\u201cPlanes, Trains, and Automobiles,\u201d starring Steve Martin and John Candy, debuted in 1987 and has become an annual Thanksgiving Day rewatch.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s a perfect choice for the holiday, between the hilarious traveling headaches the duo encounter on the titular forms of transportation, to the heartfelt friendship that develops between the two leads that is guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye.<\/p>\n
In case you\u2019re unfamiliar, the film follows Neal Page (Steve Martin) a marketing executive trying to get back to his hometown of Chicago who becomes a travel buddy with overbearing but kind traveling salesman Del Griffith (John Candy) after their flight out of New York is diverted. They end up on a multi-day odyssey full of misadventures (and yes, planes, trains, and automobiles) as they race to get to Neal\u2019s family\u2019s Thanksgiving dinner.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve seen the movie a dozen times or are a newcomer, here are 7 fun facts about this Thanksgiving classic.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Based on a True Story<\/p>\n
Before he became synonymous with 80s movies and teen comedies, writer\/director John Hughes worked in advertising just like Steve Martin\u2019s character. And just like Neal, Hughes experienced the same kind of flight diversion trying to fly from New York to Chicago. He was first almost sent to Des Moines, Iowa, but sent instead to Denver and then routed through Phoenix before finally making it back to Chicago on a Monday (he left Wednesday). They say write what you know, and clearly Hughes did.<\/p>\n
The Original Cut is Over Four Hours Long<\/p>\n
The \u201cPlanes, Trains, and Automobiles\u201d we all know and love comes in at a brisk 92 minutes, the perfect length for a comedy. But the original cut Hughes wanted was over four hours long, based on a 145-page script he wrote. Over 600,000 feet of film was shot for the film, but most of it ended up on the cutting room floor.<\/p>\n
Kevin Bacon\u2019s Cameos<\/p>\n
Kevin Bacon appears briefly in the opening scenes of the movie, racing against Neal to get a cab for the airport. He doesn\u2019t say a word but makes an impression.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s a second cameo from Bacon too. While Neal\u2019s wife is watching TV in bed, you can hear Bacon\u2019s voice from a clip of \u201cShe\u2019s Having a Baby,\u201d another Hughes movie that came out the following year.<\/p>\n
No \u201cHome Alone\u201d Connection<\/p>\n
Like almost all of Hughes\u2019 protagonists, Neal lives in the Chicago suburbs, in a rather nice neighborhood too. Many fans assume that Neal\u2019s house is the same as Kevin\u2019s in \u201cHome Alone,\u201d but they are just similar styles. They are only a town apart from one another, so Neal could have crossed paths with the McAllisters in the John Hughes universe, if you\u2019re into that kind of crossover.<\/p>\n
Casting Changes<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine anyone besides Steve Martin and John Candy in their respective roles, but some other big names were in contention. Hughes originally wanted Tom Hanks as Neal and John Travolta as Del, but it didn\u2019t work out. Rick Moranis was also considered for Neal, with John Goodman as Del.<\/p>\n
Rated R for One Scene<\/p>\n
The otherwise family friendly comedy has one crucial scene that earned it an a R-Rating: Neal\u2019s f-bomb filled rant at the rental car counter. Martin spits out the f-word a whopping 17 times in about 60 seconds, while the worker at the counter, played by Edie McClurg, delivers the closer for a total of 18 f-bombs in an under two minute scene. Not quite a record, but enough to get the movie bumped from PG to R.<\/p>\n
Bonus Fact for that scene: <\/strong>McClurg completely improvised her thanksgiving dinner phone convo that Neal overhears as he approaches the counter.<\/p>\n Elton John Wrote a Song for the Movie<\/p>\n \u201cPlanes, Trains, and Automobiles\u201d was set to have a theme song from Elton John, but business dealings got in the way. Gary Osborne, the lyricist who worked on the song with the \u201cRocketman\u201d singer, revealed that Paramount wanted ownership of the master recording, but John\u2019s record company wouldn\u2019t allow it, and so the song has never been released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPlanes, Trains, and Automobiles,\u201d starring Steve Martin and John Candy, debuted in 1987 and has become an annual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[112194,89679,18,8824,117,19,17,33861,4272,57829,327,89860,30880,107972,13422],"class_list":["post-203848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-and-automobiles","tag-casting","tag-eire","tag-elton-john","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-candy","tag-john-hughes","tag-kevin-bacon","tag-movies","tag-planes","tag-steve-martin","tag-thanksgiving","tag-trains"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115624295967000231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}