Trivia / Zootopia

• Acting for Two:
  • John DiMaggio does Jerry Jumbeaux Jr., the Moose during the scene where citizens are complaining about Judy's parking tickets, and a pig reporter during the press conference.
  • Several of the voice actors do minor roles such as Rich Moore doing Doug and Larry and Fabienne Rawley voicing the Jumbeaux Customer.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: A double dose of this led to Kristen Bell having a cameo as the sloth Priscilla. Not only has Kristen been vocal about being a life-long fan of Disney, she absolutely adores sloths. When the filmmakers were discussing who would voice Priscilla's two words, someone remembered Kristen's Cuteness Proximity reaction to a sloth from an appearance on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show. According to the casting director, Kristen responded in less than three minutes after they sent her a note about the role, "the quickest deal ever made in Hollywood." When announcing the role on Twitter, Kristen referred to it as a "bucket list" item.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Judy's line of bunnies being "good at multiplying" does appear in the movie. However, a specific gif shows Nick suddenly realizing what she meant, while his face wasn't shown at all in that scene.
• Billing Displacement: One trailer talks about meeting the residents of Zootopia and lists the big names playing Yax, Mrs. Otterton, and Gazelle, characters with very minor roles, but not the smaller names playing Clawhauser and Bellwether, two of the three most important supporting characters in the movie with one of them being the main villain. The movie itself gives them proper billing.
• Blooper: A small one when Judy is preparing a meal inside the microwave oven. Through the glass she can be seen to be wearing a pink shirt even though the next shot shows that she's still wearing her meter maid uniform. ^note  The pink shirt was from a Deleted Scene called "Homesick Hopps" that has her changing clothes when she gets home before microwaving her dinner, and for whatever reason they apparently ended up re-using the microwave shot from that scene rather than redoing it with Judy still in her uniform.
• Casting Gag: Judy is a rabbit who is prejudiced against foxes. Her European French voice actress, Marie-Eugénie Maréchal, has also voiced Tails, the foxy friend of Sonic the Hedgehog, in everything since Sonic X.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Besides the ones from the English version:
  • In the Japanese dub, Judy is voiced by the actress and singer Aya Ueto, better known for non-Japanese audiences as Azumi, Clawhauser is voiced by comedian Shigeo Takahashi, Gazelle by Idol Singer Ami Kawashima and Michael Tanuyama (the Tanuki who appears exclusively in this version, replacing Peter Moosebridge) is voiced by the comedian and dancer Kazumasa "CO-RA" Koura.
  • In the Mexican Spanish dub, Flash is voiced by soap opera actor Sergio Zurita, who previously voiced Rocket Raccoon.
  • In the Brazilian dub, the male (jaguar) news anchor is voiced by the late TV news anchor Ricardo Boechat.
  • In the Canadian French dub, Bonnie and Stu Hopps are voiced by actress Julie Le Breton and comedian Martin Matte respectively. At the time, they were starring in a TV series created by Matte titled Les Beaux Malaises ("The Pretty Awkward Moments"), where he played his own role and Le Breton played his wife Julie.
• Completely Different Title: The title of the film was changed in most countries (Europe, Africa, and Asia), for various reasons that include a trademark issue in Germany, inability to translate the portmanteau title, or wanting to reference "metropolis" rather than "utopia". For example, "Zootropolis" is the most common name for the film overall, being used in the UK, Italy and other countries (some of which added the subtitle "Animal City" translated in the local language), "Zoomania" in Germany because there was already a German kids' book called "Zootopolis" (not one called "Zootopia" or anything like it). The Chinese title translates roughly as "Crazy Animal City" (which is "Zootropolis" rendered literally). Averted in France, where the movie title was literally translated as "Zootopie" as the French for utopia is "utopie". It was also called "Jutopia" in Korea, purely on pronunciation issues.
  • Hungary: Zootropolis: Animal Great Misfortune
  • Iran: City Animals
  • Norway: Zootropolis: Animal Kingdom
  • Serbia: Zootropolis: City of Animals
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Young Nick is voiced by Kath Soucie.
  • Gareth is voiced by Madeleine Curry.
• The Danza:
  • Bonnie Hunt voices Judy's mother Bonnie.
  • Canadian news anchor Peter Mansbridge plays a news anchor named Peter Moosebridge.
• Deleted Scene: One shows Nick getting rejected for a loan by various banks, with a montage of workers of various species stamping "REJECTED" on his application. The last one is a sloth, who is lowering the stamp very slowly until Nick loses his patience, grabs the stamp and stamps the papers himself.
• Defictionalization:
  • Judy's carrot pen/recorder is an actual piece of merch made for the film. And it records up to 60 seconds of audio!
  • The Dancing With Gazelle app is also available online as a website
  • You can also buy Bellwether's "World's Greatest Assistant Mayor" mug.
• Development Gag:
  • As mentioned under What Could Have Been, an early draft had one of Nick's friends believe in a conspiracy theory about sheep. In the final version of the movie, that character does not exist, but there is an actual conspiracy by sheep driving most of what happens throughout the plot.
  • That earlier draft also had a sow named Mayor Swinton as the villain. Though she does not exist in the final film, her character model was recycled into the porcine prison guard who can be seen glaring in disdain at the final movie's villain during the credits. Is she making that face because she's disgusted with what Bellwether did, or is she just resentful that her role was stolen and she was demoted to a background character?
• Dueling Movies:
  • With DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda 3, which uses anthropomorphic characters and has Zootopia cast member J. K. Simmons in the film as Kai the Collector - and had already dueled and destroyed Norm of the North. Both films also feature a character who says they did "the wrong thing for the right reasons". Mayor Lionheart unlawfully imprisons the "savage" predators to protect the city, while Po's dad Li Shan lies about knowing how to manipulate chi in order to keep his long-lost son safe from Kai and the dangers of martial arts in general.
  • With Kubo and the Two Strings. Even though they are very different films with one being a stop motion Japanese fairy tale and the other a CGI crime drama with anthropomorphic animals, these two films were the top critically acclaimed animated features of 2016. Throughout the year each gathered numerous "Critics Choice" awards and as the year-end award season approached, both were top contenders for Best Animated Feature. Ultimately Zootopia won the Golden Globe, Annie Award, and the Academy Award while Kubo won the BAFTA.
  • With Illumination Entertainment's 2016 movie, titled Sing, which also takes place in a World of Funny Animals in an urban setting. While Zootopia had a pop singer as a minor character, Sing focuses on animals singing pop music. It also has a few characters with a seemingly impossible dream and less-than-supportive relatives.
• Enforced Method Acting: The DMV scene. Ginnifer Goodwin really is a high-energy person, so waiting through Flash's lines was... really... hard... for... her... to do. When you hear the exasperation and frustration, that's not just Judy's response to the situation. (Which is why they did it in a single take. Ginnifer Goodwin couldn't have taken a second.)
• Fake American: Young Judy was voiced by British actress Della Saba.
• Flip-Flop of God: Regarding the names of the ZPD officers. When Chief Bogo calls the names Delgato, Fangmeyer and Grizzoli, a lion, tiger and wolf stand up. Word of God is consistent in that Delgato is the lion, but Fangmeyer was first said to be the wolf, then the tiger. Furthermore, Word of God insists that Grizzoli is a bear (due to the A Lizard Named "Liz" pun, of course), but when the name is called, no bear is seen standing up.
• Incidental Multilingual Wordplay: In the Brazilian dub, the sloth Flash is renamed Flecha, meaning arrow, retaining both the sound and the connotation of speed.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Tiny Lister, a 6'5 man whose nickname is supposed to be ironic in and of itself, plays a character who actually IS tiny.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Subway sold a set of six decals.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • Almost every trailer and TV spot showed Nangi saying "All the way down!" at her yoga class (to the level of Trailer Joke Decay). She never utters this line in the movie.
  • Chief Bogo's line in the trailer "It's not about how badly you want something, it's about what you are capable of!" is never said in the final movie.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Shakira voiced Gazelle for all the available Spanish dubs.
• Playing Against Type: Idris Elba, whose most famous roles are a corrupt gangster and an even more terrifying Cowboy Cop and shortly after Zootopia plays misanthropic tiger nemesis (another Disney film) and a human-turned-alien with a vendetta against the Federation, is playing the By-the-Book Cop (but Not So Above It All) Chief Bogo. He even admits that since it's so rare for him to be in a comedy, he very readily accepted when the role was offered to him.
• Playing with Character Type: Tiny Lister, a man whose been typecast as intimidating brutes for decades (including Deebo in Friday and Zeus in No Holds Barred), plays Finnick, a character who tries to come off as intimidating but is just a bit too cute to pull it off.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: When it was revealed that foreign releases of the movie changed the newscaster moose into an animal more significant to the region, a story spread that the UK version made him a corgi. Many were skeptical, since screencaps of the other localized versions could be found online, but never the corgi. In addition, there was no evidence domestic dogs existed in the film's world, with pigs and sheep being the only domesticated animals present. Eventually UK fans stepped in to help extinguish this urban legend, revealing that he was still a moose, just with the voice of a British newscaster.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Bucky Oryx-Antlerson who's always seen arguing with his husband Pronx is voiced by the director Byron Howard who's also gay in real life.
• Reality Subtext: According to Rich Moore, what sold Shakira on the role of Gazelle was the fact that she, like Judy, wanted to be a police officer when she was younger.
• Recycled Set: The Gazelle concert held during the Dance Party Ending is the Savanna Central "set" redressed and surrounded by screens with the stage set up in the "watering hole" pond and some trees re-positioned to make room for the crowds.
• Same Voice Their Entire Life: Gideon Grey is voiced by Phil Johnston as a kid and as an adult. Johnston uses a somewhat deeper voice for his adult self.
• Short Run in Peru: The film was released in some overseas territories (and perhaps Latin America) about a month before being domestically released in the United States in March 4.
• Sleeper Hit: Many people thought Zootopia would mainly be just a breather movie before Moana and that its domestic box office grosses would be in line with Big Hero 6 at best (i.e. a little over $200 million). Then reviews and word-of-mouth spread about how Zootopia wasn't just a really good film but also a highly topical story about prejudice and it broke Frozen's record for the highest-grossing opening for a Disney Animation Studios film, and eventually became the second highest-grossing film in the Disney Animated Canon.
• Teasing Creator: Rich Moore has teased that he will try to include a deleted scene of Nick meeting Judy's parents. It's a WildeHopps shipper's wet dream. Sometime later on Twitter, Rich Moore went as far as to tease that "a certain bunny" might be jealous if someone claims to be Nick's girlfriend. He also indicated that one possible interpretation of Nick's hand signals was telling Judy he loved her.
• Throw It In!: During the scene where Judy is apologizing to Nick for what happened at the press conference, Ginnifer Goodwin actually broke down crying as she read Judy's lines for that scene.
• What Could Have Been: See here.
• Word of Gay: Jared Bush, co-director/co-writer of the film and Pronk's voice actor, has stated via a post on Twitter that Judy's loud neighbors, Bucky and Pronk Oryx-Antlerson, are a married couple. This is the first acknowledged example of a gay couple in a mainstream animated Disney film.
• Word of God: According to Rich Moore, there is a three month gap in between the disastrous press conference and the making-up between Judy and Nick.

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