History Trivia / Wishbone

** Most of the funding for the first season came from Richard Leach, who was the owner and founder of Lyrick Studios, which produced the series. Fresh from the success of ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'', Leach thought ''Wishbone'' could be a similar marketing juggernaut. However, as successful as ''Wishbone'' might have been in other areas, it never achieved ''Barney'' levels of merchandising success, which is what Leach had been counting on. It therefore became very difficult for series creator Rick Duffield to secure the funding for a second season, especially considering that ''Wishbone'' was quite expensive by PBS standards. By the time he had done so, two years had past, and he only managed to scrounge up enough money for an abbreviated ten-episode season. After that, the odds of a third season were pretty much nil.

** More episodes were supposed to follow "The Roamin' Nose", but the show ended up being cancelled mid-season due to the main actors' significant aging.

* RealLifeRelative: Contrary to popular rumor, Mary Chris Wall is not the actual mother of Jordan Wall, even though they have the same last name and play mother and son on the show.

* BannedEpisode: PBS eventually pulled "The Canine Cure" from reruns in the late '90s due to parental complaints, as the episode was about standing up to uptight MoralGuardians.

* RealLifeRelative: Joe and his mother Ellen are portrayed by Jordan Wall and his actual mother Mary Chris Wall.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: The episode "One Thousand & One Tails" features a bad '90s understanding of the Internet. Joe and Sam ooh and awe as David logs onto the Internet for the first time, repeatedly gasping "Go to that one!" before he's even online. Also, the Internet is apparently a ViewerFriendlyInterface, labeled "Internet Online Access" and consisting of a few icons. David accesses a coded chatroom run by cybercriminals by clicking on the oh-so-not-suspicious icon of someone wearing a ConspicuousTrenchcoat, which is helpfully labeled "Private" and is apparently [[ItsASmallNetAfterAll one of only four chat groups which exist on the Internet]]. He accidentally logs into his dad's bank account while investigating this chatroom, which somehow causes three million dollars to get transferred into his dad's bank account. FBI agents show up at their house [[InstantEmergencyResponse about five minutes later]]. ''Where to start??''

* ActorAllusion: One episode has Wishbone audition for a dog biscuit commercial, with the actor doing the narrating for him played by his actual voice actor in the show.

* RecycledSet: The behind-the-scenes segment in "[[Recap/WishboneS1E13SniffingTheGauntlet Sniffing the Gauntlet]]" is about how they built the Castle Templestowe for ''Literature/{{Ivanhoe}}''. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that Templestowe gets reused in every subsequent episode with a medieval setting.

** While series creator Rick Duffield started off wanting to do a kids' show starring a dog, the concept for the show went through some major revisions. At one point, it was going to be about a bulldog living in UsefulNotes/NewOrleans. At another point, the canine lead was going to be named Knuckles, but theme music composer Tim Cissell declared that, "You cannot call the dog Knuckles." The name "Wishbone" originated from a point when the premise was going to be that the dog brought phenomenal good luck to anyone who owned him. That concept was abandoned because it gave Wishbone a StoryBreakerPower, but they kept the name. It was while looking at a book about world literature that Duffield finally came up with the premise of a dog who imagines himself as the hero in various works of classic literature.

* Eight authors have had more than one of their works featured on ''Wishbone'': Creator/CharlesDickens, Creator/WilliamShakespeare, Creator/RobertLouisStevenson, and Creator/MarkTwain each had three of their works adapted by the show, while Creator/JaneAusten, Creator/ArthurConanDoyle, Creator/AlexandreDumas, and Creator/WashingtonIrving had two of their works featured. Literature/SherlockHolmes is the only character Wishbone played in more than one episode.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: More episodes were supposed to follow "The Roamin' Nose", but the show ended up being cancelled mid-season due to the main actors' significant aging.

** Jeanne Simpson played many roles, including UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, [[RobinHood Maid Marian]], [[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet Juliet]], and [[Literature/TheOdyssey Kalypso]].

* CaliforniaDoubling: The fantasy portions of the show travel all around the world and back through history, from Victorian England to Ancient China to everything in between. And it was all shot in [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex the Dallas/Fort Worth area]].

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Only a handful of episodes has been released to VHS, and a few on DVD in 2004. Lionsgate is currently releasing [=DVDs=] of the show, which might end up saving the series. Mainly averted if your PBS station still reruns the show. And at least 1 Website/YouTube account has all episodes uploaded.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
** In ''Bark to the Future'', calculators are shown as a form of cheating, with Joe being told not to use one. Since then, calculators have become much more accepted. While some schools still limit when calculators can be used, most now advise them, especially college math courses where they're practically ''required''.
** If the episode "A Dogged Expose" took place today, Damont certainly wouldn't be distributing those embarrassing photos on flyers. He'd be posting them on social media.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: More episodes were supposed to follow "The Roamin' Nose", but the show ended up being cancelled mid-season due to the main actors significant aging.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: In ''Bark to the Future'', calculators are shown as a form of cheating, with Joe being told not to use one. Since then, calculators have become much more accepted. While some schools still limit when calculators can be used, most now advise them, especially college math courses where they're practically ''required''.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: If the episode "A Dogged Expose" took place today, Damont certainly wouldn't be distributing those embarrassing photos on flyers. He'd be posting them on social media.