Trivia / Mystery Men

• Acting for Two: Robert Musselman, who plays Ballerinaman reappears later in the film as a Disco Boy.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Ben Stiller made a change to Mr. Furious:
  In the original script, he was just angry all the time, but I thought that would be boring, so one of the changes I made is that he has the least power. Like if we're a band, I'm the guy who started the band but who's also the least talented.
  • In an odd parallel, Tom Waits actually creates curious machines from junk and hardware store purchases, in the same way that his character (Dr. Heller) does. Waits' machines are musical, and one is 6-stringed steel dumpster.
  • Casanova's long fingernails were Claire Forlani's idea.
• All-Star Cast: Ben Stiller, William H. Macy, Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush, Paul Reubens, Hank Azaria, Janeane Garofalo, Kel Mitchell, Eddie Izzard, Tom Waits...maybe this is why the title of the song Smash Mouth made accompanying the film is "All Star."
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Janeane Garofalo had originally turned down the part of The Bowler, but changed her mind when she heard William H. Macy and Geoffrey Rush had signed on.
• Box Office Bomb: A domestic take of $29 million with a small addition of $3 million internationally came nowhere close to recouping the film's $68 million budget. Being released on the same day as The Sixth Sense didn't help.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "All Star" by Smash Mouth was one of the most popular songs of 1999 and appeared on the Mystery Men film and soundtrack months before the release of their album Astro Lounge. Its high-concept video features all the main cast members of Mystery Men...who were then later cut out after the song far eclipsed the movie in popularity. "All Star"'s subsequent appearance in dozens of movies in the next few years only muddied the waters of its original origin. To rub salt on the wound, "All Star" has gained notoriety as an internet meme...but videos featuring the song tend to attribute it to Shrek, a (albeit, far more successful) film that premiered two years after "All-Star".
• Cast the Runner-Up: Ben Stiller was originally offered the Blue Raja role, but was not interested in playing what he called a "nerdy guy" again. "The minute you start doing the same thing in comedy, people go, 'Oh, I've seen that,'" he said. He took the role of Mr. Furious.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Artie Lange, who has joked about the poor reception of films he's acted in, considers this to be the worst movie he has made. After seeing his brief scene in the beginning of the film, his mother and sister called him from the theater to ask if he would have any more scenes because they wanted to leave.
  • Janeane Garofalo doesn't care for the film.
  It was very long hours and very little got accomplished. It was one of those alleged blockbusters that was overbudgeted and overhyped. It went from being a great script when it was sent to me, to being-in my opinion-a fairly mediocre non-event. But it was nice to get paid that much to sit around. I have no idea what they were trying to do (with the film), but they sure didn't accomplish it.
  • Director Kinka Usher hated working on this film so much he vowed never to direct another feature and has stuck to commercials and music videos.
• Deleted Role: Luis Guzman played the part of a Mexican restaurant owner but his scenes were deleted from the final print.
• Dub Text: In French, the Furriers were translated into the "Fourreuses", a made-up word that sounds like fourrure ("fur"). This is a perfectly legitimate translation... in Europe. In Canada, however, the verb "fourrer" (i.e. "stuff" as in food) is commonly used to mean "fuck" specifically in the sexual sense, with unexpectedly lewd implications for a G-rated movie!
• Enforced Method Acting: Janeane Garofalo wasn't told that Captain Amazing's charred hand would break off when she touched it, which genuinely freaked her out.
• Fake American: Claire Forlani (Monica) and Eddie Izzard are British.
• Fake Nationality: The Blue Raja, but it's part of his schtick. Also, Casanova is meant to come from a country that doesn't exist. He has a bit of German and Russian in his accent, while Geoffrey Rush himself is Australian.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • According to Hank Azaria, the cast argued constantly with each other over the comedic tone of the film.
  • Ben Stiller revealed in an interview with David Letterman that he had gotten into a heated argument with Greg Kinnear on the set — the altercation between the two actors was apparently so upsetting for Stiller that he tried to get himself released from the film.
  • Azaria revealed in a 2011 interview with The AV Club that during production Kinka Usher declared:
  I'm going back to commercials when this is done. I've had enough. I'd much rather do my cool little one-minute shorts that I make than deal with all this nonsense.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Janeane Garofalo, who plays the Bowler, had no bowling experience prior to the film. Funnily enough, her parents met at a bowling alley.
• Playing Against Type: Somewhat with Jenifer Lewis. She's still playing the loud, strong black woman she usually plays, but, unlike most of her movies, where she plays people much older than her (for example, in The Preachers Wife, she played Whitney Houston's Mom and a Grandmother in her late 30's), she plays someone closer to her age, as she plays the mother of three kids who are all under 12.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: There are some fans who believe that the film was originally intended to be directed by Tim Burton, that he was fired or left due to Executive Meddling, that Kinka Usher was either a replacement hired by the studio or an Alan Smithee style pseudonym, and that Tom Waits let it slip in an interview that Burton was the real director. In reality, the writer of the Tom Waits biography Lowside of the Road was fooled by a spoof article from 1999 that said that "Kinka Usher" was a pseudonym, and edited a quote from Waits to replace Usher's name with Burton's. (The real Kinka Usher is aware of this rumor, and he's not happy about it.)
• Recycled Set: A number of the sets used in the film are the same sets used in Batman Forever which makes sense as Champion City kind of lampoons the over-the-top architecture of Gotham City as seen in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.
  • Casanova's mansion is Whipstaff Manor from Casper.
• Similarly Named Works: The movie (or the original team in Flaming Carrot) have no relation to the Marvel miniseries of the same name.
• Throw It In!:
  • A workman on the set threw a disposable lighter into a trash can, not realizing it was a prop that would later be set on fire. The lighter exploded during a take in a sudden burst of flame behind Paul Reubens (The Spleen) who improvised the famous "Excuse me" line. This was deemed to be hilarious so they kept it in the movie.
  • Tom Waits had trouble memorizing his lines during his big monologue so he wrote them on his hands, which explains his odd stance and gestures. Fortunately the director thought this was perfect for his character.
  • The Waffler was supposed to be a superhero who had trouble making a firm decision. There was a miscommunication and the character became themed after the food instead. This was kept because it still fit in with the rest of the hopeless attendees.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Danny DeVito was in talks for a $13-million deal to both star and direct, but negotiations broke down over who would produce the soundtrack. "It was a big deal for me. I really wanted it, so I walked away from the project."
  • Ben Stiller considered directing, but turned it down when he realized how large a project it would be.
  • Ving Rhames and Vince Vaughn were considered for roles.
  • Earlier versions of the script had Monica play a much bigger role in the story and helped the Mystery Men defeat Casanova Frankenstein.

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