10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai

On August 10, 1984, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension premiered.

In honor of its 35th Anniversary, our very own Buckaroo aficionado, Ryan Campbell checks in with 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai…

1. The series and titular character was at one time supposed to be called Buckaroo Bandy

2. The first choice for the title character Buckaroo was a young Tom Hanks but he was in TV at the time and they could not convince the executives in charge that he was a “movie guy”. The second choice was Michael Keaton but him and his people did not want to sign a three picture deal. Finally, Peter Weller won the role after a fairly open call to young actors in Hollywood went out. 

3. Peter Weller did not know how to play guitar so he was taught just enough on set to film the rocking club scene early on in the film. 

4. John Lithgow looking for inspiration for his characters accent found a Italian tailor with a voice he loved so much he had him record lines so he could mimicking the sound for his role. He later insisted that the man receive credit in the movie so he is credited as “Mr Lithgows dialect coach”. 

5. “Lizards from Saturn” was the original concept of the numerous short story templates on the board that eventually became the film but in that original short synopsis the invading aliens were spreading venereal diseases amongst the population. 

6. When Christopher Lloyd’s character flips off John Lithgow at the end of the film this was improv and caused Lithgow to crack out of character. In the film you can slightly see it before the scene cuts.

7. The studio executives did not like Buckaroo wearing red glasses. The director was called into an office where there was a conflict over it. When asked how many more times the director planned to use them he just offhandedly said twice. He was told ok but not a fourth. There was an assistant on set watching to make sure and report anytime the glasses were used with threat of shutting the film down. At one point executives were confused as to how many times were allowed and were prepared to shut down production before the office clerk assured them he agreed to “no more than 4”

8. The infamous random watermelon pointed out by Jeff Goldblum when touring the Buckaroo base was improv but the director explained that the watermelon was being stressed test to see how much load it could withstand for air dropping food to poverty stricken nations. In reality they were placed around the set to test if the executives were still watching the dailies. If they did not ask about the watermelons they knew they were not watching and had freedom to do what they wanted. 

9. Because of the need to extend shots of miniatures by racking multiple shots in a row there is a scene where a small piece of the miniature antenna disappears because it  broke off during production . If you look closely it disappears during the shot and due to cost and time constraints to rebuild miniatures and re-shoot it was decided to leave it in and no one ever seemed to notice.

10. Many of the cast and crew recall that they didn’t fully understand the movie when reading the script (and many admittedly still do not) but thought the movie felt like an Indiana Jones style adventure. 

Bonus Fact! The final classic end credits scene shot in the L.A .basin was shot six months after filming. It was believed the film needed a more epic ending. Besides characters being brought back from the dead for the scene if you look Perfect Tommy (Lewis Smith) changes wardrobe three times.