An American Werewolf in London/Trivia


 * Academy Award: Was awarded the first Oscar for Best Makeup in the year the category was established. The Oscar was presented by Vincent Price.
 * You Fail Geography Forever: The film presents Yorkshire and London as being fairly close together, in spite of being on opposite ends of England.
 * The Danza: David Naughton as David Kessler
 * Dueling Movies: Both this and The Howling came out the same year and both feature a detailed, painful-looking Transformation Trauma sequence.
 * Enforced Method Acting:
 * A favorite ploy of John Landis. Extras in the zoo scene were told only that David Naughton was going to say a few words to them.
 * And that blade the dream Nazi zombie is holding up to David's neck was a real knife, held by an actor in a mask that seriously hampered his vision. Most of the fear was probably real there.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: The cab driver is Brick Top from Snatch. The inhabitants of "The Slaughtered Lamb" were described by Griffin Dunne as "half the cast, practically, of Nicholas Nickleby" (the 1980 RSC play adaptation) -- notably Lila Kaye (Gladys) played Mrs. Squeers and Mrs. Crummles and John Woodvine (Dr. Hirsch) played Ralph Nickleby. Rik Mayall, who went on to star in The Young Ones and Bottom, also appears as one of the patrons. Also, the lead, David Naughton, was referred to as the Dr. Pepper guy when the movie came out (he got his start in the ad that introduced the famous Dr. Pepper jingle).
 * The policeman in Trafalgar Square who successfully manages to ignore David's volley of swear words is played by Peter Ellis, who only a few years later went on to play the regular character Chief Superintendent Charles Brownlow in British Long Runner The Bill.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Mr. Collins, the American ambassador sounds exactly like Bert, the Muppet. That is because he is Frank Oz, the voice of Bert, Miss Piggy (who also appears in the film), and Yoda; and later director of Little Shop of Horrors and the remake of The Stepford Wives.