Trivia / Child's Play (1988)

• Channel Hop: The movie was by MGM/United Artists. In between the first film and the sequel, MGM was in the process of being sold to another company, Qintex, that had no desire to do horror movies, leading to David Kirschner buying back the rights to the franchise and in turn, sold it to Universal, which has produced all the sequels (sometimes through a subsidiary). Ironically, MGM and Qintex ended up dropping its merger negotiations shortly after Universal bought the sequel rights!
• Completely Different Title: In Italy, both the original and the remake (and, consequently, the first two sequels) are called La Bambola Assassina (The Killer Doll).
  • Latin America: Chucky: The Devil Toy
  • Brazil: Killer Toy
  • Germany: Chucky: The Killer Doll
  • Greece: The Devil's Doll
  • Netherlands: The Doll
  • Poland: Chucky the Doll
  • Portugal: Chucky the Diabolical Doll
  • Romania: Toy
  • Spain: Devil Doll
  • Sweden: The Evil Doll
  • Taiwan: Supernatural Invasion
• Creator Backlash: Don Mancini made it clear in later interviews that he wasn't fond of the voodoo elements Tom Holland introduced in his rewrite of the script, but kept them in future films to avoid breaking continuity.
• Creator's Oddball: This franchise along with Frailty and Kristy which starred Ashley Greene are the only projects David Kirschner produced that are not for a kids and family audience.
• Cut Song: Composer Joe Renzetti and singer/songwriter Simon Stokes recorded an ending credits Villain Song about Chucky the Doll that wasn't used in the final finished film because studio executives thought it made Chucky seem less scary (ironically the song's nature reflected much better with the horror-comedy sequels that follow than the first film, perhaps the song's tone was foreshadowing to what direction the franchise would lead to). The song can be heard in one of the trailers for the film.
• Deleted Scene: To the point where the original cut ran 3 hours long. Unfortunately, the scenes have never been released and have only surfaced through promotional photos and script details. Many rumors have swirled around through the years as to what happened to them, from the scenes being accidentally destroyed to Tom Holland owning the original film dailies/workprint with them intact. The only scene that has managed to surface so far is a slightly alternate scene of Charles Lee Ray’s voodoo chant at the beginning of the film.
• Inspiration for the Work: Screenwriter Don Mancini first conceived of the concept while studying as a film major at the University of California, Los Angeles. He claimed to have been inspired by the consumerism of the 1980's, the Cabbage Patch Kids, Trilogy of Terror, and The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "Living Doll". The film's executive producer David Kirschner, who would produce all seven films in the Chucky series, claimed in the same interview that he had wanted to make a film about a killer doll after reading The Dollhouse Murders. The director Tom Holland has also affirmed that the My Buddy dolls played a role in Chucky's design.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: In an interview, Don Mancini said the original script was at first a satire on toy marketing and merchandising for children, before the idea morphed into a horror film instead.
• The Other Marty: Jessica Walter had recorded lines as the voice of Chucky, but her audio went unused.
• Production Posse: Chris Sarandon and Jack Colvin, who played Mike Norris and Dr. Ardmore in the first film, had both previously worked with director Tom Holland on Fright Night (1985) with Sarandon and an episode of The Incredible Hulk (1977) with Colvin when Holland was an actor. Also, before being cast as Chucky, Brad Dourif a year earlier had been directed by the first film's director Holland before in Fatal Beauty, which like the first film was distributed by United Artists.
• Real-Life Relative: Chucky was played in one scene by Alex Vincent's (Andy's) little sister when Chucky runs from behind the couch while the babysitter was watching tv.
• Romance on the Set: Catherine Hicks (Karen) and Kevin Yagher (Chucky's creator) met on set and were married a year later.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: As mentioned above, MGM owning the first movie and Universal owning the rest of the series has gotten in the way of producing a planned remake of the original.
• Throw It In!: Brad Dourif ad-libbed Chucky's infamous "fuck you" in the first film's elevator scene.
• Trend Killer: The film helped kill off the fad that started with Cabbage Patch dolls and ended with the "My Buddy" dolls. Since those dolls looked a lot like Chucky - the Big Bad of the films — the line of dolls were effectively scrapped.
• Troubled Production: The film's development and production were plagued with turbulence. To wit:
  • Tom Holland retooled the script to include voodoo elements that Don Mancini wasn't a fan of and later tried to claim it for himself.
  • Problems during production included but did not stop at subzero temperatures during location filming in Chicago. Chris Sarandon recalls his vocal cords freezing during a scene between him and Catherine Hicks.
  • Tom Holland and David Kirschner had a highly contentious relationship on-set. It ultimately led to a physical altercation, largely due to Holland bullying Alex Vincent to get a believable performance during the scenes set at the mental hospital.
  • Kevin Yagher's Chucky puppets were very unreliable, due to the technology to create them still being quite nascent^* as by that point in time, unless you were Jim Henson and his team, self contained RC controlled animatronics were not easy to work with, nor readily available. Hence the use of a suit double in some shots. Hours of filming time were lost due to F/X-related frustrations. Yagher recalls Holland asking things of his F/X team that were impossible to accomplish, including Chucky throwing objects at John Bishop in a rage (a scene similar to one included in Bride of Chucky).
  • Once post-production rolled around, things did not go much more smoothly. Holland's cuts of the film tested poorly with audiences. Jessica Walter gave a vocal performance as Chucky that Mancini claimed was unintentionally hilarious, citing that Chucky "sounded gay". Brad Dourif was brought in to redub the whole thing, resulting in some lip-sync issues with Chucky. Ultimately, Holland was let go in post, as he and the other filmmakers couldn't agree on how much screen time Chucky should have.
• Uncredited Role:
  • Howard Franklin contributed to the screenplay. He remains uncredited in the final film.
  • While Ruby-Spears is credited for working on the film, animating the Good Guy cartoon Andy watches at the beginning. As per usual with them, no animator credits are included.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Don Mancini's original conception was completely different. Originally titled Blood Buddy, the dolls would have synthetic blood, and Andy would mix his blood with Buddy's fake blood as part of a blood brother ritual. The doll would come alive as a manifestation of Andy's ID, and kill the people Andy had unexpressed anger toward. Mancini also wanted the script to be more ambiguous about whether Chucky's actually alive and committing murders until late in the movie, unlike the finished film where his guilt is almost immediately clear.
  • One abandoned concept was that one sign of Chucky turning more human the longer he spent in the doll was that the doll would grow stubble like Charles Lee Ray had when he was human.
  • A Chucky video game for consoles was planned, but sadly the Kickstarter project only raised $585 of its $925,000 goal.
  • Don Mancini's script originally set the film in New York City instead of Chicago.
  • The script reveals that the movie was originally supposed to start with Charles Lee Ray following a drunken lady (with her face covered by a scarf) leaving a bar from Eddie Caputo’s van, chase her into an alley, then rip her scarf away to reveal Detective Mike Norris. This would then be followed by the chase that started the movie. A bit of this was left in the film, as Detective Norris is shown throwing away an article of clothing as he starts to chase Ray. The script identifies this as the disguise's dress.
  • Maggie Peterson was suppose to be electrocuted in the bathtub. This was used in Bride of Chucky.
  • Before Brad Dourif was cast, John Lithgow and Gary Oldman were considered for the role of Charles Lee Ray/Chucky.
  • Robert Forster was considered to play Detective Mike Norris.
  • William Friedkin and Robert Wise were considered to direct.
• Word of God: In an interview, it was revealed by Don Mancini that Tiffany’s maiden name is “Valentine”.
• Working Title: The original working title for the film was Batteries Not Included before it became known Steven Spielberg was also making a film with the same title. It was then changed to Blood Buddy before settling on Child's Play.

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