50 Fun Facts About Pleasantville

How was Pleasantville's black-and-white sitcom world actually shot before digital artists went to work?

Entirely in color: about 163,000 frames were then scanned so the hues could be drained away digitally, a first for a new feature film.

Which everyday fixture is missing from every bathroom in the squeaky-clean sitcom town of Pleasantville?

Toilets simply do not exist in the sitcom town, where the temperature is always 72 degrees and the high school team scores with every shot.

With nothing able to burn in Pleasantville, what is the only job the town's firefighters ever do?

Rescuing cats from trees is all they know, so when a real blaze breaks out David grabs the hose himself: the firemen have no idea what it is for.

Which star of The Andy Griffith Show plays the mysterious TV repairman who zaps the twins into Pleasantville?

Don Knotts, television's Deputy Barney Fife, made his final on-screen film appearance in the part before turning to voice roles.

Which future Fast & Furious star plays the most popular boy at Pleasantville High, who dates Jennifer?

Paul Walker played the school's sports captain three years before The Fast and the Furious made him an international star.

Which actress plays Jennifer, the popularity-obsessed twin sister, in Pleasantville?

Reese Witherspoon won a Young Hollywood Award for Female Breakthrough Performance for the part, three years before she played Elle Woods.

What do twins David and Jennifer break while fighting over the television at the start of Pleasantville?

The remote control snaps in the tussle, and a mysterious repairman soon turns up with a strange replacement that sends them into the sitcom.

Which 1998 Jim Carrey film did critics often compare with Pleasantville for its TV-is-stifling theme?

The Truman Show reached cinemas that June, and Entertainment Weekly judged Pleasantville the shallower of the two TV fables.

Before the twins start retelling famous stories, what do the books in Pleasantville's library contain?

Blank pages fill with words only as David and Jennifer summarize the plots for their curious classmates.

Which sitcom star plays the divorced mother of David and Jennifer in Pleasantville?

Jane Kaczmarek took the small role two years before she became Lois, the sitcom mother who earned her seven Emmy nominations.

Which actor plays David, the sitcom-obsessed twin in Pleasantville, four years before becoming Spider-Man?

Tobey Maguire won the Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor as the shy teenager who escapes into 1950s reruns.

Inside the sitcom world of Pleasantville, Jennifer must pose as which wholesome daughter of George and Betty?

Mary Sue is the sitcom family's model daughter, but Jennifer refuses to stick to the script and rebels on her very first date.

Pleasantville High's team never misses a shot, and David joins the roster, in which sport?

Basketball is a sure thing in the sitcom town: David scores every time he shoots, which helps keep him happy there at first.

What does David show Bill Johnson that inspires the soda jerk to start painting in Pleasantville?

A book of modern art opens his eyes to what color can do, and his new passion soon leads to a romance with Betty.

Where do Jennifer and her date park in Pleasantville on the night the first bursts of color appear?

Lovers' Lane is meant for innocent hand-holding in the sitcom town, until Jennifer takes charge and her date is left stunned.

Which 1939 film do critics cite as an earlier movie that used a switch to color, as Pleasantville does?

The Wizard of Oz and Schindler's List were both named by critic Warren Epstein as forerunners in using color as a metaphor.

Which screenwriter of the comedies Big and Dave made his directing debut with Pleasantville?

Gary Ross spent about six years developing the idea, and both of those earlier scripts had earned him Oscar nominations.

Which composer wrote the Oscar-nominated orchestral score for the film Pleasantville?

Randy Newman scored A Bug's Life the same year, and he recorded a music-only commentary track for the Pleasantville DVD.

Which Dumb and Dumber star plays Bill Johnson, the gentle soda jerk who discovers art in Pleasantville?

Jeff Daniels earned a Satellite Award nomination as the man whose life is one repeated routine until David helps him break out of it.

What finally turns Pleasantville's stubborn mayor from black-and-white to color during the courtroom trial?

Losing his temper does it: David goads him by suggesting women might go out to work while men stay home to cook, and the mayor flees in shame.

What do David and Bill Johnson make together to protest Pleasantville's strict new code of conduct?

A colorful mural celebrating love, music and books goes up outside the soda fountain, and it gets the pair arrested and put on trial.

Jennifer finally changes from black-and-white to color in Pleasantville only after finding a passion for what?

Literature, not romance, transforms her: she loses interest in partying, turns bookish and decides to go to college.

At the end of Pleasantville, Jennifer stays behind to attend college in which neighboring town?

Springfield is reachable only because the town's roads, which once went nowhere else, now lead to other cities.

Which Fargo star plays George, the sitcom father left bewildered when Betty walks out, in Pleasantville?

William H. Macy shared the Boston critics' supporting actor prize for his 1998 roles, and Variety called him a standout in an excellent cast.

Which actress won several critics' awards as Betty, the housewife who awakens to a new life in Pleasantville?

Joan Allen took supporting-actress prizes from the Los Angeles and Boston critics and tied with Kathy Bates at the Critics' Choice Awards.

The scene of Pleasantville townspeople burning library books is widely read as a parallel to which regime?

Nazi Germany's book bonfires are the reference, in a riot that also leaves the town's soda fountain smashed.

Which critic gave Pleasantville four stars out of four and ranked it among the year's most original films?

Roger Ebert called it one of the best and most original films of the year, while The New York Times found its metaphor belabored.

While David settles in for a Pleasantville marathon, what does Jennifer want to watch on the same television?

An MTV concert clashes with his marathon of reruns, and the tug-of-war that follows brings a strange repairman to the door.

Which boy, the captain of the Pleasantville High team, does Jennifer rebelliously date soon after arriving?

Skip is the school's most popular boy, and he comes away from the date so shocked that color starts to seep into the town.

Which Pleasantville High classmate does David romance while living in the sitcom world?

Margaret returns his feelings, yet David is dismayed to stay black-and-white even after romance has transformed others.

A girl offering David a brightly colored apple in Pleasantville has been compared with which Bible story?

The fall of man in Genesis is the model, a reading that led one Christian reviewer to argue the film treats sin as an improvement.

Pleasantville's writer-director said the film shows personal repression giving rise to what larger danger?

Political oppression grows, he argued, when people project their fear of change and of themselves onto other things.

Once all of Pleasantville has changed, which newly arrived product do the town's shops begin to sell?

Color TV sets go on sale showing footage of other countries, a sign that the town finally knows a wider world exists.

How do married couples such as George and Betty sleep in the chaste sitcom world of Pleasantville?

In twin beds, always: so when a double bed goes on display in a town store, it draws a mesmerized crowd.

Pleasantville earned Oscar nominations for its art direction, its score and which other craft?

Costume design brought Judianna Makovsky a nomination, while the film's pioneering digital color work went unrecognized by the Academy.

Which dystopian young-adult blockbuster did the writer-director of Pleasantville go on to direct?

The Hunger Games was a worldwide hit in 2012, yet he chose not to return for the sequels, citing their rushed production schedule.

Which racehorse drama reunited Pleasantville's writer-director with the actors who played David and George?

Seabiscuit earned seven Academy Award nominations, one of them for Pleasantville's production designer, Jeannine Oppewall.

Which character actor, who died months before Pleasantville opened, plays the town's mayor Big Bob?

J. T. Walsh is one of three people the film is dedicated to, along with a crew member and the director's mother.

Which actress, Wendy Peffercorn in The Sandlot, plays David's love interest in Pleasantville?

Marley Shelton counted this among her major early film roles, before Never Been Kissed and, later, Sin City.

Which future Rilo Kiley frontwoman appears in Pleasantville as Christin, one of Jennifer's real-world friends?

Jenny Lewis, a child actress in Troop Beverly Hills, formed the band in the year Pleasantville was released.

Which Beatles song did Fiona Apple cover for Pleasantville, with a video shot on the film's diner set?

Across the Universe was named Fiona Apple's best cover by Pitchfork, which noted how well it suits the film.

Which film director shot a music video on Pleasantville's diner set for a song from the soundtrack?

Paul Thomas Anderson, fresh from Boogie Nights, was dating the singer, Fiona Apple, and directed several of her other videos too.

Variety likened Pleasantville's fictional sitcom to which real 1950s family series?

Father Knows Best also featured children named Betty and Bud, names that turn up again in Pleasantville's perfect household.

Which studio released Pleasantville and was sued over the long working hours on the production?

New Line Cinema faced a wrongful-death suit after a camera crew member fell asleep driving home from a 19-hour day on set.

Pleasantville's color effects designer once colorized old black-and-white movies for which media mogul?

Ted Turner's colorized classics were an ironic training ground for Michael Southard, who supervised the film's color-timing.

Which California beach city hosted the main Pleasantville town set, with the family's street built in Burbank?

Malibu supplied the town itself, Long Beach some real interiors, and Warner Bros. stages the street where the Parkers live.

Director Jon M. Chu cited Pleasantville as an influence on the themes of which of his films?

Wicked borrowed its sense of a younger generation waking up and rebelling, Chu said, as it starts to see the truth about its world.

Which satirist, a creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, was a co-producer of Pleasantville?

Andy Borowitz shared the co-producer credit with Susan Borowitz, his partner in creating that sitcom.

Which jazz trumpeter's recording So What is heard on the 1950s-and-60s soundtrack of Pleasantville?

Miles Davis belongs to the very era the sitcom paints as bland, a point one critic made about every jolt the town receives.

When David returns home at the end of Pleasantville, how much time has passed in the real world?

One hour is all that has gone by, and he finds his mother crying in the kitchen and assures her that nothing has to be perfect.