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Trivia / Home Alone

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Home Alone Main Trivia Page
Home Alone | Home Alone 2: Lost in New York | Home Alone 3 | Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House | Home Alone: The Holiday Heist | Home Sweet Home Alone
  • Actor-Inspired Element: Macaulay Culkin drew the map that Kevin uses to set up the traps.
  • Adored by the Network:
    • Any time a network owns the rights to the first two movies, expect it to give both special treatment. The rights have bounced from HBO to Turner-owned networks to ABC Family/Freeform then back (and forth) to HBO to Starz and then back to Freeform.
    • The movie (and its sequel) are inevitably broadcast on TV in many countries during Christmas time.
  • Author Phobia: Chris Columbus' biggest fear as a kid was burglars. It's part of why he wanted to make this movie.
  • Awesome, Dear Boy: Why John Williams did the score. FOX passed it along to Williams when looking for a composer, but the crew felt they didn't have a shot to nab the biggest composer in movies to score their moderately-budgeted holiday movie. Williams loved the rough cut of the movie and agreed to do the score, while offering him an opportunity to go outside his usual fare with a more Christmas-tinged soundtrack.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty!: The "Merry Christmas ya filthy animal" quote is often mistakenly attributed to this film, when it actually occurs in the sequel. What Johnny actually says is "Keep the change, ya filthy animal!"
  • …But I Play One on TV: According to Pete Davidson, whenever Joe Pesci encounters a young child who recognizes him from the film in public, he'll tell the child to be good to their parents during the Christmas season or else he and Marv will rob their house.
  • California Doubling: O'Hare International Airport represents itself as well as Paris Orly Airport.
  • Cameo Prop: While filming the Angels with Filthy Souls clip, Chris Columbus actually went to the effort of obtaining a Tommy gun used by Edward G. Robinson in the film G-Men.
  • Cast the Runner-Up:
    • Jeffrey Wiseman, who plays neighbor boy Mitch Murphy, originally auditioned to play Kevin McCallister.
    • Ralph Foody and Michael Guido were originally cast in the opposite roles of Snakes and Johnny respectively, but Foody was recovering from knee surgery at the time of the shoot and was unable to perform the fall to the floor, so the roles were swapped. Guido often joked that this swap meant he was one of the few actors who was unable to return for the sequel due to his character being dead.
  • Channel Hop: The film was initially a Warner Bros. production until the film went over budget, resulting in 20th Century Fox taking over production.
  • Colbert Bump: The Drifters' version of "White Christmas" was featured in the first movie and has enjoyed greater prominence than its original release in 1954.
  • Completely Different Title: Multiple:
    • In Latin America, the Spanish countries got "My Poor Little Angel" and Brazil "They Forgot Me" (the latter admittely works, even in the sequel where Kevin's not at home).
    • France and Italy went for a literal synopsis, "Mom, I Missed the Plane".
    • In Hungarian, it's "Tremble, Burglars!"
  • Creator Backlash:
    • Chris Columbus isn't fond of the booby trap where Harry gets covered in feathers, feeling it was "too soft" compared to the others.
    • According to Columbus, John Candy was bitter about being paid scale by the studio, especially after the film became a smash hit. He only agreed to it in the first place as a personal favor to his friend John Hughes.
  • The Danza: Catherine O'Hara as Kate McCallister in this film and the second.
  • Dawson Casting: Minor example, but Kevin is 8 in the first film and 10 in the second, while Macaulay Culkin was actually 10 while making the first and 12 while filming the second.
  • Deleted Role: Ray Toler and Virginia Smith were cast as Rob and Georgette McCallister. Their most prominent scene, in which they try to welcome the rest of the family to Paris, was cut and they only briefly appear in the background decorating a Christmas tree.
  • Deleted Scene: See 'em here.
  • Dueling Movies:
    • With Disney's The Rescuers Down Under, which opened the same day and had John Candy in it just like Home Alone. Home Alone prevailed, leading Disney chief Jeffrey Katzenberg to shut down his studio's marketing campaign and blowing up their attempt to continue the Rescuers franchise (though both films did well on VHS later).
    • The film was predated a year earlier with Dial Code Santa Claus, a horror film with a similar premise (a young boy rigs his house with traps to ward off an intruder during Christmas).
  • Edited for Syndication:
    • Back when the film first began airing on TV, some networks redubbed all uses of the word "ass" to "butt". Present-day airings leave the word intact.
    • Disney Channel airings remove all uses of the words "ass", "crap", and "hell" (except when Kate says, "Where the hell am I?"), along with Kevin shooting Marv's head with a BB gun (we still hear the shot but don't see him get hit). The scenes from "Angels with Filthy Souls" are also edited each time Kevin plays the tape: the words "...to get your ugly, yellow, no-good keister off my property..." are cut from Johnny's threat, and any shots of him holding the gun are either replaced with shots of Kevin watching, or are zoomed in so that the gun is not visible (though the gunfire is still heard, and Snakes is still shown collapsing and getting hit). The scene where Kevin goes through Buzz's trunk (where he finds the firecrackers that he uses later) is cut entirely.
    • Freeform airings cut fake Santa complaining about a parking ticket before Kevin approaches him.
    • On Christmas Eve 2022 and 2023, ABC aired the movie edited down to two hours with commercials. This edit also occasionally airs on Freeform in some years, but not nearly as often as the fuller version, which runs for two and a half hours. The two-hour version cuts several scenes partially or entirely, including:
      • The electrician informing Kate that the phone lines are still down.
      • The full scene on the plane where Frank tries to stuff the champagne glasses in Leslie's purse and Peter assures Kate that the kids are okay.
      • Kate getting transferred twice when calling the police from the Paris airport, removing the character of Sargeant Balzac entirely.
      • Harry and Marv raiding the Murphys' house and hearing Peter's voicemail from Paris.
      • At Rob's apartment, Megan worrying about Kevin, and Buzz feeling the exact opposite.
      • Marv asking if he should check on the McCallister house "now."
      • The entire scene where Kevin asks a female "elf" to see "Santa" and goes to talk to him by his car.
    • Both the Disney Channel edit and the two-hour ABC edit cut Buzz and Rod's discussion about "French babes" shaving their armpits and nude beaches.
  • Enforced Method Acting: When Marv gets a tarantula put on his face, the spider (and Stern's terrified reaction) were both real. However, Stern only pretended to scream during the shot, with a scream added in post-production because actually screaming could have scared the spider and caused it to bite him.
  • Follow the Leader: The remake of Miracle on 34th Street was greenlit especially after the success of this, with John Hughes writing too. The protagonist was even going to be a boy, after Kevin's influence. The Home Alone ripoff became its own subgenre in the early to mid '90s. John Hughes even copied elements of his own work when writing Baby's Day Out. note 
  • I Am Not Spock: Macaulay Culkin is now forever associated with this role. In the DVD Commentary, he acknowledged it as both a blessing and a curse.
  • Inspiration for the Work: The conception arose from a personal experience of John Hughes. Imagining that children are naturally most scared of robbers, Hughes also worked that aspect into the plot of the film.
    I was going away on vacation, and making a list of everything I didn’t want to forget. I thought, 'well, I'd better not forget my kids". Then I thought, "what if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do?"
  • Looping Lines: Daniel Stern was required to have a live tarantula on his face when the prop one wasn't working. Because Stern didn't want to frighten or harm the tarantula while it was on his face, the legendary scream coming from his mouth was actually Stern miming, and an off-set recording of Stern screaming was edited over the top.
  • Method Acting: Joe Pesci deliberately avoided Macaulay Culkin on-set, because he wanted Culkin to think he was mean.
  • Missing Trailer Scene: The trailer featured deleted and alternated scenes: a TV anchorman warns viewers to be on the lookout for the Wet Bandits. In the supermarket scene, the manager of the supermarket stands behind the check out girl and asks Kevin the questions check out girl asks him in the theatrical cut, and there's additional dialogue between Harry and Marv just before they go to Kevin's house, during which Marv says "Kids are stupid. I know I was", to which Harry replies "You still are, Marv."
  • One-Take Wonder: Daniel Stern agreed for a live tarantula to be put on his face for one take only because the prop one wasn't working.
  • Orphaned Reference: Marv claiming the voices he heard in the McCallister house that were actually Kevin playing Angels with Filthy Souls sounded familiar. This was the set up for a Brick Joke in a planned post-credits scene. Harry and Marv would be watching the film in prison and it was only then they would finally put two and two together.
  • Playing Against Type: Devin Ratray had mostly just played nerds beforehand, so he relished getting to go against type as the Big Brother Bully Buzz.
  • Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
    • A popular legend among fans is that the film was originally written to have Uncle Frank be the real mastermind behind Harry and Marv robbing the McCallister house and that the fact he pays for the airfare to Paris is an Orphaned Reference to the fact he wanted everyone out of the way. This was actually a theory proposed by a fan of the film and has never been confirmed by either John Hughes or Chris Columbus.
    • Another legend is that Elvis Presley, who died 13 years before the movie's release, makes a cameo. Fans report spotting him at the airport in Scranton while Kate argues with an employee. The actor's real name is Gary Richard Grott.
  • Real-Life Relative:
    • Kevin's younger cousin Fuller is Macaulay Culkin's little brother Kieran.
    • The elf that Kevin meets before talking to Fake Santa was the then-wife of cinematographer Julio Macat.
    • Several of Chris Columbus' family members made cameos in the film: His mother-in-law and his daughter Eleanor Columbus were passengers on the plane. His wife Monica Devereux-Columbus was a stewardess, and his father-in-law played the police officer who says the line "tell them to count their kids again."
    • The movie's producer Mark Radcliffe's twin daughters Porscha and Brittany play Kevin's cousins in a few scenes.
  • Shoot the Money: The movie had a small budget of only $18 million. A number of the visual effects (such as the BB striking Marv in the face) were literally done by a teenager in his parents' basement for only a couple of hundred dollars. John Candy's parts were all filmed at once, nonstop, for 23 hours, because that's all the time the producers could afford to have him on the set. The furnace in the basement was achieved by crewmembers hiding behind it with wire and flashlights. Chris Columbus and Macaulay Culkin have both joked that production on this movie was akin to attending "Film School 101". Many critics even agree that had this movie been made a decade or two earlier, it would pretty much have been a B-Movie.
  • Similarly Named Works: "Home Alone" is also the name of an unrelated public service video that shows viewers what to do if they are at home by themselves (i.e., if someone calls on the phone, don't say you're home alone, etc). More recently, it is the title of an Investigation Discovery true crime series about residents being trapped and/or held hostage by crooks in their own homes. Several episodes even take place during Christmas!
  • Sleeper Hit: No one expected the film to do as well as it did. In fact, Fox initially distributed it to the minimum number of theaters required for it to be considered a wide release. It became one of the highest grossing films of all time, and it is still in the top fifty when adjusted for inflation.
  • Star-Making Role: For Macaulay Culkin. He became a household name following its success.
  • Throw It In!:
    • Catherine O'Hara forgot her lines in the airplane scene where she realized that they left Kevin home alone. The iconic shouting of Kevin's name was her attempt to salvage the take. They not only ended up using the take, but the "Kevin!" shout became forever linked to the film series and the movie's Signature Scene.
    • The conversation with the checkout lady and Kevin in the first was improvised. The director didn't say "Cut", so the actress kept asking him questions and Culkin went along with it.
    • Gus Polinsky's story about he and his wife leaving their kid at a funeral parlor all day long was completely ad-libbed by John Candy; matter of fact, many of the moments between he and Catherine O'Hara saw a lot of ad-libbing, as both are SCTV alumni.
    • Ken Campbell, who played Santa, couldn't drive stick and practiced really hard. On the first take, he successfully drove the car away but forgot to turn on the lights, so they had him redo it. The second time, the car stalled and he swore (He did not say "Son of a"; they put that in in post). They thought it was so hilarious that they left it in.
    • Kevin's line "You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more?" was improvised.
    • Daniel Stern ad-libbed a number of things as Marv. This included sticking snowglobes to the dashboard with gum, stepping on and walking across glass ornaments, trying to pry open the back door with a crowbar before giving up and just opening it, the stupid look on his face before getting hit with a flying paint can, the "Why the hell are you dressed like a chicken?" line he says when he sees Harry covered in feathers.
    • Before Old Man Marley saves Kevin from Harry and Marv, Joe Pesci had actually bit one of Macaulay Culkin's fingers, leaving a scar.
  • Typecasting: Be honest, when have you not seen Joe Pesci play a criminal?
  • Troubled Production:
    • Warner Brothers had originally greenlighted the film on the assurance it could be made for no more than $10 million. Very early on the producers realized they had underestimated how much it was going to cost, and worrying that Warner would balk at making the film for that much money,note  John Hughes secretly took a meeting with Fox asking if they would be willing to take it over if it came to that and "accidentally" left a copy of the script behind (Fox legally wouldn't have been allowed to see it at that time).
    • The tight budget had other early effects. Upon being informed that the shooting schedule was being extended from six weeks to eight, Daniel Stern asked if he could thus expect to be paid more. He was told no, the budget was too tight, and quit. But after three days of rehearsals with his replacement, Daniel Roebuck, didn't yield the same chemistry he had had with Pesci, Stern was brought back, presumably for more money.
    • That was just one of the many cost increases that was driving up the budget and straining relations with Warner. The studio had conceded them an additional $3 million, but that still wouldn't be enough ... the producers had prepared a long memo explaining how there was no way they could make this film the way they wanted to, the way they told the studio they could, for anything less than $17.5 million. After a final offer of $14 million was rejected, Warner shut down production. Within 20 minutes, however, filmmaking resumed as Hughes made his call to Fox, which stepped right in to the breach.
    • The daily filming schedule created issues at both ends.
      • Morning unit call was 7 a.m. This greatly bothered Joe Pesci, who already had some complaints about his character's dialogue being ridiculous. He finally took one of the assistant directors asidenote  and explained that he would be in a much better frame of mind shooting his scenes if he could get in nine holes of golf in the morning. Accordingly, the unit calls were pushed back to 9 a.m.
      • Due to Macaulay Culkin's age, he could not work any later than 10 p.m., making it very difficult to schedule and shoot the many nighttime scenes in the film.
    • One last scheduling issue made things tight. John Candy could only work for one day, so all his scenes were done in a 23-hour marathon session. He did them all for absolute rock bottom scale and got paid a little over $400 ...less even than the actor who played the pizza delivery guy.
  • What Could Have Been:
  • Word of Saint Paul: When Devin Ratray was asked what happened to Buzz later in life, he said he probably went to prison. This would wind up being contradicted by Home Sweet Home Alone which shows he became a police officer.

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