Hostility on the Set: In a case of sad irony, in 2017, Daniel Franzese, who played Derek Dvirko, revealed that co-star Bijou Phillips, who played Ali Willis, subjected him to a lot of homophobic and fat-shaming bullying while they were on the set, saying that she kept trying to goad him into admitting that he was gaynote which he later came out as over a decade later, but he just reluctantly said he was bisexual at the time to get her off his case and that she laughed at his appearance when he removed his shirt at a pool party and had even twisted one of his nipples. Even more troubling, he said the producers just looked the other way on the behavior (potentially due to the fact that she came from a famous family; her father was "Papa" John Phillips from The Mamas & the Papas and her older half-sisters were actress Mackenzie of One Day at a Time (1975) fame and singer Chynna of Wilson Phillips fame and he was just an up-and-coming actor) but said that his fellow co-stars Brad Renfro, Michael Pitt and Nick Stahl (who portrayed Kent himself) openly and repeatedly defended him and the latter, who was dating Phillips at the time, even tried to convince her to apologize to him. After going public with his story, Phillips subsequently reached out to Franzese and apologized, which he accepted.
Colorblind Casting: Many of the black characters in the game were actually voiced by white actors. For example, Damon was voiced by Ben Curtis, while Bo was voiced by Jason Fuch. Meanwhile, some of the white characters were voiced by black actors, with Tad's voice being Baron Vaughn and Christy's voice being Maine Anders, who is biracial.
Completely Different Title: The German version of the Scholarship Edition is instead subtitled Die Ehrenrunde (The Lap of Honor).
Immediately after the game was announced, Moral Guardians took to everywhere to try get the game cancelled. This was due to the belief that it would actually promote and justify school bullying at best (which it does not, although the title was what caused this stigma, to the point the game was given the title Canis Canem Edit in Transatlantic regions), or be a "Columbine simulator" at worst (while Jimmy can knock people out, murder is impossible). When the shock value died down, the game has since grown past the controversy.
Several supplementary materials, such as the Facebook pages and manual for the game, have a handful of incorrect information regarding the game's lore. For example, Damon is said to be a state-ranked wrestler. In-game, however, Damon is shown to have zero interest in wrestling, and instead Juri and Luis are shown to be into wrestling. Another one includes Bryce being listed as a non-clique student despite being a preppy.
Creator-Driven Successor: This game is essentially a Grand Theft Auto game for younger audiences, featuring many of the same mechanics such as the Wanted Meter, the sandbox gameplay, and the variety of missions.
Dummied Out: Quite a lot of dummied out content in this game:
Hattrick Manor's indoors. Apparently, early on in the game's development, Jimmy was going to have to break into the house. That idea was scrapped, but they left what little of the inside of the house that had been finished, in the game. It can be accessed by jumping with a bike and falling through the roof.
There was a dummied out mission in Chapter 3 that involved Lola bringing Tad to New Coventry and Jimmy having to defend Tad by sniping Greasers with his slingshot.
There was a part of a mission in Chapter 5 where Jimmy was going to make a bunch of townies pass out by releasing ether gas. His audio for it is still in the files. Another Chapter 5 mission involved Jimmy stealing Dr. Crabblesnitch's paddle and planting it in Damon's gym bag to frame him for it.
Some weapons didn't make the final cut as well. Some are understandable (BB gun, Police Baton), while others (Joke Candy, Devil's Fork, and a Super Spud Gun) make you think why they were cut.
Gloria was originally intended to be an older girl and a potential girlfriend for Jimmy. Her flirting and kissing dialogue lines are still in the data files.
There were two shopkeepers, named Nate and Floyd, who worked in music shops that were cut. It's believed that they may have been used for uploading music to the game - a function not supported by the PlayStation 2, but that would have been by the Xbox. However, the Xbox version of Bully was cancelled and so Nate and Floyd were removed.
Several missions were dummied out of Bully. Most of the bonus missions for Scholarship Edition were dummied out missions that were added back in.
Out of all the teachers introduced in the original Bully, Neil the shop teacher, is the only one who doesn't appear outside of his class, which is weird since he has a full set of dialogue.
According to these unused audio files, the Halloween mission was going to be quite different. Originally, Jimmy's Halloween pranks included tossing a dead rat into the girls' dorm, feeding Edna a piece of vomit-inducing joke candy, an item that was also dummied out of the game, placing a "Kick Me" sign on a nerd, and hitting Mr. Burton and Dr. Slawter with itching powder while they were distracted by Petey. Also, the final version cuts one of Petey's lines in half, since it contained dialogue about the cut pranks, along with a rather strong profanity:
Petey: Wha-what the hell?! I've been kicked in the balls, reported to the principal, and you guys are messing around with dog shit?! I'm outta here!
There's some audio in the game's files about Jimmy failing to land a skate trick, indicating that there was going to be a skate park in the game at one point.
A cutscene where Jimmy briefly talks to Petey about taking down Edgar and the Townies was cut, along with a scene that took place before the Edgar battle, in which he and Jimmy verbally confronted each other before fighting.
Game files include models of Pedro and Sheldon, the two boys among the group of little kids, wearing pajamas, but they never spawn in the boys' dorm, while the three younger girls in pajamas can be encountered when trespassing in the girls' dorm. Since prefects never enter the boys' dorm, Pedro and Sheldon were probably removed from the place to make sure it's impossible to abuse them without facing consequences.
There is a partially-unused winter model for Zoe intended for Chapter 3. While most of the Townies do spawn as early as Chapter 3, Zoe is not one of them, and can only be seen in races, where the model is used. The model isn't even remastered for the later editions of the game, which causes a glitch with the eyes appearing solid white.
Bob only appears in one scene in the game - the cutscene at the beginning of The Gym is Burning. Despite this, he has a unique fighting style and a full set of dialogue programmed. More curiously, his dialogue set contains the same lines as clique leaders rather than regular students.
Market-Based Title: The original version was retitled Canis Canem Edit in the PAL region. However, the Scholarship Edition retains the Bully title in all territories.
Gerry Rosenthal, Jimmy's voice actor, previously played minor roles in TV shows. He retired from acting after the game's release and now works as a freelance musician.
This is the only video game that both Matt Bush (Pete) and Peter Vack (Gary) have done voice work for. Their later credits are entirely films and TV shows.
Molly Fox, Zoe's voice actress, hasn't worked in acting since and is primarily a model.
Gloria's sheer intelligence, as shown in her quotes, may have been a leftover from when she was a much older girl who was able to make out with Jimmy. This is further shown by the fact that her deep voice and mannerisms contrast heavily with the more childish Karen and Melody.
Peanut's Napoleon Complex seems rather odd since he's of average height, much taller than the very short Jimmy. Some concept art show that at one point in development, he actually was short.
A cutscene was removed which depicted Jimmy finding out about Edgar and needing to speak with him to settle things with the Townies. In the final version, it's still his objective to get to Edgar, but it comes out of nowhere due to the scene being taken out.
Queer Character, Queer Actor: In the game, Bif is rumored to be gay due to his close friendship with Derby and he shows a lack of interest in girls, saying nobody wants to date Greaser girls because they are easy and insinuates that Mandy is promiscuous as well. His voice actor, Andrew Rannells, is gay in real life.
Shrug of God: Regarding the character Clint (aka Henry). Apparently, he managed to have two different names far enough into development that by the time the developers realized their error, it was easier to just credit him as "Clint (aka Henry)" than try to dummy out mentions of one of the names.
Technology Marches On: The Nerds spreading illicit posters of Mandy around the campus to enrage the Jocks is rather dated, given the advancement of social media and camera phones (both of which existed at the time the game released, but were deliberately left out to maintain a "timeless" feel to the setting).
Uncredited Role: To this day, many of the voice actors featured in the game are unknown since their roles are uncredited. This includes Gordon, Ethan, Seth, and several of the townsfolk.
until 2016 due to its depiction of violence. This also affected the Steam edition.