19 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About “Hocus Pocus” That Made Me Say, “Damn, I Never Knew That”
Fiyin Olowokandi
6 min read
19 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About “Hocus Pocus” That Made Me Say, “Damn, I Never Knew That”
With a sequel out TODAY, what better time to look back on the masterpiece that is Hocus Pocus and share some of the best behind-the-scenes facts we could find? Let’s get into it!
Fred Duval / FilmMagic/Buena Vista Pictures / Via Getty ImagesLeo was allegedly offered “more money than [he] ever dreamed of” back in ’93, but he turned it down to appear in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, for which he ended up earning his first Oscar nomination.
5. The part of Winifred Sanderson was actually written for Cloris Leachman.
Stephen Shugerman/Buena Vista Pictures / Via Getty Images for AFIWhen he was developing the film, story originator David Kirschner said he pictured Cloris as Winifred because of her performance in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein.
6. Kathy Najimy was initially reluctant to play Mary as she didn’t want to offend real witches with a stereotypical portrayal of one.
At a 20th anniversary screening panel, Kathy told fans that she believes in white witches and “spiritually forward” witches or woman who heal. Therefore, she was happy that the movie made the witches “human-ish” and “funny” and included good witches like Allison, as opposed to being purely negative.
7. Kathy thought of her character Mary as “half bloodhound”, hence why Mary barks every now and again and has a crooked mouth.
Buena Vista Pictures“One day in rehearsal I just sort of went to the side”, she explained to SyFy Wire. “We decided she was a like bloodhound, so this sort of sniffy thing sort of happened.”
8. Sarah Jessica Parker would often spend her downtime in between takes reading while suspended in the air on her flying broom harness.
SJP loved flying and has said the harness was so comfortable that she would often sit and read The New York Times whenever the director called cut or the crew went to lunch.
9. According to Thora Birch, who played Dani Dennison, Bette carried a dictionary of old curse words around on set so she could improvise historically accurate insults.
Buena Vista PicturesWinnie’s iconic drags like “maggoty malfeasance” and “trollimog” weren’t scripted, they came from dictionaries Bette had people carry around for her to reference.
10. Ralph the dog was played by Kathy Najimy’s real life dog!
Buena Vista PicturesIf you don’t remember him, Ralph chases the Sanderson sisters out of “The Devil’s” house.
11. Thackery Binx, the cat, was actually played by 9-15 real cats.
Buena Vista PicturesEveryone who owns a cat knows they don’t exactly do what they’re told like a dog might. Therefore, animal handlers would train several cats to do different tasks and use a variety of techniques to achieve the look of one single talking cat.
“There was a wall full of cats”, according to Vinessa Shaw who played Allison Watts. “[They] all did a different thing – one would bat you, one would jump on you, one would sleep, one would cuddle with you.” The actors would then use a buzzer and system of giving treats to get the cats to interact with them in scenes.
“They treated those cats well though”, Kathy hastened to add!
12. And for scenes where Binx speaks, filmmakers either used a real cat and then replaced its head with a CGI version, or they would use one of six animatronic cats to get the job done.
The movie was being made right around the birth of CGI, so a mix of practical effects and set design were combined with new age digital effects. Rhythm and Hues Studios, who created the CGI Binx, put a lot of time and effort into making him look like a real cat. In fact, the producers of Hocus Pocus thought he looked too realistic in the end, and requested his teeth be smaller and less pointed so that Binx looked friendlier!
13. And yes, one of the animatronic cats used for Thackery Binx was also the animatronic used for Salem on Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Buena Vista Pictures / ABCThe same animatronic puppet was used in the iconic sitcom from 1996 to 2003! They are identical, thinking about it.
14. The moths that flew out of Billy Butcherson’s mouth at the end were not CGI, they were real!
Makeup and SFX designer Tony Gardner revealed in an interview with Bloody Disgusting that he built a rig inside of Doug Jones’s mouth to shore moths and dust for him to cough up.
15. Sarah Sanderson’s costume was inspired by Sleeping Beauty, Mary Sanderson was supposed to look like a baker, and Winifred’s costume was inspired by Bette herself!
Buena Vista PicturesIn an interview with Glamour, costume designer Mary Vogt spoke about where the ideas for the Sanderson sister’s outfits came from. “Sarah played the little beauty queen… That’s what I was going with – more like a witch princess. And then, Kathy was more like an alchemist… Her outfit was meant to look like a witch baker.”
Mary’s vision for Bette was something “colorful and fun” with “a little sparkle to it”, which Bette ended up being very amenable to. Mary knew Bette was going to have red hair, so she decided green and purple complimented that choice. She also wanted to include symbols on Winnie’s dress, which she took from the rune alphabet and from Stonehenge!
16. And the costumes everybody wears in the party scene are actually Disney hand-me-downs!
Buena Vista PicturesIn the same Glamour interview, Mary shared that towards the end of the film, her department had run out of money. “Fortunately, I had access to the Walt Disney costume department, and they had saved the clothes from all the movies they had done… So I went through there and took everything that looked like a costume. In some movie, they must have had these three girls in red sequin dresses, so I said, ‘Let’s get that! We’ll ask three women to play The Supremes!’”
17. Sean Murray, who plays the human Thackery Binx, had his voice dubbed over because he sounded too “contemporary”.
Buena Vista Pictures / ABCAccording to actor Jason Marsden in an interview with Daily Beast, Sean shot the whole thing first, but his voice sounded too modern. Jason – who provided the voice of cat Binx – then had to lip-sync to Sean’s performance so that he could be dubbed. “They thought it would be more realistic, since the witches come from [a different] time period, that Binx should also have an affected accent.”
18. Bette Midler suggested a line change in “I Put A Spell On You”.
In the absolutely iconic performance, the Sanderson sisters cast a spell on the adult population of the town. Most often associated with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Nina Simone, “I Put A Spell On You” has take on a whole life since 1993.
“Screamin’ Jay Hawkins made the song immortal; I just cribbed it”, Bette revealed to Yahoo! “[The lyric] ‘Of all the witches working, I’m the worst’ – that was my line”.
19. The fountain that appears in the film when Max et al are celebrating the demise of the Sanderson sisters is the same fountain in the iconic opening credits of Friends.
mollie @mollie_luise I was today years old when I found out that the fountain from Hocus Pocus is the same as the one shown in Friends
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mollie @mollie_luise I was today years old when I found out that the fountain from Hocus Pocus is the same as the one shown in FriendsIf you thought this fountain was in NYC, you’d be wrong. It’s actually located on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, California where both Hocus Pocus and Friends were filmed. For the former, they added colourful trees and leaves to indicated Autumn-time, and for the latter, they edited in the NYC skyline!
Did any of these surprise you? Are you excited for Hocus Pocus 2? Let us know in the comments!
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