Trivia
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Spoilers (1)
As a "thank you" for all of the free advertising the film gave them, White Castle arranged to have collectible "Harold and Kumar" cups at all of their locations during the film's release. It marks the first time an R-rated comedy is advertised on fast food containers.
When Harold and Kumar were walking to Freakshow's house, John Cho was unaware that there was a German Shepherd in the cage next to them. When the dog barked, Cho shouted and grabbed Kal Penn. This reaction was genuine.
Kal Penn, who plays Kumar, is a vegetarian, so technicians made veggie Castles for him.
This movie relaunched the career of Neil Patrick Harris who then won the role of Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother (2005).
On the DVD version if you go to the Menu screen you'll see Harold and Kumar driving Harold's car. If you let it sit long enough, they'll start to complain. "Why haven't they picked one of the menu choices yet? There are only, what, four choices?" Wait awhile longer: "They STILL haven't picked? What should we do? Do you want me to take my clothes off?".
Co-writer Jon Hurwitz told the New York Times that if Neil Patrick Harris had turned down the role, their second choice was Ralph Macchio, who, like Harris, was best known for a wholesome role. In Macchio's case, The Karate Kid (1984) and its sequels.
The real restaurant "Hot Dog Heaven" is only located in two cities in Ohio, Amherst and Avon Lake. The producers had lunch in the original restaurant in Amherst one day and loved it so much they asked the owner to use the logo in the movie.
On a promotional talk show appearance by Christopher Meloni, he explained that when writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg approached him with the script, they said of the part "You were the first person we thought of." After reading the introduction of his character, which simply describes him as "the ugliest man on Earth," he got the joke.
Ryan Reynolds shows up as a doctor in the movie and wipes Kal Penn's brow after he completes surgery on the dying man. This is a tribute to a scene in Van Wilder where Kal Penn wipes Ryan Reynolds' brow during the infamous baked goods scene.
Neil Patrick Harris plays a character named "Neil Patrick Harris" and is billed as such rather than being billed "as himself." According to an interview on NPR, this was done to make clear that he plays a parody of himself.
The "dust" in the vent was made out of walnut powder, even though the crew had received a memo saying that Kal Penn is extremely allergic to nuts. Production had to be stopped for the day that they shot the scenes with Kumar falling out of the vent in the police station while Kal Penn had to go to the hospital. The powder was then remade with chocolate powder for the next round of shooting. (from DVD commentary)
The defecation sounds from the women's washroom scene were real defecation sounds recorded at a truck stop by one of the film's sound technicians.
The characters Rosenberg and Goldstein are named for the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the William Shakespeare play "Hamlet". The writers had hoped to create an alternate film with these characters that takes place in the same time period much like the way that the Tom Stoppard play "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" takes place in the same time period as "Hamlet".
Harold shares a jail cell with Tarik, who tells him not to get riled up by people because "in the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should". Tarik is quoting the 1927 poem "Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann.
In an April 2020 Op-Ed that John Cho wrote for the Los Angeles Times, Cho recalled that in 2004, when he and Kal Penn were traveling together on their nationwide press tour to promote Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Penn (and only Penn) was repeatedly stopped and searched whenever they went through airport security: "We flew across the country-New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle-and it became a grim routine: Flight after flight, Kal would be pulled aside for a 'random' search. On one leg of the tour, Kal's friend Gabe joined us, and when we hit security, Kal was selected for a search while Gabe and I flew through unscathed. We gathered our bags and waited on a bench for Kal to be released. Rummaging through his backpack, Gabe suddenly said, 'Kal's going to be annoyed.' When I looked inside it, I realized why: Gabe, who is white, had gone camping recently, and had neglected to remove his Rambo-sized hunting knife from his backpack. I gasped and looked back at Kal, who was watching a Transportation Security Administration worker empty the contents of his bag. It was a reality check."
Both John Cho and Kal Penn appeared on How I Met Your Mother alongside Neil Patrick Harris, though Cho shared no scenes with him.
The large poster in Harold and Kumar's apartment is for a 1942 anti-marijuana propaganda film known as "Devil's harvest".
The movie poster at the end of the Burgerland dream sequence lists Maria's full name as "Maria Quesa Dilla". It also contains the tagline "There is a pinche puto in all of us."
The pipe that Goldstein and Rosenberg smoke marijuana out of is made of a shofar. A shofar is a musical horn made from a kosher animal's horn (usually a ram) that is used on the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Luis Guzmán had a small part as Maria's brother, but this was eventually deleted from the film. The scene was a gag that made Harold think Guzman was dating Maria.
Despite the comic use of the Indian American character in Harold and Kumar, when Leiner came to Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital to donate bone marrow for his brother Ken's leukemia, the Indian doctors on the staff there said it was their favorite film.
Some of the books on Kumar's bookshelf include: "To Kill A Rabbi" by Reuben Slonim, "Spy Story" by Len Deighton, "The Grand Chessboard" by Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Knight, Death and the Devil", "McMahon!" by Jim McMahon and Bob Verdi, and "Catch". Kumar also has a Fourth Edition MCAT prep book, but that's just the hiding place for his weed, as well as his supply of papers to roll with.
When watching television, Kumar wears a shirt referencing President Bush. Kal Penn went to work in the White House for the Obama Administration, Bush's successor.
Kumar says the line "Thank You, Come Again", made famous by Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from The Simpsons (1989). However, Kal Penn has stated in the documentary The Problem with Apu (2017), he harbors a strong dislike towards the character and the show.
