in playback.
And every single take looked like crap, and totally didn't work except for the one
that's in the movie, which is probably why they used that one, I'm guessing.
(Sound) >> Gus Polinski.
How are you?
Polka King of the Midwest? >> I know I'm not the only one who thinks
of the late John Candy as being a fairly major character in Home Alone, but
did you know that his entire supporting role was shot in just one day?
One 23 hour day?
They started at 7:00 AM and wrapped at 6:00 AM the next day.
So for this shot of John Candy and Catherine O'Hara in the truck,
they were shooting at about 4:30 in the morning.
Makes me miserable just talking about that.
And yet, John Candy is freaking delightful.
God, I miss that guy.
Moving on.
(Sound) A Christmas movie just isn't a Christmas
movie without snow.
And we get some lovely Christmas morning snowfall in this scene right here,
except that isn't snow, it's potato.
See this is back in the days before you could just have a bunch
of nerds CG up some snow for you out of nothing.
So in Home Alone, they used potato flakes along with some fans to blow it around.
Unfortunately, after a few takes, the ground was covered in the potato flakes,
which then turned into mashed potatoes.
So there were just mashed potatoes everywhere that were sort of yellow, ugh.
I don't think anyone is dreaming of a sort of yellow potato Christmas, but
if Bing Crosby ever did a version of that song, I do want to hear it.
(Sound) >> Where are you, you little creep?
>> Joe Pesci is a legendary actor, but
he may have gotten a little bit too into his role during rehearsals for
this scene, where he's threatening to bite Kevin's fingers off.
During one rehearsal, Pesci bit Macaulay Culkin's finger hard enough
to leave a mark, and Culkin has the scar to this day.
You know, I don't think I'd mind if I had a scar on my finger from
Joe Pesci's teeth.
That would actually be kind of awesome, a great icebreaker at the least.
(Sound) The items Kevin finds in Buzz's trunk are pretty memorable.
But the best thing in there might be the photo of Buzz's girlfriend.
>> Buzz, your girlfriend,
woof. >> The thing is,
the girl in that picture is actually a guy.
The filmmakers knew that they needed a truly frightening girl for the photo.
But there is no way to have a girl pose for
that picture without scarring her for life.
The obvious solution is drag.
Just ask Tyler Perry, or Madea.
She knows, too.
(Sound) Now that we know Home Alone went on to be
the number one movie for 12 weeks and the number one film of 1990 overall,
it's hard to believe that no one wanted to spend money on it.
Its budget was just $18 million.
And because the budget was so low they didn't have the money for
fancy special effects like making Kevin's family member's heads appear beside him
in this scene.
So they hired a guy named Kevin Nordeen to do it on the cheap.
He did all the special effects out of his mom's basement in Chicago.
He charged $200 here, $500 there, depending on the work.
Like on this shot, Kevin hand painted the BB frame-by-frame for $600.
(Sound)! >> That's actually a nice chunk of change
for 1990.
But after seeing how much money Home Alone went on to make, it's a safe bet that 24
years later he's probably still kicking himself for not charging more.
(Music)
So let's talk about the whole tarantula on the face seen with Daniel Stern.
Stern agreed to let them put the spider on his face for real but for only one take.
They only did it the one time and Stern had to mine the scream or
else risk frightening the spider.
By the way, my band, Frightened Spiders, is playing at the Viper Room next week.
And if you're in town, you should totally come.
Just leave your name in the comments down below.
I'll get you on the list.
You guys are into Latin trance hop, right?
(Sound) One more thing about Danny Stern before we
get outta here.
This is going to seem totally obvious after I tell you, but
right there, he's wearing rubber feet.
See, now that I told you that, you're realizing how crazy they look.
They were nice enough to spare him from walking in the cold snow in his bare feet
for the exteriors.
But in this shot Stern really is barefoot.
The ornaments are made of candy glass which isn't as
bad as stepping on the real thing, but I'm guessing it still doesn't feel great.
Stepping on pointy, broken fake glass is really only marginally better than
stepping on pointy, broken real glass.
Way to commit, Danny Stern, way to commit.
All right guys, are you happy now?
We did an actual Christmas things you didn't know.
And as we often do, we have loads of things we didn't include in this one.
So if you want to see a part two on Home Alone we'll do it.
It'll probably be for Christmas 2015,
but that's better than ignoring your request completely.
Thanks for watching.
Be sure to check out cinefix.com and subscribe for
more true-ish things about movies and sometimes grown-ass men who are as
small as nine-year-old boys right here on Things You Didn't Know.
(Sound)