Trivia / Revenge of the Nerds

• Corpsing: In the Belching Contest scene in the first film, keep an eye on John Goodman as the coach. He keeps studying his shoes while simultaneously making sure his hat doesn't come off, all to keep from laughing out loud on camera from the antics of actors Donald Gibb and Curtis Armstrong.
• Creator Backlash: Both the writer and director have expressed regret for the scene where Lewis performs a Bed Trick on Betty, with the latter admitting that he wouldn't have found it funny if his own daughter had been involved. Julia Montgomery, who played Betty, didn't mind the scene so much but says it should've been done differently.
• Dawson Casting: Robert Carradine (Lewis) and Curtis Armstrong (Booger) were thirty and thirty-one when the movie came out, playing college freshman.
  • Not to mention that the actor playing the Dean of the college is only two months older than Armstrong, Or John Goodman, playing the coach, being only one year older than him.
• Defictionalization: As of 2006, there actually is a Lambda Lambda Lambda fraternity in existence; it was founded at the University of Connecticut, has chapters elsewhere and, yes, it was inspired by this movie!
• Direct to Video: All the sequels went this way in the UK.
• Enforced Method Acting: The fraternity brothers that show up to save the nerds at the end of the film? Their intimidating presence was real and effective; they were not told this movie was a comedy.
• Life Imitates Art: While the film series as a whole still has a devoted following; younger, casual movie fans may see the premise as outdated, now that Bill Gates and Paul Allen masterminded the true "Revenge Of The Nerds" in real life. Nerd/geek culture is far more mainstream among men and women today than in the 1980s and early 1990s.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Japan only got the third and fourth films of the original tetralogy. Oddly enough, those films are still numbered, despite the first two films didn't get released there.
• Method Acting: Robert Carradine spent over a week at the university going out and wearing only his characters clothes to get ready for the part.
  • To test how effective the nerd costumes were, Carradine and Anthony Edwards went to a fraternity review dressed as their characters. The fraternity leader took one look at them and said "No fucking way!"
• Money, Dear Boy: Curtis Armstrong said this was the only reason he accepted the role of Booger, as he was desperate on cash at that point in time.
• The Other Darrin: A pilot for a TV series was produced in 1991 and the returning characters were all recast. Rob Stone played Lewis, Lightfield Lewis was Gilbert, Grant Gelt was Harold and Jeff Benson was Ogre.
  • Anthony Edwards did not return for the third movie, so he was played by Mike Greenwood in a one scene. Edwards declined the role because "he was busy shooting for some TV show."
    • The original actor who played Wormser didn't return either.
• Playing Against Type: John Goodman has almost always been associated with kind and affable Big Guys, here he plays the petty, cruel, and almost criminally negligent Coach Harris.
• Revival by Commercialization: Queen's "We Are The Champions", given the band was in a lull in North America (the movie came out the same year as comeback album The Works).
• Technology Marches On: In the second film, while driving to the airport, Lewis receives a lengthy *printed* message from Gilbert via a pager with an elaborate satellite link-up. Given the prevalence of mobile phones and text messaging today, such evidence of the Nerds' technical prowess comes across as horribly dated.
• What Could Have Been:
  • As noted on the main page, a remake was almost produced for a 2007 release. And we don't mean "almost made" in the usual sense, where a project is put through development for a bit but ultimately not given a greenlight; no, this movie made it all the way to shooting, with a full script, cast and crew- a poster was even released for it. Then the original intended shooting location, Emory College, backed out after reading the apparently puerile script; and then the new shooting location proved difficult to film on; and then the head of 20th Century Fox saw the footage, and found it wanting; and soon the project was shut down.
  • Eddie Deezen lobbied hard for a role, but was turned down by director and friend Jeff Kanew, who politely told Deezen that he was too much of a real nerd to play a caricature of himself.
  • Joan Cusack and Sarah Jessica Parker were considered for Judy.
  • Sting tried out for the role of Ogre just before he started his wrestling career and was still mostly known as a California bodybuilder. He was one of the final two choices for the role, but the producers picked Donald Gibb instead.
  • Scenes planned but cut involved Stan secretly being a nerd; the end would have revealed he had a nerd brother and another scene had him in his bedroom, reading a textbook with eyeglasses. Some of this would make it into the third film.
  • In the original scene where the jocks trash the nerds house, Gilbert was originally going to be there, and would take a beating by the jocks resulting in him being tossed from the porch. The test audience was reportedly horrified by this and found it a bit too extreme, so it was reshot with the house being empty.
• Write What You Know: Co-writer Steve Zacharias based the plot after someone he knew who started his own fraternity, who were terrible at sports and had nerdy parties.

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