Trivia / In The Army Now

• California Doubling: While the scenes in Glendale, California were shot on location, or at the least nearby, the scenes in Chad were shot in a Los Angeles desert.
• The Cameo: Brendan Fraser appears as Private Link (a reference to his role in Encino Man) who steals the main character's chicken.
• Cast the Expert: The extra trainees you see during the training scenes were actual soldiers on camp at the filming site.
• Dawson Casting: Bones and Jack, who are both supposed to be young adults, are played respectively by Pauly Shore and Andy Dick, who were both well into their 20's at that point, and Andy himself almost pushing 30.
• Development Hell: Pauly Shore has been wanting to do a sequel to this movie for years, claiming that he's had a script written and his former co-stars would be ready to jump on board.
• Fridge Horror: Despite having saved the American bases from the Scud missiles, the four heroes have now been exposed to aerosolized chemical weapons from the exploding weapons.
• Method Acting: Pauly Shore actually went through some Army water purification training beforehand to understand how it works more.
• On-Set Injury: After Bones gets his haircut, you can see a large scar on the back of his neck. He received this when firing a rifle on set and a hot shell casing landed on his neck.
• What Could Have Been: The movie was first pitched to Adam Sandler to play the role of Jack, who turned it down. Adrien Brody and Adam Goldberg also auditioned for the part.
  • Sandra Bullock was offered the role of Christine, but had to turn it down due to scheduling issues. Winona Ryder was also considered.
  • Christopher McDonald was offered the role of Sgt. Stern, but wasn't a fan of the script and turned it down.
  • Will Smith and Damon Wayans both had to turn down the role of Fred for scheduling conflicts.
  • Harold Ramis and Craig T. Nelson both turned down the role of Sgt. Williams.
  • Whoopi Goldberg was considered for the role of Sgt. Ladd.
  • The original script was more R-rated, with much more crude sexual humor and constant swearing, but executives forced it down to a PG to capitalize on Shore's popularity with teens.