The Ca$h INn 28th Edition: Home Alone 1 & 2 Did You Know?
Welcome once again to the latest Edition of The Ca$h INn. I’ve been talking lately about the first two Home Alone movies. Now I wanna take you behind the scenes and give you some interesting information I found out about both movies. Some stuff you may know. Some stuff you may not. So set back, grab a warm beverage, because you are officially Ca$hed INn 🏨.
I’m a start obviously with the first movie. Let’s talk about the main cast. (Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, & Catherine O’ Hara). I’ll throw John Candy’s character in the mix too ( Joe Polinski) because his small role was important. Plus he ties into the point I’m trying to make here. All these years I’m thinking the cast was working together for the first time. That was not the case.
They all worked together on previous projects prior to Home Alone. Candy and Culkin worked together on the movie Uncle Buck. It was directed by the John Hughes. Hughes had the idea to cast Culkin for Home Alone soon after. John Heard and Daniel Stern worked together on the 1984 sci-fi film C.H.U.D. I definitely wanna check that one out after seeing the trailer on YouTube. John Candy and Catherine O’ Hara did some work together as well. I talked about it in the 25 Edition on Home Alone. They did a sketch comedy show together called Second City TV. I checked it out on YouTube as well. O’ Hara was funny. Totally different from the Home Alone roles. If you know more about that show, please reach out to me about it. I wanna learn more. I’ve talked to some co-workers about it who remember it. It seemed like a pretty cool show.
Even The Wet Bandits Harry and Marv (Pesci and Stern) did a film together before Home Alone. They did a movie together called I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can. How surreal is all this? As a child watching this movie, I had no idea a big portion of the main cast had worked together before. Home Alone was like a big reunion for them. That’s so cool to me.
Did you know Joe Pesci was not the only one who was in mind to play the Harry role? Both Jon Lovitz and Robert De Niro turned down the part. Pesci was perfect in the role. Can you imagine if Lovitz or De Niro played Harry? What would they have brought to the role? Both guys are great actors. It would have been interesting to see their portrayal of the Harry Character.
Do you remember toward the end of the first Home Alone where Kevin meets up with Santa Clause? He wasn’t the nicest of Santa’s but he still talked to Kevin. The actor who got the part was Ken Hudson Campbell. According to an article I found on uproxx.com, Chris Farley auditioned for the part too. But was hungover at the time. Campbell says it didn’t go well. Can you imagine if Farley had gotten the part? He was such a physical comedic with a lot of his routines. He would have knocked it out the park. May he rest in peace. He’s another great talent that has gone too soon.
One of the most iconic scenes from both movies is when Kevin is watching the movie Angels with Filthy Souls (Angels with Filthier Souls in Home Alone 2). We got two great movie lines from this. “Keep The Change Ya Filthy Animal” and Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animal”. The movie was made specifically for the Home Alone franchise. I remember reading that fans were looking to purchase the movie. I can’t blame them. We didn’t see much but we saw enough that we’d wanna see the whole thing. The actor who played the role of Johnny was named Ralph Foody. I’m a post a link below that explains how that scene came about.
Remember when Kevin saw a picture of Buzz’s girlfriend and he seemed disgusted? Turns out it was one of the director's sons and not an actual girl. That’s one thing I would have never known if I hadn’t looked it up. Go figure lol. According to Devin Ratray (the actor who played Buzz), they thought using a girls photo would have been to mean because of Kevin’s reaction. So they got a guy to play the part instead.
There were some improvised lines in the movie. John Candy improvised a lot of his lines in his scene with Catherine O’ Hara. He also shot his scene all in one day. Very impressive. Harry and Marv improvised some lines as well. The feather scene where Marv says “Why the hell you dressed like a chicken”. To me, that shows the talent of the actors. They can react naturally to a situation and not have to be fed lines.
So there’s this conspiracy theory that Elvis makes an appearance in the first movie. When’s Kevin’s Mom is at the airport trying to get back home, there’s a guy to her right who favors Elvis quite a bit. We obviously know this isn’t Elvis but you know how people’s mind run with these kinda things. I wonder if anyone tried to reach out to the actor that was in that scene. Hmmm 🤔.
Here’s a really interesting moment they went unnoticed. During the whole pizza scene with Buzz and Kevin early in the movie, when Mr. McCallister is cleaning up he throws Kevin’s ticket away. No wonder they missed him. Plus when the girl did the head count when they were getting in the van, she didn’t even look at the boy she counted. It was the annoying neighbor kid who kept asking questions. That explains a lot.
I didn’t find as many cool facts for Home Alone 2. A couple things I did find out is during the pigeon scene at the end of the movie, one of the birds flew into Daniel Stern mouth. Yuck! Lol. The Hotel used in the film actually offers a Live Like Kevin package. So you can be Kevin for a day. That’s pretty cool. The original title was titled Alone Again but that got changed. The Pigeon lady was inspired by Mary Poppins. That makes sense.
I hope you all enjoyed my 3 part series talking about the Home Alone movies. They were fun to write and research. I’ll post a link to some other stuff I found I may have missed out on for you all to check out. These movies have stood the test of time. We will be sharing them with our children. Introducing the movies to a whole new generation. Until next time, take care, Merry Christmas and rewatch the movies. They are a must during the holiday season.
