Trivia / Stripes

• Actor-Shared Background: Warren Oates served in the military (the Marines, to be precise).
• Backed by the Pentagon: As wacky as the subject matter is, still backed by the US Army, basically because it puts the Army in a good light.
• California Doubling: Pretty much the entire movie was filmed in and around Louisville, with Fort Knox portraying the Army base and a disused Jim Beam distillery playing the Czech Red Army outpost. In particular, the New York storefront the boys "park" in front of was Morguelan Walsh, a Louisville-based wholesale drug company.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Ivan Reitman admits to being embarrassed by the third act of the film. But Reitman had determined that a film about the Army needed to have a war and thereby created a conflict with Czechoslovakia, his birthplace.
  • Bill Murray admitted to feeling queasy about being in a film where he fires a gun. He decided that it was okay because he was rescuing his friends.
• Deleted Scene: The "Extended Cut" DVD includes 18 minutes worth of deleted scenes re-edited back into the film. They include:
  • A longer discussion between John and Russell before they drive to the recruiting office.
  • A nine-minute scene in which John and Russell take LSD and accidentally end up on a mission in the Colombian jungle. They meet with rebels whom they smoke marijuana and take more LSD with. The rebels want to kill them but they escape by leading the rebels in a rendition of "Quando, Quando, Quando".
  • After Hulka's injury, Stillman gives the men a false account of how it happened. But John knows that Stillman was at fault.
  • Love scenes between the two couples during their Germany vacation in which the women are nude.
  • A longer discussion between John and Russell before Russell agrees to save the men in Czechoslovakia.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • The actors playing the recruits were only told that they would be getting their heads shaved by actual Army barbers for real right before filming of the scene began. John Candy wasn't acting when he is seen picking up his hair and looking sad as he walks out of the barber shop.
  • While shooting the boot camp scenes, Ivan Reitman secretly told the actors as recruits to drag Warren Oates (Hulka) into the mud with them. Oates ended up chipping a tooth, and upon learning Reitman manipulated the whole thing, furiously chewed him out. After that, Reitman never used enforced method acting in any of his films.
• Hostility on the Set: Bill Murray and Sean Young did not get along. She didn't like his method of ad-libbing during scenes, while he vowed never to work with her again.
• Method Acting: John Diehl remained in character as the slow-witted Cruiser even when cameras weren't rolling. When filming wrapped, he apologized to Ivan Reitman for behaving like him.
• On-Set Injury: John Larroquette accidentally broke his nose after he put his head through a glass door. The injury was so bad, that he nearly sliced his nose off. It required a lot of makeup to cover it up in the film and he still has the scar to this day.
• Orphaned Reference: In the theatrical cut, Sgt. Hulka tells the platoon that some soldiers left the base without permission, and threatens to punish the entire platoon before John and Russell reluctantly fess up to that. If you watch the extended cut of the film, you'll find that they tried to desert during Basic, and somehow end up parachuting into somewhere in South America, before running into a group of rebels, accidentally dumping a bunch of LSD into their stew, almost getting killed, and sneaking off before getting put back on the plane and sent back to Basic. Given that the movie was initially conceived as a Cheech & Chong film, such a scene would have fit their comedic style.
• Referenced by...: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report both paid tribute to Harold Ramis with clips from Stripes when Ramis died on February 24, 2014, with Jon Stewart showing the scene of Russell teaching the ESL class to sing "Da Doo Ron Ron" as his "Moment of Zen", and Stephen Colbert showed the scene of John and Russell arguing about whether they should take the EM-50 themselves.
• Spared by the Cut: Sgt. Hulka was originally supposed to be killed in the mortar accident and replaced by his twin brother, also played by Warren Oates. However, the idea was discarded before filming.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Warren Oates, despite a long career in film prior. He died a year after the film's release, making two films that were released posthumously.
  • This was also the live action film debut of Harold Ramis, who would later play Egon in Ghostbusters.
  • It was also the first non cameo appearance of John Candy, albeit in a supporting role.
• Throw It In!: Quite a bit of the comic dialogue was improvised by the actors. In particular, the scene where everyone explains why they joined was entirely improvised by the actors.
  • The kitchen scene between Bill Murray and P. J. Soles was completely improvised.
  • John Larroquette improvised the dialog where he's watching the girls in the shower through the telescope, including the odd line "Oh, God! I wish I was a loofah!" According to Larroquette, he had to explain to Ivan Reitman what a loofah was.
  • The scene where Bill Murray is loading the rich woman's suitcases into the trunk and he hits himself in the crotch was accident. Murray really did hit himself in the crotch with the case, thus his very real line "Oh, my balls."
  • Much of the mud wrestling scene was made up on the spot by Reitman.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The film was meant to be a star vehicle for Cheech & Chong, but they turned down because they wanted complete creative control.
  • Kim Basinger was offered the part of MP Officer Stella Hanson but she was turned down when her agent asked for too much money.
  • Dennis Quaid read for the role of Russell. His then-wife P.J. Soles plays Stella.

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