Trivia / Documentary Now!

• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • John Mulaney came up with the concept for Original Cast Album: Co-op and also co-wrote several of the songs.
    • Richard Kind, by his own admission, does not have the breath control for patter songs, and the number written specifically for him, "Christmas Tips", was designed to be flubbed because the character Larry can't do it, either. It was eventually cut down to a point where it could be sort of sung (Kind making conscious decisions like where to lose his breath and what lines to put emphasis on), because it was funnier for Larry to manage to struggle through the whole thing rather than fail.
  • Tim Robinson co-wrote and co-stars in ''Any Given Saturday Afternoon'.
• Approval of God:
  • Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads were shown Final Transmission and enjoyed it.
  • Stephen Sondheim and D.A. Pennebaker both praised Original Cast Album: Co-op. When Original Cast Album: Company was added to The Criterion Collection in 2021, the episode was included in its entirety as bonus content!
• California Doubling: Wales plays the role of the Ural Mountains in Soldier of Illusion, but two episodes later plays itself on How They Threw Rocks.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Fred Armisen sang and co-wrote all the Blue Jean Committee's and Test Pattern's songs, except for "Save Time for Me" sung by Maya Rudolph and "Everybody's Moving Around" sung Stylistic Suck-style by Bill Hader.
  • Hader has been playing bass guitar since his high school days (and by his own admission is a fairly average player), and he plays the actual bass parts for Blue Jean Committee and Test Pattern. Armisen and Seth Meyers also pointed out that Hader had to redo his vocals for "Everybody's Moving Around" multiple times because his singing was too good.
• Cast the Expert: Many actual Broadway performers appear as the cast of Co-op in Original Cast Album: Co-op, including Tony Award winner Renée Elise Goldsberry and a couple others who were nominated for Tonys (Richard Kind, Alex Brightman).
• Defictionalization: At the 2019 Academy Awards, Helen Mirren was one of the presenters for the Best Documentary Oscar ... and she wore a red dress to do it.
• Distanced from Current Events: Dronez: The Hunt For El Chingon depicts two different instances, both Played for Laughs, of journalists being murdered, while working, on camera. The episode was supposed to be the second episode aired, but when a Roanoke, Virginia TV reporter and cameraman were murdered live on the air by a former colleague a day before the scheduled debut, IFC postponed it by a week out of respect and aired Kunuk Uncovered instead.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Fred Armisen has played an Inuit (Kunuk Uncovered), an Iranian living in Iceland (A Town, A Gangster, A Festival), a Colombian (Juan Likes Rice & Chicken) and an Italian (Mr. Runner Up).
  • Averted in A Town, A Gangster, A Festival, where the locals were played by actual Icelanders, and Juan Likes Rice & Chicken, where Diego was played by Colombian actor Luis Fernando Hoyos.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Batsh*t Valley was originally going to be a parody of The Source Family, but when Wild Wild Country became a Netflix hit, it was turned into the primary target, though The Source Family remained in the story by having the main character be a Father Yod-type figure who evolves into a Rajneesh-esque cult leader.
• No Stunt Double: Cate Blanchett, in Waiting for the Artist, had a stunt double standing by on-set, but mostly elected to do Izabella Barta's bizarre art performances (like getting inside a dryer and walking on a debris-covered floor with a bucket on her head) herself.
• Out of Order: Searching for Mr. Larson was filmed for season 2, but aired in season 3.
• Parody Assistance:
  • Dronez: The Hunt For El Chingon was made with Vice's cooperation and published on their website.
  • Irving Azoff, the real-life manager of the Eagles, played his fictional counterpart, Alvin Izoff, in Gentle & Soft.
  • When Original Cast Album: Co-Op was being shot, D.A. Pennebaker (who had already been parodied twice by that point) provided remote technical guidance about specific lighting and shot composition.
  • FarWorks is acknowledged in the credits of Searching for Mr. Larson for permission to use panels of The Far Side. That's notable because Gary Larson is famously stingy about rights to display his work.
  • The show opening includes a clip from 20 Feet from Stardom. That film's director, Morgan Neville, hosts the Documentary Now! Later shorts where the show's creators are interviewed about each episode.
• Playing Against Type: Season 3 featured rare comedic roles for Cate Blanchett and Michael C. Hall (though they both played Comically Serious characters).
• What Could Have Been: For season 3 the concept of a documentary about a Moon-Landing Hoax was considered, but dropped for being too impractical to film.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The Eye Doesn't Lie and Parker Gail's Location is Everything were both written a couple days before they were filmed.