FILM · 1993 · USA
Coneheads
37 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
37 Interesting Facts About Coneheads
Interesting Facts (29)
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Laraine Newman, who plays Laarta, was the original Connie Conehead on Saturday Night Live (1975).
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The book Prymatt reads while lying laughing in the hotel bed is a Bible placed by Gideon. The passage she reads is the Book of Revelation, about the end of the world. Since Prymatt knows how it will really happen (a Conehead invasion), the strange creatures described in the Bible strike her as very funny.
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For Aykroyd, Curtin and Burke, who arrived before dawn every day, the prosthetic "coning" process took about two hours to turn them into "Coneheads." Because the foam latex structures were destroyed once removed, a new piece was needed for each day of shooting, resulting in roughly 1,000 "cones" created by David Miller Studio in North Hollywood, CA. After the cones were shaped to fit the actors' head molds, the material was baked for six hours to draw out moisture, then applied to the skull with an adhesive called Pax Paint and blended into the skin with makeup.
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As part of the film's marketing, Paramount ran an ad in several major magazines parodying the marketing campaigns of the clothing retailer The Gap. Gap obtained a court order against further use of the ad, and Paramount complied. Additional promotional efforts included the production of 50,000 Conehead prosthetics for people to wear in public settings such as on public transport.
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Dan Aykroyd reportedly made a fuss about people forced to park outside the lot being treated according to their makeup, hair and clothing. Paramount eventually created special "Conehead" parking permits for about half a dozen people. Aykroyd had pulled a similar stunt in the late '70s while shooting "The Blues Brothers" for Universal, when he tried to have a security guard fired for telling him he could not park in a parking space.
- #017
The film's French dub has the Coneheads still speaking French when Seedling tries to catch them on the claim that they are French, but instead of asking whether the Coneheads still speak French, Seedling asks whether they have contacts with other French people there. The rest of the dialogue is largely equivalent to the original English soundtrack, though it contains somewhat more natural French dialogue.
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In the first draft of Coneheads, Bill Murray played Connie's date Ronnie, who drives a tow truck. In the film Coneheads, Chris Farley plays Connie's boyfriend Ronnie, a mechanic.
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The character of INS Agent Seedling (Michael McKean) is a clear example of the "Inspector Javert" archetype, obsessively pursuing the virtuous hero Beldar over minor violations. Inspector Javert originated as the villain in Hugo's "Les Miserables." In the film, a cut directly caused by Agent Seedling appears in the Times Square scene, which features a prominent billboard for the "Les Miserables" musical.
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Although he appears on screen for only about a minute, Michael Richards was reported to have hated his own performance at the time of the film's release and to have offered a refund to anyone who told him they had gone to the cinema to see the film. How many refunds Richards gave is unknown.
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Production Story (4)
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Aykroyd and Davis's first draft of the script focused too much on military action. They got stuck describing how the National Guard shoots down the Coneheads' spaceship over Lake Michigan and how the Air Force begins searching for them. But Michaels wanted the film to be about assimilation, their daughter Connie going to high school, and Beldar's fear of the Bluntskulls. So the script was reworked to reflect themes of immigration and suburban life, with the involvement of Wayne's World (1992) writers Bonnie and Terry Turner (whose greatest strength is writing about the suburbs).
- #031
Dan Aykroyd asked Paramount whether he could direct this film, but the studio immediately turned down the request because his first directing effort (Nothing But Trouble (1991), also his only film as director as of 2025) was a huge critical and financial fiasco. Steve Barron was hired on the strength of his success with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990).
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Coneheads was scheduled to open nationwide in the United Kingdom on 13 July 1993, with accompanying trailers, posters and cinema stands. Tie-in toys were in stores and it even appeared on the cover of Time Out Magazine, which published a detailed multi-page article about the film for its opening weekend; the film's release was cancelled at the last minute. Billboards advertised a film that was not shown and newspapers ran ads for screenings that did not exist. It was the film with the biggest campaign behind it and its release was cancelled a week before it was due to open; popular theories were either that it would open the same day as Jurassic Park and would stand no chance against the year's most hyped film, or that Saturday Night Live had never really played in the United Kingdom, and the lack of established characters or a point of recognition for British audiences potentially doomed it at the box office. Decades later, the United Kingdom was considered the best place to find the newly released Coneheads toys on card, because many stores pulled them from display and threw them into storage when they heard the release had been cancelled.
Behind the Scenes (1)
- #034
During shooting on the Paramount lot, Dan Aykroyd lost him at one point. In full "Conehead" costume, the actor let out a huge scream at the studio's Melrose Boulevard gate after a security guard scolded him because his personal wardrobe exceeded the lot's 12 km/h speed limit. Aykroyd was so angry afterward that, upon hearing that one of the production assistants had been given a hard time for trying to enter the lot late at night, he stormed into the security booth and trashed it. He threw everything on the floor, ripped one of the phones out of the wall, flung papers around, knocked the computer to the ground, and held down the button on the wooden arm (that lets cars in) and began waving incoming cars through with "please come in… welcome to Paramount Pictures." A female security guard who witnessed the incident was so upset that she became short of breath and had to go to the lot's infirmary. At one point in his tirade, Aykroyd commandeered one of the studio's golf carts and drove around screaming and cursing.
Characters & Cast (1)
Easter Eggs & References (1)
Deeper Meaning (1)
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Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
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