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Spoilers (1)
When the family is looking for Mrs. Doubtfire's replacement, many of the potential nannies are members of the crew, including production assistant Erik Ross, art department coordinator Kristen Ross and production coordinator Jacqueline A. Shea. The final name crossed off the list is that of associate producer Paula DuPré Pesmen.
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Mrs. Doubtfire's accent was inspired by Bill Forsyth, the Scottish director that Robin Williams had just worked with on Being Human.
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In real life Robin Williams divorced his wife in order to marry his nanny. In this film he divorces his wife and becomes her nanny.
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The Hillards' San Francisco home is located on the east side of the 2600 block of Steiner Street at the corner of Broadway.
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Toward the end of the movie when Mrs. Doubtfire is filming her television show, the mailman who comes to the door can be heard saying he has a letter from Katie in Youngstown, Ohio. Director Chris Columbus is from Youngstown, Ohio.
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Before Mrs. Doubtfire comes over, the children are watching a clip from episode 1.1 of The Outer Limits, "The Hundred Days of the Dragon," which first aired on 23 September 1963. This is incorrectly referred to as _"Twilight Zone" (1959)_ in the director's commentary.
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The character "Mrs. Doubtfire" was first performed by Robin Williams at a show Andy Kaufman did at Carnegie Hall. Williams pretended to be Kaufman's grandmother.
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The puppet "Kovacs" (on Mrs. Doubtfire's TV show) is named after pioneering comic Ernie Kovacs.
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According to one biography, Robin Williams decided to test out the believability of his Mrs. Doubtfire character during filming by going, as Mrs. Doubtfire, into an adult bookstore and making a purchase. He was able to do so without being recognized.
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The San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) bus used for Route 22 (Fillmore) is a real 1989 New Flyer bus built in Canada for the Muni fleet.
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While extracting the false teeth from the wine glass, Mrs. Doubtfire jokes "Carpe Dentum... seize the teeth." This echoes "Carpe Diem... seize the day", Robin Williams' recurring phrase from Dead Poets Society. Coincidentally, Williams had earlier appeared in the little-known movie Seize the Day.
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The address given by Miranda while on the phone with Mrs. Doubtfire is the actual physical address of the Hillard house used for the filming of the movie. 2640 Steiner St.
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The scene where Daniel knocks down the prosthetic mask and it goes flying out into the street, required over 50 takes.
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The prosthetic mask used by Robin Williams in the film was actually a prop. The real makeup was made up of eight separate pieces.
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Known for his trademark spontaneity of improvisation, Robin Williams was given free range by director Chris Columbus to do what he needed. However, his improvisation can occasionally spark off numerous references to other works that prove to be legal headaches for movie studios. The scene where Daniel speaks with his wife and refers to her clothes as "this lovely Dances with Wolves motif", required legal clearance for the studio to put it in the film. Associate producer Paula DuPré Pesmen later kept track of every reference Williams made while improvising.
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During the scene when Mrs. Sellner comes to inspect Daniel's apartment and Daniel/Mrs. Doubtfire is serving her tea, the icing on his/her face is melting off. This was not intentional. The heat from the set lights melted the icing on his face and Robin Williams improvised the bulk of that scene.
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KTVU is an actual television station licensed to Oakland, California, and the logo (circle and number 2) used in the film is the actual logo the station uses to this day (November 2005).
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In the scene where Mrs. Doubtfire is reading a story, the story she is reading is Stuart Little, and the part she reads is from "Chapter 1: The Drain"
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Mrs. Doubtfire is quietly singing "The Crying Game" as she walks up to Stu's Mercedes (the scene where she pulls the hood decal off). The song is the theme from The Crying Game, a movie that became famous (or notorious, depending on the viewer) for its surprise plot line about a transgender woman.
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Robin Williams used much of his real childhood nanny to characterize Mrs. Doubtfire. When British tabloids found this out, they went looking for his former nanny. They found his real nanny, "Lolly", in a Michigan nursing home, and the reporters and photographers flocked to the little town to get an interview with her. Lolly balked at the attention and downplayed her impressive role. (The reporter found out Lolly had in fact been a nanny to other Hollywood celebrities, including Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Waggoner.) As a result, the local newspaper ran a story of Lolly with the heading "The Real Mrs. Doubtfire".
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Daniel Hillard's career as a voice actor is unusual, being that he is based in San Fransisco (not known as a key hub of voice-over work) and we see him providing full voices for finished animation (extremely rare in American VO traditions). This could be considered a mistake, but it could also be assumed that Daniel is replacing a voice track that is for some reason faulty, and must do the entire track over in an automated dialogue replacement session. This could be why the voice director points out how much money the session is costing the studio.
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The character Aunt Jack was named after the title character in one of Robin Williams all time favorite shows, and one of Williams favorite things about Australia, The Aunty Jack Show.
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When Anne Fine was approached to make a movie out of her novel, her original choice for the lead role was Warren Beatty. Because of Beatty's reputation as a great womanizer she thought it would be hysterical to see him dress up and pretend to be a woman.
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In the pilot for Charmed toward the end of the show, Shannen Doherty picks up a newspaper from the sidewalk. The newspaper headline reads "Firemen Doubt Fire was Accidental", the same newspaper prop used by Robin Williams's character giving him the idea for the name "Mrs. Doubtfire".
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Mrs. Doubtfire 2 was to be a sequel to the 1993 box office hit. Writing began in 2003 by Bonnie Hunt (Cheaper by the Dozen, Cars, Jumanji). Robin Williams was set to return in disguise as an old nanny like in the first movie. Due to problems with the script, re-writing began in early 2006 as Robin Williams was allegedly unhappy with the plot. The film was expected to be released in late 2007, but following further script problems the sequel was declared "scrapped" in mid-2006. Apparently, the sequel's story involved Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire moving close to his daughter's college so he could keep an eye on her.
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During the conversion to film, most of the characters were moderated heavily. In the book, all the main characters, apart from Natalie, tend to act in self-interest and expect a large amount of credit whenever they do otherwise. The divorce of Miranda and Daniel in the book is also much more bitter.
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Stu was originally scripted to be an arrogant villain but Chris Columbus felt that it hurt the relationship with Mrs. Doubtfire so Stu was re-written to be more the perfect potential replacement for a father for the kids.
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Lisa Jakub played the daughter of Timothy Dalton in The Beautician and the Beast, and the daughter of a love interest of Pierce Brosnan's in this movie. Both Dalton and Brosnan have played James Bond.
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One of the makeup attempts winds up looking more like an old Jewish man. Robin Williams improvs on this for a moment, then Williams, Harvey Fierstein, and Scott Capurro sing the chorus of "Matchmaker, Matchmaker", from 'Fiddler On The Roof'. Fierstein has starred in 'Fiddler' in two different Broadway revivals.
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Spoilers
The producers fired the original screenwriter because of an "unhappy" ending, where the parents do not get back together. After several re-writes, with a different, "happy" ending, they realized that the original ending was, in fact, better. They re-hired the original writer and went back to the original ending.
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