Trivia / Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956)

• Acting for Two: James Hong voices both Ogata and Dr. Serizawa in the scenes that are dubbed. He would end up voicing seven characters in total, most of whom are unidentified.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Raymond Burr was very proud of his involvement in this film, and defended it until the day he died. To everybody's surprise, Burr gladly returned decades later for the Americanization of The Return of Godzilla (Godzilla 1985) even though he was a bona fide star at that point. He pulled a Wag the Director for that film too, as he took Honda's vision of Godzilla being a nuclear metaphor very seriously and would only give a serious dramatic performance, rejecting any comedic dialogue that undermined it.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Godzilla had a huge following after its debut in the west in 1956. Toho themselves seems to realize the success of the film that decades later, it would eventually become one of the biggest franchises in the world even after over half a century.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Raymond Burr greatly enjoyed his role on this film as he managed to pull a dramatic performance in an otherwise dark and depressing anti-nuclear film. And he loved his role so much, he gladly reprised his role for The Return of Godzilla, but in the condition that they take the film seriously and not convert it into a Lighter and Softer comedy as the producers of the Americanization of that film wanted.
• Fake American: American Journalist Steve Martin is played by Canadian actor Raymond Burr.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": For American audiences in 1956. The original film is made in 1954, sent to America in 1955, then Americanized for the audience in 1956. And then this film was released in 1957 in Japan where it introduced Intrepid Reporters and American actors that would appear in later parts of the Showa series.
• No Budget: At least partly implied by Raymond Burr himself. He claimed in an interview that everything was shot in the smallest studio available in LA at the time and that while his scenes were shot in six days, everything else was shot in just one day. Additionally, most of the characters were dubbed by two people, James Hong and Sammee Tong, with an unidentified female actor as Emiko and the other women roles.
• Recursive Import: This movie, an adaptation of Godzilla (1954), itself received a theatrical release in Japan.
• Sleeper Hit: The American version became this both outside and inside Japan. Because the recut made subtle-and-not-so-obvious connections between Godzilla and the H-Bomb, this would ultimately lead the original film to be Vindicated by History until 2004, where it was released internationally. This made Godzilla a pop icon as he is now for this reason.

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