Trivia / Bosom Buddies

• The Cast Showoff:
  • Isabelle the most often to demonstrate Telma Hopkins' singing voice.
  • During the telethon episode, Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari demonstrated their juggling talents.
• Creator's Favorite: Tom Hanks brushes off any implication that he looks back harshly at the series. Instead, he fully embraces it and speaks fondly of it as a pivotal point in his life^note he says it helped him establish financial security and raised his profile enough to launch his film career. He jumps at any opportunity to to revisit it and happily gets together with his castmates for retrospectives.
• Executive Meddling: The Disguised in Drag element was added at the suggestion of network executives, who weren't interested in the producers' original pitch as a buddy comedy about two guys working in an advertising agency. Averted afterwards, however, as the creative team found that after they made this compromise, they were otherwise left alone to do the series as they wanted for the albeit short run, including shoving the disguise trope into the background.
• Friendship on the Set: The cast became lifelong friends, especially Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari who became real bosom buddies.
• He Also Did: Joel Zwick, who directed the pilot and most episodes in the second season, so impressed Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson (who first met Hanks on an episode of this show; see below) that they chose him as the director of the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which they produced.
• Romance on the Set: Tom Hanks first met Rita Wilson when she made a guest appearance on "All You Need Is Love" in 1981, but they both were in other relationships at the time. They began dating a few years later when they met again on the set of Volunteers. They married in 1988.
• Star-Making Role: This series raised Tom Hanks' profile enough that he started getting lead roles in big comedy films. That set him on the path to acclaimed dramatic roles, and becoming a global superstar in the process.

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