Trivia / 3 Ninjas

• Cast the Expert: Michael O'Laskey II, who played Colt in High Noon, was a legitimate black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
  • Emily Roeske, the little karate girl in High Noon, was a martial arts champion and was even the number one competitor in her age group in martial sparring at the time of filming.
• Channel Hop: The first movie was distributed by Disney, under their Touchstone Pictures label. The sequels were released by TriStar Pictures.
• Creator Killer: High Noon nearly did it for director Sean Mcnamara; While he didn't direct another theatrical film for eight years, he at least managed to have some TV success directing Even Stevens and That's So Raven.
• Descended Creator: Hammer is played by DJ Harder, the film's second assistant camera operator, who volunteered to take the role because the original actor walked off the set because he thought he'd been cast as Fester. It was Harder's only acting role and he was pulling focus on set whenever he wasn't needed in front of the camera.
• Executive Meddling: When Disney acquired the distribution rights to the first film, the studio found it too violent. The filmmakers responded by adding cartoon sound effects to lessen the violence. The American version of the film also cut numerous parts of scenes, most likely to secure a PG rating.
• The Other Darrin: The boys are played by different actors in both Kick Back (except for Colt) and High Noon at Mega Mountain.
• The Red Stapler: The studio got letters from kid's karate businesses around the country thanking them as their enrollment rates (on average) went up 10 percent after the movie's release.
• Sequel First: Of the three sequels, Knuckle Up was filmed first, but Kick Back was released first.
• Sleeper Hit: Disney dumped the first film into theaters with no faith in it doing great, using it as a filler release before Aladdin that fall and a companion piece to Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, which released a couple weeks prior. Not only did the film keep a steady pace, to their surprise it ended up being their biggest hit that month, and was *still* making huge profits even when they slowly started to remove it from some theaters. In terms of cost-to-gross ratio, the film ended up being Disney's most profitable by the end of the year, due to it being such a low budgeted film.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Loni Anderson agreed to do High Noon solely because her 8-year old son liked the idea.
• What Could Have Been: Max Slade, who played Colt in the first three films, was supposed to be back for High Noon, which would've made him the only kid ninja actor from the first film to be in all four. However, he decided to take a break from acting before filming started and was replaced by Michael O'Laskey II.
  • An original draft for High Noon had them fighting on a cruise ship, though the location was changed as the producers felt that kids wouldn't find the setting as exciting.
  • Chad Power was set to return for Kick Back as well, but previous scheduling plans prevented him from being able to do it.
• Working Title: Kick Back was originally announced as 3 Ninjas Go To Japan.

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