- Acting for Two:
- April Winchell plays both Miss Finster and T.J.'s mom in the movie.
- Anndi McAfee not only plays Ashley A., but also provides Gretchen's singing voice, in addition to using it as her own.
- Blake Ewing provides both T.J. and Gus' singing voices.
- Adored by the Network: Disney XD loved playing this movie any chance they got in 2009, though it rarely airs now (at least in the US).
- Celebrity Voice Actor:
- The Big Bad gets voiced by James Woods, although it's not the first Disney movie he's done that for.
- TJ's sister, who was The Ghost in the series, is voiced by Melissa Joan Hart - then a Teen Idol for Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
- Completely Different Title:
- Big Recess: The Secret Mission (Germany)
- Recess: Give Me a Break! (Canada & France)
- Recess: Goodbye School (Poland)
- Recess: Mission to Save Summer Vacation (Sweden)
- Recess: Save the Summer Holiday (Finland)
- Return to Recess (Latin Spanish)
- Recess: Free From School (Norway)
- Some other countries called it Recess: The Movie or stuck with the original title.
- Cut Song: There was going to be a new song by They Might Be Giants playing as T.J. rode his bike sadly after his friends left for camp. After the movie started using '60s songs for its soundtrack, the song was scrapped and replaced with Three Dog Night's cover of Harry Nilsson's "One".
- The Danza: In one scene, Becky is talking to her friend Melissa on the phone. Her voice actress? Melissa Joan Hart.
- Deleted Role: Lawson apparently was going to have more scenes in the film (and is credited), but they were cut. He makes only one appearance in the film in a non-speaking cameo.
- Direct to Video: Like Toy Story 2 and The Tigger Movie, this film was originally planned in pre-production to be just a straight-to-home media release. However, due to the show's huge success, Disney bumped it up to a theatrical release instead. So the plot was expanded and got an Animation Bump. Unlike Doug's 1st Movie, which was intended for DTV but was released in theaters instead (at the very last minute), this one was much more sucessful. Though in Norway, the film was released direct-to-video.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: For a while, the movie was quite hard to find, as most stores stopped selling it when the show ended and its popularity dwindled, but due to the rise of online shopping and instant streaming—and the fact that the DVD never really went out of print—it's readily available from both Amazon and Disney+.
- Non-Singing Voice: Mikey, as usual, but when the kids are singing backup in "Green Tambourine", a few of them have different voices. Blake Ewing, who usually voices Menlo (who doesn't appear in the movie), did T.J. and Gus' singing voices (Blake Ewing's little brother, Zach, would eventually voice Gus in the Lilo & Stitch crossover), while Anndi McAfee, who voices Ashley A., did Gretchen's singing voice. Pamela Segal and Rickey D'Shon Collins did their characters, Spinelli and Vince, as usual.
- Though oddly enough, any other scene with the kids singing has them sing with their regular voices.
- The Other Marty: Burt Reynolds was originally cast as Benedict but was replaced with James Woods as the producers thought Reynolds' performance was too over-the-top and sinister.
- Playing Against Type:
- Although the role he played was technically still a villain, Tony Jay usually plays the role of intimidating villains (such as Claude Frollo, Shere Kahn, Monsieur D'Arque, Megabyte, and Wraith). However, he plays the role of the head scientist who ended up getting detention after the weather altering laser ended up shorting out again...who acts like a complete wuss as he his escorted off of the room.
Rosenthal: Oh, no! N-Not detention! NOT DETENTION! No, please! I can fix it! Don't do this to ME-E-E-E-E! [is led out the room by Benedict's guards]- Melissa Joan Hart was normally the Plucky Girl lead of Kid Coms and sitcoms, so it's a little different to have her voicing TJ's grumpy older sister.
- Real Song Theme Tune: The end credits feature a rendition of the Lemon Pipers' "Green Tambourine".
- Release Date Change: The movie was going to be released for summer 2000, just in time for summer vacation, the theme for the movie. Because Pokémon 2000 was being released at the same time, Disney feared competition from the mentioned Cash-Cow Franchise and kept on pushing the movie back until February 2001...which was far from summer vacation (unless you live in the Southern hemisphere, though at least it was released during the usual week for February vacation!).
- Though if both were released at the same time, Pokémon would've done better in terms of raking in the dough at the box office, while Recess would've been more favored by critics. (Which was pretty much the same in critical terms for both shows on TV as well.)
- Uncredited Role: Studio Ghibli co-founder and then-president Toshio Suzuki was a producer on the film, but for unknown reasons, was left uncredited.
- What Could Have Been:
- In the ending credits, Mikey was going to sing "Get Back" by The Beatles, but it was too expensive to get the rights to the song. They used "Green Tambourine" instead.
- The film was also going to be released direct-to-video, but because of the show's popularity (and Disney's enthusiasm for the film), it got an enormous production overhaul for theaters, and proved to be a success.
- The DVD box stated that it would include deleted scenes as bonus features, but they never showed up.
- Working Title: Summer Vacation: The Ultimate Recess was the original title for the movie before it was changed to the much-better sounding title it has now, though T.J. still says those exact words towards the beginning of the movie.
- Written by Cast Member: One of the punch up writers for this movie is April Winchell, voice of Ms. Finster and TJ's mom.
- Some of the guests who came to the premiere of the film include Wendie Malick, Joey Lawrence (Andrew Lawrence's (T.J.) older brother, who was also the voice of "The Dude" in the show), Dylan and Cole Sprouse, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Myles Jeffrey (who would become T.J.'s new voice actor a few years later), among others.
