History Trivia / TrueStories

** David Byrne wanted to end the film with the "a death, a funeral and a wedding" in addition to the talent show as a GrandFinale. The death in this case was of the Cute Woman, who would have died in an accident during the parade. They even found a pink fur casket for her. But everyone agreed that it was [[SuddenDownerEnding too sad]] and the scene was cut. She does fall off the stage during the fashion show but is apparently unhurt.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: David Byrne used to clip and collect tabloid newspapers stories while on tour. All of the oddball characters and bizarre stories came from him imagining what it would be like if all those fabricated stories were true.

* CaliforniaDoubling: Averted; filmed entirely on the outskirts of the DFWMetroplex.

** John Ingle (The Preacher) was a drama teacher at Hollywood High School before he turned to acting full-time, and one of his students was Creator/SwoosieKurtz (The Lazy Woman).

* HeAlsoDid: Creator/StephenTobolowsky is credited with the screenplay, along with playwright Beth Henley (''Theatre/CrimesOfTheHeart'', who was in a CreatorCouple with Tobolowsky at the time) and Byrne. Tobolowsky later explained his involvement in more detail. He'd met Byrne at a screening of ''Film/StopMakingSense'' and they became friends, then Byrne presented Tobolowsky and Henley with all the characters and concepts he'd put together, and they wrote an initial screenplay draft. But by the time it actually went before the cameras, Byrne basically rewrote everything except a few lines. However, he was worried about it getting dismissed as VanityProject, so he asked Tobolowsky and Henley if he could give them co-writing credit. Some of their influence still remains in the finished film. Dallas native Tobolowsky came up with the Texas setting and the state's sesquicentennial as a story framework, while some of the female characters (Kay Culver, The Lying Woman, The Cute Woman) would fit perfectly into a Henley play.

* HarpoDoesSomethingFunny: Jo Harvey Allen (The Lying Woman) was allowed to write her character into scenes where she didn't appear in the screenplay, such as the church scene. Other times, she'd simply be dropped into a scene and be allowed to ad lib.

* CreatorCouple: There were several of these involved in the production, including Music/DavidByrne and Adelle Lutz (who designed the outfits for the fashion show; Byrne and Lutz were married shortly after the film's release), credited screenwriters Creator/StephenTobolowsky and Beth Henley, and Annie [=McEnroe=] (who played Kay Culver) is the wife of executive producer Edward Pressman.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
** The "Shopping Is a Feeling" sequence chronicles the height of shopping mall culture in the 1980s.
** The video for "Love for Sale" is a time capsule of 1986 TV commercials.
** Zig-zagged with the line about Creator/SteveJobs no longer being the head of Apple; in 1986, the line was fairly topical, as Jobs had just been fired the year earlier after a feud with CEO John Sculley. However, Jobs came and went from the company several more times for the rest of his life, causing the line to cycle in and out of this trope on a loop; eventually, it was rendered timeless by Jobs' death in 2011.

** Music/TalkingHeads considered supporting the resulting album with a tour of [[DriveInTheater drive-in theaters]]. This would have been their first time playing live since the tour supporting ''Music/SpeakingInTongues'', captured in ''Film/StopMakingSense''.

** With the exception of John Goodman, the talent show all consists of real local talents from Fort Worth. To ensure that only the most esoteric acts would show up, the recruitment flyer specified "no mimes, no jugglers, no magicians, no rock acts" (line dancers and cheerleaders aren't ''that'' unusual, but they're distinctly Texan).

* RealLifeRelative: Annie [=McEnroe=] (Kay Culver) is the wife of executive producer Edward Pressman.

** Before Byrne himself ultimately took up the role, actor and ''Today Show'' weatherman Willard Scott (best known for portraying Ronald [=McDonald=] in the first UsefulNotes/McDonalds commercials) was considered for the role of the narrator. Newscaster Paul Harvey was also considered.
** David Byrne wanted to end the film with the "a death, a funeral and a wedding" in addition to the talent show as a GrandFinale. The death in this case was of the Cute Woman, who would have died in an accident during the parade. Everyone agreed that it was [[SuddenDownerEnding too sad]] and the scene was cut. She does fall off the stage during the fashion show but is apparently unhurt.

* BreakawayPopHit: The Music/TalkingHeads album and its singles, especially "Wild Wild Life", were more successful than the film itself and still the most-remembered part of the project. The video for "Wild Wild Life", which is just a slightly re-edited version of the song's sequence in the film, was in high rotation on Creator/{{MTV}} in the autumn of 1986.

* BreakawayPopHit: The Music/TalkingHeads album and its singles, especially "Wild Wild Life", were more successful than the film itself and still the most-remembered part of the project

** It also play a bit like an Americanized ''Film/{{Amarcord}}'', since it's likewise a vignette-based film about a QuirkyTown featuring an onscreen narrator.

** The film is sort of an ersatz ''Film/{{Nashville}}''; David Byrne has admitted as much.
** You can also call it an Americanized ''Film/{{Amarcord}}'', since it's likewise a vignette-based film about a QuirkyTown featuring an onscreen narrator.

** The "Shopping Is a Feeling" sequence chronicles the height of shopping mall culture.