In the text of a newspaper article in the film: "If you've paused the film in order to read this entire article, your time would be better spent renting Citizen Ruth (1996) from your local video store. Do you know how hard it is to write these fake few stories for newspaper movie props? I've got better things to do."
Chris Klein's debut film. He was a student at Millard West High School in Omaha when he was discovered by director Alexander Payne while looking for a school to use for filming (another one was eventually used). Although other actors auditioned for Paul, Klein stuck in Payne's mind.
The classroom scenes were filmed in Papillion-La Vista Senior High School in Omaha, Nebraska, which is a real high school. During filming, adjacent classrooms had real classes being conducted. In the soundtrack, some background noises come from real teachers and students. Director Alexander Payne decided to leave those noises into the final film, as to give it a more realistic sound.
When MTV Productions sent Alexander Payne the novel in 1997 to gauge his interest, he told them he did not want to produce a teen comedy. After talking with them, they convinced him that the story in essence was a dark, adult comedy disguised as a teen comedy. Buying that argument, he agreed to do the movie.
Reese Witherspoon disapproved of director Alexander Payne's decision to include a freeze frame of Tracy with a contorted face.
L. Carmen Novoa: The Spanish teacher, who was actually a Spanish and French teacher where and when director Alexander Payne had previously attended high school.