Trivia / Carry On Columbus

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, £2,500,000. Box office, £1.6,000,000. While it outperformed the other two Columbus films, it failed to recoup its budget.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Hungary: Go on, Columbus!.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Writer Dave Freeman complained about the rushed script and that several performers were miscast. On the Carry On Behind DVD Commentary, he compares Columbus to a Laurel and Hardy film without Laurel and Hardy.
  • Jim Dale thought Columbus was one of the worst scripts he had ever read.
  • Tony Slattery admitted that nobody enjoyed making it.
  • John Antrobus wrote additional material, but admitted it wasn't the best film.
  • Jack Douglas claimed he would rather forget the film.
  • When Maureen Lipman appeared on Room 101, she chose this film as one of her pet hates.
  • When Julian Clary appeared on Des O'Connor Tonight in 1998, he acknowledged that the film doing the same style of humour as the earlier entries in 1992 was a bit odd.
  • June Whitfield called the film a bit strange, and later joked a more appropriate title would've been Carry Off Columbus.
  • Bernard Cribbins called the film a disaster.
  • Leslie Phillips didn't count this film as one of the Carry On films he had appeared in.
• Creator Killer: This was the last film that Gerald Thomas directed, as he died on 9 November 1993.
• The Danza:
  • Martin Clunes as Martin.
  • Mark Arden as Mark.
• Deleted Role:
  • A sequence involving T.P. McKenna as the Archbishop of Canterbury, conducting a marriage ceremony between the Duke of Costa Brava and a young woman, was entirely cut from the final print.
  • Peter Grant, ex-manager of Led Zeppelin had his scene with Jim Dale cut from the film but he can be briefly seen before Fatima locates Achmed.
• Deleted Scene:
  • A scene of Columbus and Mordecai having a lengthy on-ship discussion was cut short.
  • The first sequence of Columbus meeting Marco the Cereal Killer was cut in half and lost Jack Douglas twitching out the door and into the water.
• Died During Production: Frankie Howerd had been all set to play King Ferdinand of Spain, but died of heart failure before filming began.
• Fake Nationality: Par for the course, the British and American cast play various nationalities.
• Franchise Zombie: This film was a badly misconceived effort to carry on the series, stocking the cast with alternative comedians yet sticking to the hopelessly out of date type of jokes that the series had been using in its heyday.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The crew returned to the ponds in Surrey where they originally went to film the sea shots from Carry On Jack, Frensham Ponds, near Farnham, Surrey. Not only that, the same rowing boat was used.
• International Co Production: The film had financial backing from 20th Century Fox Film Corporation
• Money, Dear Boy: Writer Dave Freeman admits on the Carry On Behind DVD Commentary that despite how awful he thought the film was, the pay was quite good.
• Romance on the Set: Sara Crowe married Jim Dale's son, Toby Dale, during the making of the film. Toby also appeared as a member of the Inquisition.
• Throw It In!: Averted; the younger cast members tried ad-libbing their own jokes in order to freshen up the outdated material they were given to work with, but Gerald Thomas actively forbade them from doing so or cut it out. While he was perhaps being mindful of what had happened when they tried to "modernize" the series with the Awful British Sex Comedy inspired late '70s entries, it didn't help impressions that the film felt twenty years out of date. To add insult to injury, Thomas had to also forbid improvising by the more seasoned cast members just so that it wouldn't look like he was playing favourites, further hurting the film.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The first choices to play the King and Queen of Spain were Frankie Howerd and Joan Sims. Howerd was signed up for it but he died months before filming, while Sims turned down the role of the Queen as she was busy with a new series of On the Up (although Sims confirmed in her autobiography that she had little enthusiasm to return). The second choices were Bernard Bresslaw and Barbara Windsor, who thought the script was so bad that they did Wot a Carry On in Blackpool (end-of-pier theatre) instead.
  • Kenneth Connor was offered the supporting part of the Duke of Costa Brava but he turned it down, saying "I want to be remembered as a Carry On principal, not a bit player".
  • Robbie Coltrane was the first choice to play Columbus, but turned it down.
  • Terry Scott was approached to play Mordecai Mendoza but had to refuse as he was too ill. This would have reunited him with June Whitfield, his costar in Happily Ever After and its More Popular Spin-Off Terry and June.
  • Jonathan Ross was due to film a one-day cameo as a barber shop customer who had his ear cut off by Alexei Sayle but work commitments prevented him, so the part went to David Boyce.
  • Suzanne Danielle, who had played the title character in Carry On Emmannuelle, was offered a part in this film (possibly as one of the Native Americans) but had to turn it down because she was pregnant.
  • Robin Askwith was considered for Bart Columbus. Harry Enfield was the next choice but turned it down after learning how little of the original cast would be returning.
  • Adrian Edmondson was announced to be cast in the film, but never got a role.
  • Ben Elton was rumoured to be keen to get a role.
  • Norman Mitchell once bumped into Gerald Thomas in the street and was promised a role, but never heard of it again.
  • Peter Rogers wrote a letter to Jacki Piper saying he wanted her in the film, but there weren't any suitable parts for her to play.
  • Dave Freeman had hoped to get John Inman (of Are You Being Served? fame) to play Don Juan Diego, but he wasn't available and Julian Clary was cast instead.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The script was admittedly rushed because Dave Freeman had only ten days' notice to write one from scratch. He hated the end product and believed a great deal of characters were miscast.

---