Trivia for
Over the Hedge (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Bruce Willis replaced Jim Carrey as the voice of RJ.
  
  
• Gene Wilder was offered a prominent role but declined.
  
  
• The makers originally wanted Bill Murray and Harold Ramis to voice RJ and Verne, respectively.
  
  
• Hammy suggests calling the hedge "Steve", saying that "Steve is a nice name". Hammy is voiced by Steve Carell.
  
  
• Took a crew of 237 more than three years to finish the film.
  
  
• The 'forest side' of the hedge is based on the hedge in front of the building where Dreamwork's studio is run. The exterior of the hedge is based on the vines growing in their parking garage. The hedge is approximately 7 feet tall.
  
  
• Live-action reference of fountains, willow trees, hedges, bottles shattering and umbrellas were used in designing the looks for the movie.
  
  
• The art department went to a bowling alley to sketch the design of the 'perfect' vending machine. They went to various supermarkets to sketch chip bags and bottles. They eventually got kicked out of a Safeway because the manager felt uncomfortable with them being there for such an extended amount of time.
  
  
• Based on "Over the Hedge", a syndicated comic strip written and drawn by Michael Fry and T. Lewis. It tells the story of a raccoon named RJ and a turtle named Verne who come to terms with their woodlands being taken over by suburbia, trying to survive the increasing flow of humanity and technology while becoming enticed by it at the same time. Four collections have been published: Over The Hedge, Over The Hedge 2, Over The Hedge 3: Knights of the Picnic Table and Over The Hedge: Stuffed Animals.
  
  
• Sean Yazbeck (BBQ Barry) and Lee Bienstock (Lunch Table Larry) appeared in the film as a reward for winning their assigned task on the NBC TV series "The Apprentice" (2004).
  
  
• Whenever RJ is searching through his bag, he occasionally tosses out (among other things) an audio CD. Looking close in multiple shots, you can see it's a John Tesh CD which apparently sold for 10 cents.
  
  
• Gladys, played by Allison Janney, was originally a Real Estate Agent, but was changed to the president of the Homeowners Association to add to the story.
  
  
• Dave Morehead, an animator of Over the Hedge (2006), created reference footage by putting a camera on the back of his friend's dog and letting it run around his house. This gave the layout artists some great ideas about scale, animals' perspective, and how animals moved. In addition, the layout team compared a house to an apartment building and a kitchen to a cathedral.
  
  
• The film was originally announced for a November 2005 release
  
  
• Ben Folds re-wrote the lyrics to the closing song "Rockin' the Suburbs", replacing the teenage angst and nu metal parodies with a more child-friendly attack on Suburbia. This version also features a spoken part by William Shatner, who plays Ozzie in the film
  
  
• The stackable potato chips branded Spuddies in the film is a spoof of Pringles chips. In an early trailer, the chip brand was known as Jingles and featured the Pringles logo with a court jester's cap on.
  
  
• The logo of Dwayne LaFontaine, the Verminator's pest and vermin control company, featuring a man resembling himself hitting a rabbit with a hammer, is a spoof of a pest control company in California, Nevada, and Arizona, Western Extermination Company, whose logo features a man named Kernel Kleenup with a top hat and suit about to squash a rat with his hammer.
  
  
• During the rolling end credits, original comics can be seen, for example, Penny and Lou reading a comic to the porcupine triplets
  
  
• The child who plays one of the porcupine triplets, Bucky, is Sami Kirkpatrick, the son of Karey Kirkpatrick, one of the directors of the film
  
  
• The first Dreamworks film to be distributed by Paramount Pictures who purchased Dreamworks in 2005.
  
  
• According to the film makers on the DVD commentary, the movie originally opened with RJ sneaking into Vincent the Bear's cave to steal his food. But then they quickly realized that they were beginning with something more suspenseful so they invented the "Vending Machine" sequence at almost the last minute.
  
  
• Pay close attention to the porcupine kids after Ozzie's melodramatic performance in the streets. As they declare "Props for the OzzMan!!", they're holding their hands in the "Horned Devil" gesture which is done by fans of heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne.
  
  
• To prepare for his role as Vincent the Bear, Nick Nolte researched information about bears in order to give the right vocal tone and performance to his character.
  
  
• Ben Folds said on his blog about the title credits song "Family of Me": "The original lyric was 'Ooh, I'm an asshole' but obviously that didn't last for long. The directors and producers got a good laugh and then they stopped laughing when I tried to explain why it's okay to say 'asshole' in front of kids. I think it's the 'hole' part. Ass might be all right. I don't know..."
  
  
• Tiger is introduced as Prince Tigeriess Mahmood Shabaz. This is a play on the middle name of another William Shatner character: James Tiberius Kirk.
  
  

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