History Film / ThatThingYouDo

Naming themselves the 'Oneders' (as in One-ders) on the sound-for-the-time logic that a PunnyName worked for Music/TheBeatles, the band intends to perform a slow ballad written by Jimmy and Lenny called "That Thing You Do". The night of the comp, however, Guy leads them off at a much faster tempo than they'd rehearsed, giving them no choice but to transform it into a snappy pop number. ''Auteur'' Jimmy is upset, but the crowd is seen dancing in the aisles, and they win the talent show.

* AmbiguouslyBrown: Jimmy, who clearly has at least some Hispanic in his ethnic makeup -- which may be why, late in the film, Mr. White insists that the band re-record their hit in Spanish. (Or, more likely, it's just another Beatles reference, as the Beatles recorded "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" in German.)

** Tom Hanks is a big fan of the [[UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} Apollo program]]. Several characters have names which are references to astronaut characters in ''Apollo 13'' (Haise, Mattingly, White). And astronaut Gus Grissom is a guest on ''The Hollywood Television Showcase,'' which is itself a {{Expy}} of ''Series/TheEdSullivanShow'' and ''Hollywood Palace''. Additionally, one of the bands that plays on the soundtrack is called "The Saturn Five", while one of the bands on the Pittsburgh showcase marquee (seen in the extended cut) is Marilyn Lovell and the Geminis [[note]] Marilyn Lovell was the wife of Jim Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 mission [[/note]].

* MirrorCharacter: Jimmy in the end becomes the type of executive he fought against the whole film. Subtly done by having Jimmy try to take credit for the song despite Lenny and Guy's contributions, and showing that Sol Siler takes credit for "Discovering" the Wonders despite the work Mr. White did. For all his rankling, Jimmy is just as opportunistic as the people he complains about.

* NoNameGiven: The band's sweetly nerdy bass guitarist (played by Ethan Embry) is never actually named in the film -- another nod to the ephemeral nature of the band and how [[NobodyLovesTheBassist bass players tend to get ignored in the media]]. In the epilogue, he's finally identified as "T. B. Player"... that is, '''T'''he '''B'''ass '''P'''layer. ([[WordOfSaintPaul Embry himself decided his real name]] was "Tobias Player.")

* RageQuit: The last straw for Jimmy is being told by Mr. White that they're going to get to do an album finally, only for him to dictate under terms of their contract that it will be a cover album rather than original songs. Jimmy quits the band instead, leaving Guy the only original Wonder left. [[note]] Only original member from their recording period, and the original lineup their fans would know, as Guy joined as a temporary replacement, but wound up sticking around. [[/note]]
** While he was definitely upset that he was being ordered to cover songs owned by [=PlayTone=], and to record "That Thing You Do" in Spanish, the last straw for Jimmy was that, while he was, by contract, allowed 1 original song on each side of the LP, Mr. White wouldn't allow him to record "any of that lover's lament crap", which is implied that Jimmy had brought to record. Mr. White wanted additional up tempo (snappy) songs.

** Phil Horace, a regional talent promoter. Although he comes off as somewhat sketchy--operating out of an R.V. and taking two weeks to get their song on the radio--he deals fairly with the band. When he realizes they've got more potential than he can cope with, he introduces them to a manager from a national label, Mr. White.

* SeenItAll: Mr. White informs Guy that the Wonders are in breach of contract--but not to worry, nobody's going to get prosecuted because it's happened many times before and will again.

*** A Beatles allusion only the truly obsessive fans caught: There's a scene where Faye almost gets detained by security because the guards don't know she's with the band, but Guy sees what's happening and tells them to let her through. That really happened to John Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, once (Lennon, being [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} who he was]], didn't notice, and she ended up missing the outing as a result).

*** Another slightly oblique Beatles Shout Out; "That Thing You Do" starts off as a slow ballad, but when Guy ups the tempo of the drumbeat, turning it into a quick-paced pop song, it becomes a very popular #1 hit. Something similar happened with "Music/PleasePleaseMe", which was originally written as a Music/RoyOrbison-style crooner, but it didn't really click with the band and their producer, George Martin, until they sped up the tempo -- and it ended up becoming the Beatles' first ever #1 hit.

*** The bass player disappearing and being replaced by a session player for the live TV broadcast and for (what would have been) their first album recording refers to two incidents within the Beatles career. The first is to the recording of "Love Me Do", where Ringo Starr (who had recently been hired by the band after Pete Best was fired) was not allowed to play on the recording by George Martin, who had already hired a session drummer and did not want to rely on an unknown. The second was during the band's 1964 world tour, when Ringo (again) fell ill and was unable to play, requiring the band to temporarily hire another session drummer (Jimmie Nicol) to fill in for him. The latter is also alluded to by Faye falling ill when the band travels to California and missing several of the gigs they do.

** The film does a very good job of getting period details such as cars, clothes, and signage right. The guitars are also correct -- at the start, the boys have appropriate garage-band instruments for the era [[note]] Specifically, Danelectro bass, Les Paul Junior and Silvertone guitars[[/note]], and later they get equally appropriate upgrades. [[note]] Lenny plays a Fender Jaguar, and Jimmy plays a Rickenbacker 360/12. And we see a Fender Precision Bass.[[/note]]

** During his argument with Faye after the TV appearance Jimmy is shown changing his guitar strings. This is a good idea for anyone planning on recording the next day (as he is) since it will give it a "fresher" sound.

** Jimmy does this with the entire song, insisting that he wrote it himself when in reality he wrote the lyrics with Lenny and Guy was the one who sped up the tempo of the song to make it a hit.

* ThingOMeter: The [[TownContestEpisode local contest]] is determined by an "applause-o-meter" where a homecoming queen (or similar) moves her arm in response to audience encouragement. When the Wonders "break the needle", she — previous seen dancing along to the song along with just about everyone else in the room — whips her arms from one side to the other, clearly defining them as "Wicked".

* {{Foil}}: Jimmy to Guy. While Jimmy presents the image of the "True" artist "Doing it for the music," he's really more interested in playing the industry game than actually connecting with other musicians, while Guy is genuinely interested in music and goes out of his way to connect with his idols. Jimmy attempts to take sole credit for the writing of "That Thing You Do," despite not only writing it with Lenny but without Guy it wouldn't have become the hit that it was. Meanwhile Guy takes no credit for the song's success, despite being crucial to it's development. Even in the end, Jimmy goes on to become a successful record producer while Guy opens a conservatory to teach aspiring musicians.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
** Jimmy attempting to take full credit for writing the titular song, when Lenny wrote it with him. He also ''begs'' Bob to do his romantic ballad on the B-side of their initial record. This establishes Jimmy as somewhat self-centered and an InsufferableGenius, two traits which become more and more obvious as the film goes on.

** Jimmy attempting to take full credit for writing the titular song, when Lenny wrote it with him. He also ''begs'' Bob to do his romantic ballad on the B-side of their initial record. This establishes Jimmy as somewhat self-centered and an InsufferableGenius, two traits start to become more and more obvious as the film goes on.

** Tom Hanks is a big fan of the [[UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} Apollo program]]. Several characters have names which are references to astronaut characters in ''Apollo 13'' (Haise, Mattingly, White). And astronaut Gus Grissom is a guest on ''The Hollywood Television Showcase,'' which is itself a {{Expy}} of ''Series/TheEdSullivanShow'' and ''Hollywood Palace''. Additionally, one of the bands that plays on the soundtrack is called "The Saturn Five".

* AllThereInTheManual: The liner notes to the soundtrack give further backstory to the songs and the fictional artists that recorded them. It also gives a little more information about Jimmy's post-Wonders career (he released a couple failed solo records on a different label before returning to Play-Tone with The Heardsmen, a band made up of [[IAmTheBand Jimmy and a variety of session musicians.]]) The notes also reveal Mr. White's middle initial: M.

* LowCountGag: Haise snarks after a band performance in a restaurant about "their fan", singular.

* ArcWords: Guy is fond of quoting "I am Spartacus" from, well, ''Film/{{Spartacus}}'' (which had come out four years before the InUniverse date), which serves to nicely describe the movie's arc. It becomes the name of the track he plays with Del Paxton.

*** Mr. White expecting the band to re-record "That Thing You Do!" in Spanish may be a shout out to the Beatles' re-recording of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" in German (as "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" and "Sie Liebt Dich").

*** Another slightly oblique Beatles Shout Out; "That Thing You Do" starts off as a slow ballad, but when Guy ups the tempo of the drumbeat, turning it into a quick-paced pop song, it becomes a very popular #1 hit. Something similar happened with "Please Please Me", which was originally written as a Music/RoyOrbison-style crooner, but it didn't really click with the band and their producer, George Martin, until they sped up the tempo -- and it ended up becoming the Beatles' first ever #1 hit.

** The film does a very good job of getting period details such as cars, clothes, and signage right. The guitars are also correct -- at the start, the boys have appropriate garage-band instruments for the era [[note]] Specifically, Danelectro bass, Les Paul Junior and Silvertone guitars[[/note]], and later they get equally appropriate upgrades. [[note]] Lenny plays a Fender Jaguar, and Jimmy plays a Rickenbacker 360/12. And we see a Fender bass.[[/note]]

** Additionally, the bass player plays a much simpler version of the song's bass line, and he can be seen flubbing a couple notes near the end of the song.

** The talent show is set at Mercyhurst College, which is a very real school that still exists to this day. In fact, it's not at all surprising that Mercyhurst would host a music talent contest, given the school's emphasis on the arts. Whether this was a lucky coincidence or a case of Creator/TomHanks showing his research, however...

--> '''Diane Dane''': ''Yeah, charming...''

** Jimmy does this with the entire song, insisting that he wrote it himself when in reality he wrote the lyrics with Lenny and Guy was the one who sped up the tempo of the melody to make it a hit.