It’s National Mean Girls Day, and we, here at TSM, are pretty excited about it. You may be able to quote the movie line for line, but here are some facts you may not know about the staple film of our generation.
1. Before Lorne Michaels, Mean Girls producer decided that Amanda Seyfried would be best cast as the “dumb girl,” she was supposed to play Cady.
2. Lindsay Lohan was initially cast as Regina, but didn’t want people to associate her with the “mean girl” character in real life. Rachel McAdams was instead cast as Regina, because “only nice girls can play mean girls.”
3. The White House once tweeted a Mean Girls quote: “Bo, stop trying to make fetch happen.”
4. Mean Girls was based upon a non-narrative parenting book, “Queen Bees and Wannabees: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, and Other Realities of Adolescence.”
5. Regina means “queen,” in Latin, which is why the name was chosen for the Queen Bee.
6. Amy Poehler (Regina’s mom) is only seven years older than Rachel McAdams (Regina).
7. Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams are eight years apart, but play characters who are the same age.
8. North Shore is a real place in Chicago and many of the places mentioned in the movie are real establishments. The Old Orchard Mall, Northwestern University and the Walker Brothers Pancake House are all real. The gift cards to the pancake house even features the restaurant’s real logo.
9. The area code on Kevin Gnapoor’s business card is 847, which is really the area code in North Shore, Chicago.
10. Mr. Duvall’s carpal tunnel was written into the script, because Tim Meadows had really broken his hand before shooting, and needed to wear a cast.
11. The line “Is your muffin buttered?” was originally written “Is your cherry popped?” but was changed to maintain the PG-13 rating.
12. The girl who “made out with a hot dog” (ONE TIME!) had originally “masturbated with a hot dog” (which admittedly makes more sense). This was also changed to maintain a PG-13 rating.
13. Cady walks in on Gretchen Weiners kissing Jason at a party. She was originally supposed to be giving him a blow job. The change was made to maintain a PG-13 rating.
14. The beloved Glenn Cocco gets his name from a real person, a good friend of Tina Fey. Will the real Glenn Cocco please stand up?
15. Ana Gasteyer, the actress who plays Cady’s mom, attended Northwestern, the school at which she’s tenured in the movie.
16. Tina Fey picked Jonathon Bennett to play Aaron Samuels, because “he looked like Jimmy Fallon,” which I totally see now that she mentions it.
17. The tacky plastic skirts in the Christmas talent show were purposely made of plastic…to “represent the Plastics!”
18. Mrs. Norbury was named after Tina Fey’s high school German teacher.
19. Ashley Tisdale auditioned for the role of Karen Smith.
20. “Built This Way,” is a song that played at North Shore’s school dance. Upon hearing it, Cady exclaims “I know this song!” The song was co-written and performed by Lindsay Lohan’s lesbian lover Samantha Ronson.
21. Cady is named after a 19th-century pioneer in the American Women’s Rights movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a means to keep with the female empowerment theme.
22. The search for an actor to play Damian was far and wide. Auditions were held in four different cities, before the casting department found Daniel Franzese.
23. Damian is named after Tina Fey’s friend Damian Holbrook, whom she met as a teenager in a summer theater workshop.
24. Janis Ian is named after a singer, who wrote a song called “At Seventeen,” which plays while Karen tells Cady she has a “fifth sense.” The song is about girls being shallow at 17: “I learned the truth at seventeen that love was meant for beauty queens … and those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone.”
25. The real Janis Ian is a lesbian.
26. Scarlett Johansson auditioned to play Karen.
27. Rachel McAdams didn’t dye her hair blonde for the film. She wore a wig.
[via IMDb]
Image via tumblr
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Veronica Ruckh
Veronica (@VeronicaRuckh) is the Director of Total Sorority Move for Grandex, Inc. After having spent her undergraduate years drinking $4 double LITs on a patio and drunk texting away potential suitors, she managed to graduate with an impressive GPA and an unimpressive engagement ring -- so unimpressive, in fact, some might say it's not there at all. Veronica has since been fulfilling her duties as "America's big," a title she gave to herself with the help of her giant ego. She has recently switched from vodka to wine on weekdays. Email her at veronica@grandex.co
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