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10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Home Alone

It’s hard to believe that Chris Columbus’ family classic ‘Home Alone’ is 25 years old today, so forgive us for feeling old.

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16 November, 1990 saw the film, starring Macaulay Culkin, hit US cinemas, and it’s been a Christmas favourite ever since.

Here are a some interesting things about the movie you might not know.

John Candy improvised & bossed it on-set

Amazingly, John Candy improvised ALL of his lines, including every anecdote and funny line we see in the finished film. Even more impressive is that he did the whole thing in under a day - 23 hours, to be exact.

Buzz’s girlfriend isn’t actually a girl

Remember the photo of Buzz’s ‘girlfriend’ Kev turns his nose up at? Well it’s actually the art director’s son who offered to dress up as a girl. The filmmakers thought making fun of an actual little girl would be too cruel.

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Daniel Stern didn’t scream when he had the tarantula on his face

That hilarious scene where Marv screams the house down was real in the sense that Stern did have a tarantula crawl across his mouth, but the scream was added afterwards because it clearly would’ve scared the spider.

You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more?” was improvised

Amazingly, this line wasn’t in the original script, but is one of the most iconic lines from the film and was used to promote it. A modified line was used in the sequel: “Hey, you guys give up? Have you had enough pain?”

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The film poster is based on the painting ‘The Scream’

Both the movie’s poster and the scene where Kevin splashes aftershave on his face are based on the Edvard Munch painting ‘The Scream’.

The Santa impersonator’s car did stall during the scene

After the Santa impersonator offers Kevin a Tic-Tac, his old car genuinely did stall during the take and, admittedly, it works pretty well.

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There would be no Home Alone without Uncle Buck

A scene from ‘Uncle Buck’ where Macaulay Culkin’s character interrogates the babysitter through a letterbox inspired this whole film, and we see a similar scene play out as Marv pokes his head through the cat flap to be greeted by Kevin pointing a rifle at him.

It’s a Guinness World Record holder

The film was huge upon release, and as well as staying at cinemas until almost halfway through 1991, it was number one for 12 weeks. It was declared the biggest-grossing comedy, internationally, having amassing a whopping $533 million.

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Kevin’s plane ticket was thrown in the bin by his Dad

If you look closely, you can see Kevin’s plane ticket thrown in the bin by his grumpy dad, after dinner gets ruined. This explains why they didn’t have his ticket left over when checking in at the airport.

John Heard didn’t like working on the film because it was bad

Or so he initially thought. He really disliked doing it until he realised it was, in fact, a great movie. He promptly said sorry to director Chris Columbus who claims he has the apology on tape.

Picture credit: Twentieth Century Fox