!![[Film/{{Labyrinth}} The film]] and its tie-in media:
* ActingForTwo:
** Dave Goelz performs Sir Didymus, the Hat, one of the Four Guards, the left door knocker and the third Fiery.
** Karen Prell performs the Worm, the Junk Lady and the second Fiery.
** Besides performing and voicing Hoggle, Brian Henson voiced one of the goblins.
** David Shaughnessy is the voice actor for Sir Didymus, the Wiseman and one of the Four Guards.
** Creator/TimothyBateson voices the Worm and one of the Four Guards.
** Besides performing and voicing the first Fiery, Kevin Clash performs one of the Four Guards and Ambrosius.
** Steve Whitmire performs one of the Four Guards as well as the fourth Fiery and Ambrosius.
** Anthony Asbury performs one of the Four Guards along with the right door knocker and the fifth Fiery.
** Danny John-Jules voices the third and fourth Fireys.
* BoxOfficeBomb: Budget, $25 million. [[https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0091369/ Box office, $13.9 million.]]
* CostumeBacklash: David Bowie felt, in retrospect, that his costume was inappropriate for the intended demographic. That said, the ''David Bowie Is'' touring museum exhibition that launched in 2013, featuring career-spanning memorabilia from his personal archive, includes several items from/related to this film.
* CreatorKiller:
** ''Labyrinth'' was one of two attempts by now ex-''Creator/MontyPython'' troupe veteran Creator/TerryJones to write a screenplay (though most of it was rewritten without him). His next attempt after ''Labyrinth'', ''Film/ErikTheViking'', impaled his cinematic screenplay career until 2015, one year before he started showing signs of dementia (he succumbed to it in 2020).
** It was also the final feature film directed by Creator/JimHenson. ''Labyrinth's'' failure caused Jim to spiral into a sort of depression (soothed somewhat by his return to television work, including ''Series/TheStoryteller''). This gradual fall from grace led Henson to try to sell his Muppet characters to Creator/{{Disney}} before his death in 1990.
* TheDanza: Toby, played by illustrator/creature designer Creator/BrianFroud's son, Toby. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that Toby was an infant at the time and consequently would only respond to his real name.
* DevelopmentHell: Not the film, but Creator/ArchaiaEntertainment's graphic novel prequel: announced in early 2012, initially pushed back to April 2013, then delayed indefinitely. The official explanation was that they didn't want it to go out until it was ''perfect'', and considering that it's a backstory for Jareth -- '''the''' most popular character in the fandom -- one can understand the hesitancy, especially given the BrokenBase caused by the last attempt at an ExpandedUniverse with ''Manga/ReturnToLabyrinth''. (Archaia threw bones to the fandom in the meantime with stories about other characters, included in their Free Comic Book Day collections from 2012 onward.) It finally got released in 2018-19 under the name ''ComicBook/LabyrinthCoronation''.
* DuelingDubs: ''Labyrinth'' has no fewer than ''three'' Japanese dubs. In addition to the original dub, there was a second made for Creator/FujiTV in 1988, and a third in 1992 for an Creator/{{NHK}} satellite channel.
* HeAlsoDid:
** Creator/GatesMcFadden AKA [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Dr. Crusher]] did much of the choreography (however, she's credited by her real name, Cheryl [=McFadden=]). You can see her at work in some of the "making of" material.
** Creator/KennyBaker AKA [[Franchise/StarWars R2-D2]] played a goblin.
* LoopingLines: Most of the creatures' dialogue was re-recorded in post-production, with Kevin Clash, Brian Henson and Ron Mueck serving as both puppeteers and voice actors.
* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: In a making-of special, Henson states that he'd been told never to work with children, animals or puppets. ''Labyrinth'' contains all three, and apparently it was quite a challenge getting everything to work out properly. Going by the special, the puppets were easiest to deal with (helped by the fact that those responsible for the puppets were neither children or animals, and highly experienced in their craft), followed by the baby, with the animals being the hardest, with the special showing Henson having trouble with the chickens in an early maze scene. The baby actually peed on Bowie's lap the first time they filmed a scene together and was originally supposed to be called Freddie, but baby Toby Froud would only respond to his own name.
* NoExportForYou: The spinoff video game for the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem was released only in Japan, and even then not until January 1987, six months after the movie's premiere there.
* RealLifeRelative:
** Brian Henson, Hoggle's performer, is the son of director Jim Henson.
** Toby Froud, playing baby Toby, is the son of concept artist Brian Froud.
* ReferencedBy: Bryony Gordon is a British journalist with a particular interest in mental health issues. In one of her columns, she said that one of her therapists had told her that it might be helpful to give her OCD a name. She chose "Jareth the Goblin King."
* RefittedForSequel: [[https://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/script.txt This early script]] had Sarah letting Jareth into the house because he was disguised as a playwright. This ended up happening in the ''Manga/ReturnToLabyrinth'' sequel manga.
* SeparatedAtBirthCasting: Baby Toby Froud really looks like Shelley Thompson, who plays his mother and Sarah's stepmother, sharing the same golden blond hair and big blue eyes, which probably stands to make Sarah feel even more like an outcast in her own family.
* ScreenToStageAdaptation: ''Shepparton Kids in Theatre'' adapted it in 1999. As of 2022, the Henson company is working on another production.
* StarDerailingRole: ''Labyrinth'' helped put an unceremonious end to Bowie's acting career as a leading man. Combined with the failure of ''Film/AbsoluteBeginners'' the same year and the general mess that was his 80s period, the sheer campiness of Bowie's role as Jareth made it difficult for people to take him as a serious actor any more. All his later acting stints were supporting roles (including some memorable cameos). The highest-profile project he worked on post-''Labyrinth'' was the much-maligned [[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS5E12AtlantisSquarePantis "Atlantis [=SquarePantis=]" episode]] of ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''.
* TalentDouble: Jareth spinning the crystal balls was actually done by a juggler, Michael Moschen, who had his arm in Jareth's sleeve instead of Bowie. He kept dropping the balls because he couldn't see what he was doing, and was in extremely awkward positions to make his arm look like Bowie's.
* ThrowItIn: The production budget and schedule were so tight that the puppeteers playing the goblins weren't given any stage directions other than "be goblins," so nearly all of their behavior is ad-libbed. Strangely enough, it works, giving the goblin scenes a weird chaotic nature that is very appropriate for them.
* UncreditedRole: Creator/JimHenson, Laura Phillips, Creator/GeorgeLucas and Elaine May were uncredited script doctors on the screenplay.
* UnderageCasting: Jennifer Connolly was 14 during filming, but her character Sarah is 16.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Music/{{Sting}}, Music/{{Prince}}, Music/MickJagger and Music/MichaelJackson were considered for Jareth before Bowie was cast.
*** [[Series/{{Manimal}} Simon [=MacCorkindale=]]], [[Film/ForYourEyesOnly Michael Gothard]] and Creator/KevinKline were also considered before Bowie.
** Creator/JaneKrakowski, Creator/AllySheedy and Creator/MaddieCorman were the final contenders for Sarah before the casting of Connelly.
*** Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter, Creator/SarahJessicaParker, Creator/MaryStuartMasterson, [[Series/{{Baywatch}} Yasmine Bleeth]], [[Film/TheGoonies Kerri Green]], Creator/LiliTaylor, Creator/MiaSara, Creator/LauraDern, Creator/MarisaTomei and Creator/TriniAlvarado auditioned for the role of Sarah as well before Connelly.
** ''Jim Henson -- The Biography'' reveals that the original conception of Jareth was simply as another special-effects creation, rather than someone to be played by a live actor.
** Almost everything up until Sarah eating the peach was written by Creator/TerryJones, with everything afterwards being rewritten by Henson and company before getting sent ''back'' to Jones for a final rewrite. This and other changes over the course of production resulted in quite a few alterations and omissions, some of which appeared in the tie-in books.
** The Wiseman and his Hat were intended to wander in and out of the good guys' journey, dispensing occasionally useful, accidental advice.
** The Fireys offered to help Sarah find the castle, but not only were they easily distracted, they didn't actually know what a castle was.
** The Junk Lady (who was going to be revealed as a disguised Jareth) was part of a whole Junk City, complete with a bar where Hoggle went to drown his sorrows after his betrayal of Sarah.
** The other door with a living knocker led to a CrapsaccharineWorld where no one could stop laughing; this became "The Laughing Forest" in the Japan-only ''Labyrinth'' game for the Famicom.
** The issue of Sarah's parents' divorce was dealt with more directly in early drafts. The ring Sarah gave the Wise Man in the final film was originally a gift from her mother that she was much more reluctant to part with. The novelization also goes into detail on the glamourous fellow actor who became the mother's lover[[note]](seen only as a photo in the film, but importantly he's "played" by Bowie)[[/note]] -- his name is Jeremy and he gave Sarah the music box.
** Originally, Sarah's plot-launching mistake was opening the door to a stranger who claimed to be the writer of the school play she was due to star in; he turned out to be Jareth, who proceeded to kidnap Toby (then called Freddie) ForTheEvulz. Jareth was indeed a much less charismatic, more lecherous character in early drafts -- in the climax, Sarah had to physically fight him off to rescue Toby, and defeated him by saying she wouldn't love him if he "were the last goblin on Earth!" This caused him to shrink into a whining goblin himself.
** In the project's early stages, the story was set entirely in a MagicalLand. Later, the DownTheRabbitHole structure was introduced, with the "real world" setting being the Victorian era; this was subsequently changed to ThePresentDay. A big reason for the changes was the filmmakers becoming aware of a similar FairyTale film, ''{{Film/Legend|1985}}'', which went into production around the same time -- in fact, the two movies ultimately shared a cinematographer.
** Before it went into DevelopmentHell, the synopsis originally announced for the Creator/ArchaiaEntertainment ''Labyrinth'' graphic novel prequel that eventually became ''ComicBook/LabyrinthCoronation'' said it would be about Jareth as a young man attempting to rescue his true love from the malevolent Goblin Queen and ultimately failing and/or being trapped in some way into becoming the new Goblin King.
* WorkingTitle: Early titles Henson considered were ''The Labyrinth'', ''The Maze'', ''The Labyrinth Twist'' and ''The Tale of The Labyrinth''.

!!The Miniseries:
* BillingDisplacement: Creator/JohnHurt and Sebastian Stan are credited before Jessica Brown Findlay and Creator/VanessaKirby, even though the former have relatively small roles, and the latter are, you know, ''the leads''.
* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/TomFelton is best known for villainous roles in ''Film/HarryPotter'' and ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', whilst here he plays the honorable Viscount Trencavel.
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