Trivia for
A Fish Called Wanda (1988) More at IMDbPro »

• John Cleese's character is called Archie Leach, which is Cary Grant's real name.
  
  
• When Otto leaves Archie's home, he says to Archie's wife Wendy that they would all speak German without the USA. He leaves the house while singing the first verse of the anthem: "Deutschland über alles". The German dubbed version has an altered dialog, he says that they'd all eat sauerkraut and listen to military marches, then he imitates some military marches instead of singing the anthem, as the first verse is considered too nationalist and generally not sung in public.
  
  
• Leach's daughter Portia is played by John Cleese's real-life daughter Cynthia Cleese, credited as Cynthia Caylor.
  
  
• The scene where Otto sits up in the background behind Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) is reminiscent of a scene in Halloween (1978), in which the character of Michael Myers sat up behind Curtis' character.
  
  
• The dog death scenes were originally filmed with entrails from a butchers scattered around the dead dog. Preview audiences reacted strongly to this, so the scenes were reshot with an obviously fake straw dog.
  
  
• The hymn that the choirboys sing at the dogs' funerals is: Miserere Dominus, miserere Dominus, Canis mortuus est, which translated into English is: Have mercy, Lord; have mercy, Lord; the dog is dead.
  
  
• George Thomason is played by Tom Georgeson.
  
  
• Michael Palin went on to found the London Centre for Stammering Children after a group of stutterers confronted him regarding the sensitivity with which he dealt with Ken's handicap in this film.
  
  
• In the original English version, Otto speaks Italian in some scenes with Wanda. In the Italian dubbed version he speaks Spanish.
  
  
• For the French dubbed version when Wanda states that Otto mistook the Gettysburg Address for Lincoln's residence, it is replaced with Wanda stating that Otto mistook General Motors for a hero of the war of '14.
  
  
• Kevin Kline begged John Cleese to let Otto speak French instead of Italian when he wants to seduce Jamie Lee Curtis, since Kline speaks French. Cleese insisted that it had to be Italian. Kline started singing "Volare" because he ran out of Italian cheeses and other Italian phrases that he could ad lib, and was concerned that the director did not yell cut, since the producers did not own the rights to "Volare" when the scene was being filmed.
  
  
• Holds record of Longest Time to Reach #1 as of 2009. The movie was released on 15 July 1988 in the U.S., and reached #1 on 16 September 1988.
  
  
• The poem Archie Leach recites in Russian for Wanda Gershwitz is Molitva (1839) by Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841).
  
  
• The principal interior setting was the flat of Nicholas Lacey and playwright wife Juliet Aykroyd, in a loft development in a former warehouse at Reeds Wharf, Docklands, London.
  
  
• John Cleese claims that this is Charles Crichton's movie. He merely took a co-director credit to reassure studio execs because they were not sure Crichton could direct comedy.
  
  
• In the robbery scene it really was Kevin Kline shooting the crossbow at the sensor. He got it on the second take.
  
  
• Michael Palin's father stuttered, so Michael used a lot his real life experience when playing Ken, including the fact that Ken's stutter is less pronounced around people he trusts (Tom and Wanda) and worse around people he is uncomfortable with (Otto).
  
  
• The British Airways plane that can be seen at the airport is a Boeing 747-236 called "City of Manchester", registration G-BDXC. It was scrapped in 2002 after about 25 years of service.
  
  
• James Cossins was cut out of this film
  
  
• The plane featured in the final scenes of the film has now been destroyed. It was sold to European Skybus Ltd and then scrapped in Cardiff. G-BDXC.
  
  
• Jamie Lee Curtis was listed as "Jamie Lee Schwartz" on all the call sheets, because John Cleese found it amusing that her father Tony Curtis's real name was Bernard Schwartz.
  
  
• Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.
  
  
• When this film was shown in the theaters in Denmark, a Doctor literally laughed himself to death during the scene where Ken gets the chips up his nose. The story behind this, is that the man had made a joke a few years earlier with his family during dinner, where he put a piece of cauliflower up his and every family members nose as a joke and made a bet with them on who could eat up their carrots without the cauliflower falling out. When the scene with Ken and the chips came up, he started thinking about this dinner-incident and laughed so hard that his heart stopped. This story is well known in Scandinavia and spread around as almost an "urban legend" shortly after it happened. It later got confirmed by his son, who also told the dinner-story as an explanation to why his father laughed so hard from the chips-scene that he died.
  
  
• When Otto (Kevin Kline), suggests possible snitchers to George, he suggests Kevin Delaney, which are Kline's first and middle names.
  
  
• In the opening sequence that introduces the principal cast, a model Eiffel Tower can be seen over Michael Palin's shoulder. This may be a reference to Charles Crichton's earlier film The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), in which Alec Guinness tries to smuggle stolen gold out of England by melting it and disguising it as model Eiffel Towers.
  
  
• Jamie Lee Curtis buried her face in pillows during Kevin Kline's ejaculation scene, to keep her from bursting out laughing at the faces he was making.
  
  
• John Cleese has said in interviews that Patricia Hayes was the only cast member not to have any material deleted during editing.
  
  
• John Cleese who plays British barrister Archie Leach actually entered Cambridge University as a law student although he never became a member of the British bar.
  
  
• The fish that Kevin Kline eats are made out of Jello. Kline claims that he offered to eat real, live fish, but the filmmakers wouldn't let him.
  
  
• Director Charles Crichton's last film.
  
  
• In 1989, a Danish man named Ole Bentzen literally laughed to death while watching this movie.
  
  
• Various U.S. television stations deleted the "chips up the nostrils" scene. Airing it was deemed as insensitive to individuals with mental impairments.
  
  
• One of Otto's lines throughout the movie is "Don't call me stupid." In The Ladykillers (1955), One Round didn't like to be called stupid either. Charles Crichton the director of _A Fish Called Wanda_ (1988) was a veteran of the Ealing films, most famously directing _The Lavender Hill Mob_ (1951).
  
  
• Archie and Wendy sleep in separate beds. Just like Basil and Sybil in "Fawlty Towers" (1975), also co-created by John Cleese.
  
  

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