FILM · 1991 · UK
Drop Dead Fred
35 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
19 Interesting Facts About Drop Dead Fred
- #001
Carrie Fisher rewrote some of the dialogue.
- #002
The scene in which Polly tapes Fred into a box inside a box was based on a real incident that happened to Steve Burnette, a friend of co-writer/executive producer Carlos Davis; Gloria's mother had an imaginary friend during Gloria's childhood, but her mother could not stand the fact that her daughter had an imaginary friend. Gloria's mother eventually flushed the imaginary friend down the toilet, which traumatized Gloria for three years.
- #004
Robin Williams was offered the role of Drop Dead Fred, but he chose to play Peter Banning in Hook (1991) instead. Rik Mayall played Drop Dead Fred in his place. Mayall and Williams both died in the summer of 2014.
- #005
There is an alternative ending in which Elizabeth reads her daughter Natalie a bedtime story at Mickey's house and, a few minutes later, comes out of Natalie's room and tells them about it. A few minutes later Natalie comes out of her room and tells Elizabeth and Mickey that her "imaginary friend" has torn up her teddy bear; Elizabeth asks Natalie the name of her imaginary friend, and Natalie says "Drop Dead Fred." The scene ends with a shot of a pop-up book opening to reveal a pop-up image of Drop Dead Fred, along with Fred's voice saying "Playtime." The film was shown to a test audience, who hated the ending because they hated the idea of Fred disappearing forever. This led New Line Cinema to cut and reshoot the ending with Fred and Natalie playing a prank on Natalie's babysitter. The original ending was included as an extra on the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray.
- #006
Grandmother Bunce is played by the director's mother. Yogurt was used in the scene where paint is thrown on her; she said she was still finding yogurt in her ears weeks later.
- #007
While watching the film's rough cut, a New Line executive asked whether Rik Mayall's character could be re-dubbed to speak with a more transatlantic accent and a less strong English accent, which American audiences would not find very jarring. When one of the Working Title producers called Mayall to pass on the suggestion, Mayall typically replied, "You must be joking, I'm Rik '12-inch throbbing manhood' Mayall and I'm English. If he wants a transatlantic voice, give him a shovel and tell him to dig out Cary 'fucking' Grant." The idea was dropped soon after.
- #009
The mud pie that squirts mud onto Charles's trousers was controlled by compressed-air tubes under the table. At one point something went wrong with the tubes and mud sprayed all over the crew and an uninsured painting worth $100,000.
- #011
Writers Carlos Davis and Anthony Fingleton first took the script to Disney, which wanted Goldie Hawn to star because Disney had a film deal with her at the time, but did not want Rik Mayall. Davis and Fingleton rejected the idea and then took it to the London-based production company Living Title Films; Working Title executives Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe liked the script and hired Dutch filmmaker Ate De Jong as director after seeing his horror comedy Highway to Hell (1991) and being impressed by his work on the film. Working Title also hired Paul Webster, who had produced The Tall Guy (1989) for them the previous year, as producer. The $6 million budget was financed by PolyGram, with which Living Title had a deal at the time.
- #012
It was shot in Minneapolis in 1990; producer Paul Webster felt that shooting there was not only cost-effective but that Minneapolis, unlike Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York, represented a generic American city.
- #015
Writers Anthony Fingleton and Carlos Davis wrote the role of Fred only for Rik Mayall; Mayall even contributed ideas to the script, such as the opening in which Elizabeth's mother reads her a bedtime story and Fred sinking the floating boat. Phoebe Cates also came up with the idea of Drop Dead Fred being visible in some scenes and not in others.
- #016
The houseboat Janie lives on is a real residence.
- #017
Both the producer and the co-writer/co-executive producer appear in the film without being credited by name. Webster is the man who gets into Lizzie's car and steals her purse, and Fingleton is one of the wine tasters at Charles's wine-tasting party.
- #018
New Line Cinema asked director Ate De Jong to cut some of the gross-out humor, such as the shot in which Fred spits into Lizzie's head and the shot in which Fred flicks snot into Polly's coffee. These scenes later resurfaced in the film's 25th Anniversary Blu-ray release.
- #019
The fire truck Fred crashes into is, as in Elizabeth's imagination, a visualization of the toy fire truck she mentioned earlier.
- #026
When the film was released in the US it failed and bombed. Because there was no major studio behind it, it received only relatively small, unpublicized releases abroad and went unnoticed. In hindsight this seems like an odd decision, since Rik Mayall was an incredibly popular comedian among young people in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and a strong theatrical release in those countries would likely have earned good box office.
- #027
Phoebe Cates's husband, Kevin Kline, was supposed to take a role in the film, but it never happened.
- #028
Ashley Peldon, who plays young Elizabeth, has blue eyes; Phoebe Cates has brown eyes.
- #030
The light brown-orange hair dye Rik Mayall used to play the title character took several months to fade and grow out, and it is noticeable in the third series of Mayall's sitcom The New Statesman (1987).
- #031
Although most of the characters in the film hate his character, all the cast and crew, including Marsha Mason and Tim Matheson, who play the film's antagonists Polly and Charles, said only positive things about Rik Mayall. After Mayall's death in 2014, everyone shared fond memories of him.
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