Trivia / Short Circuit

• Completely Different Title: In Israel, it's known as Miraculous Malfunction.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: The 2nd movie shows Johnny 5 reading The Hound of the Baskervilles, halfway through the book he says, "I think the chauffeur did it" and upon finishing the book he says, "He did." This is not the case, thereby not spoiling a real book.
• Dyeing for Your Art: To portray Ben, Fisher Stevens had to grow a beard, dye his hair black, darken his skin with makeup, turn his blue eyes brown with contact lenses, speak with an East Indian accent and "walk hunched over like a cricket player."
• Fake Nationality: Fisher Stevens, who played Ben, is very, very white. Not Indian. Newton actually asks about this, and Ben clarifies that he was born in Bakersfield, but his family is from...Pittsburgh. Stevens has said the role was originally written as white, which has been noted as helping the casting remain a bit less offensive than it could have been, with little about his personality that's stereotypically Indian.
• Follow the Leader: It's E.T. as a robot! Johnny even has a long neck, a flat head and big eyes like E.T. does.
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: The hero and villain of the movie are played by Steve Guttenberg and G. W. Bailey respectively. Both actors also played hero and (arguably) villain in the first Police Academy movie.
• Inspiration for the Work: The film was conceived after the producers distributed an educational video about a robot to various colleges. Studying other films with a prominent robot cast for inspiration, they decided to question human reactions to a 'living' robot, on the premise that no one would initially believe its sentience.
• Mistaken for Foreigner: As stated before, Fisher Stevens' performance as Ben Jabituya/Jahvri made several fans mistake him for being Indian - specifically, many East Indian viewers mistook him for famed Bollywood actor Javed Jaffrey, something that both Stevens and Jaffrey have gone on record to debunk.
• The Other Darrin: Johnny Five isn't performed by Tim Blaney for this Hostess Potato Chips commercial, and is instead voiced by Len Carlson. Blaney was also replaced as lead puppeteer (but not the voice) in the sequel proper with Gordon Robertson, with Rob Mills serving as the on-set voice.
• Production Posse: The set of Johnny Five puppeteers have worked together on other projects. Tony Urbano and Tim Blaney already had a working relationship thanks to Flight of the Navigator and the McDonaldland campaign, among other projects. They would go on to do Men in Black and Team America: World Police.
• Sequel in Another Medium: The Music Video for "Who Is Johnny" by El De Barge is set in what appears to be the trial of Stephanie for her role in the movie. (Newton is present as a cardboard cutout for some reason.) Became Interquel in Another Medium after the release of the actual sequel.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to Fisher Stevens, Ben was originally intended to be Caucasian. The role was then re-written to be more of a comedic ethnic part, after Bronson Pinchot was in talks to play Ben. When the deal with Bronson fell through, Fisher was asked if he could make his accent more ethnic to make Ben's scripted lines funnier. Fisher spent five weeks living in India to prepare for the role. His performance convinced many viewers that he was Indian, but Fisher stated that he could never be able to play that role today.
  • In an interview with Eric Allard, both Carlo Rambaldi (creator of E.T.) and Industrial Light & Magic were among those in the running to build Johnny 5 before Allard got the job, chosen specifically by director John Badham himself upon a recommendation by Steven Spielberg.
  • As per puppeteer Tony Urbano on the Under the Puppet podcast, the film came close to utilizing the talents of Jim Henson's Creature Shop to help bring the puppets of Johnny 5 to life. It was under Faz Farakas's recommendation to have Urbano and his team work on the film. The second film would utilize puppeteers who had worked with the Jim Henson Company as filming moved to Canada.

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