50 Fun Facts About Sixteen Candles

In which year was Sixteen Candles released in US cinemas?

Universal put it out on May 4, and it opened in second place at the box office on its first weekend.

Why does Samantha's family forget her sixteenth birthday?

The bride is Ginny, described as older, beautiful and self-absorbed, and the whole household is consumed by the wedding.

Which actress plays Samantha Baker?

It was the first of three John Hughes films she headlined, followed by The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink.

Who plays Sam's crush, senior heart-throb Jake Ryan?

The role has outlived his career: he made only a handful of films afterwards and has not acted since 1991.

What is the nickname of Anthony Michael Hall's freshman character, otherwise billed as 'the Geek'?

Hughes said every other kid who read for the part did a stereotyped nerd act, while Hall played it straight 'like a real human being'.

What does Ted wager with Bryce and Wease that he will 'get physical' with Sam before the dance ends?

It is a very 1980s bet; the pair then demand proof, and Ted ends up charging other freshmen a dollar a look at it.

What proof do Bryce and Wease demand that Ted has won his bet?

Sam actually hands them over willingly after Ted admits the bet, then Jake buys them back from Ted later that night.

Who exactly is Long Duk Dong?

He is billeted in Sam's bedroom with the grandparents, which is why she ends up sleeping downstairs.

Which actor plays Long Duk Dong?

He was an original Broadway cast member of Sondheim's Pacific Overtures years before the film and later spent six seasons as Nurse Yosh on ER.

What sound effect plays whenever Long Duk Dong appears on screen?

The gag is one of the main reasons the character is now cited as an example of Hollywood's Asian stereotypes.

Watanabe auditioned for Long Duk Dong in character, imitating whose way of speaking?

The bit fooled Hughes completely; when he finally heard the actor's ordinary American voice he laughed and said, 'Boy, was I duped.'

Fooled by the fake accent, what did casting director Jackie Burch try to do with Watanabe?

Burch had once taught deaf students; the ruse ended only when the actor admitted where he was actually from.

Which newspaper called Long Duk Dong an 'unfunny' and 'potentially offensive stereotype'?

The criticism only grew over the decades; NPR asked in a 2008 piece whether he was 'the last of the Hollywood stereotypes'.

With her bedroom taken over, where does Sam have to sleep?

It is on that sofa, the night before the wedding, that her father finally apologises for forgetting her birthday.

How does Sam first reveal her crush on Jake at school?

Jake has already noticed the way she looks at him and quizzes his friend Rock about her, who dismisses her as immature.

In exchange for the bet winnings, Jake lets Ted drive a drunken Caroline home in his father's what?

By morning the car is banged up and Jake finds Ted and Caroline making out in the back of it.

What does Wease's photo of Ted with Caroline in the expensive car actually show?

The detour was purely to impress the geeks, and it backfires as neatly as everything else Ted attempts.

When Jake phones the Baker house from his party, who answers and tells him Sam is not interested?

The failed call leaves each of them wrongly convinced the other has no interest, until Ted sets Jake straight from under a table.

In the final scene, what does Sam say when Jake tells her to make a wish over the cake?

The cake carries sixteen candles, and the shot of the two of them sitting either side of it became the film's signature image.

On the wedding morning, a hungover Long Duk Dong garbles his English and says Sam is doing what?

Jake heads to the church anyway, catches Sam after the ceremony and invites her back to his house.

How much do Ted, Bryce and Wease charge other freshman boys to look at the proof of the bet?

The scene is one of several Hughes had to defend when the MPAA initially slapped the film with an R rating.

Which real-life sibling pair both appear in the film, as Bryce and 'Geek Girl'?

Both were raised in Evanston, one of the suburbs where the film was shot, and both went on to Say Anything and Working Girl breakthroughs within five years.

Hughes wrote the script over a single weekend after pinning what above his desk?

He had asked his agent for photos of young actresses; two of the others in the pile were Robin Wright and Ally Sheedy.

The casting for Jake reportedly came down to Schoeffling and which future star?

Ringwald pushed for the other candidate; Emilio Estevez also read for the part.

Where was the film primarily shot?

Hughes set nearly all his teen films in that stretch of Illinois, later inventing the fictional suburb of Shermer for them.

What was unusual about Niles East High School in Skokie, where most of the school scenes were shot?

The empty building became a go-to location: Risky Business, Weird Science and Pretty in Pink also used it before Oakton Community College knocked it down.

The Baker family house is a real home on Payne Street in which suburb?

A cafeteria scene and a gym scene were shot separately at Niles North High School.

What was the film's production budget?

It was a bargain even then; the original 1982 plan had been a $1 million indie before Universal stepped in.

Which company agreed to finance Hughes's 1982 low-budget script on a $1M budget?

The record label's film arm lost out once Universal's Ned Tanen folded the picture into a three-year, $30 million deal with Hughes.

Hughes chose to make his directing debut with this film after being fired from which movie he wrote?

He was later rehired on that picture, and Universal boss Ned Tanen then greenlit his slate on condition that this one came out first.

What rating did the MPAA initially give the film before Hughes won an appeal?

It went out as PG; the PG-13 rating did not exist until two months after the film's release.

How old were Ringwald and Hall during filming?

Both were younger than the sixteen-year-old the title celebrates, and both won youth acting awards for the film that December.

Which band's rockabilly cover of '16 Candles' serves as the film's title song?

The same recording resurfaced decades later on the soundtrack of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Which doo-wop group took the original '16 Candles' to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100?

The 1958 single was written by Luther Dixon and Allyson R. Khent and was kept off the top spot by Lloyd Price's 'Stagger Lee'.

Which Thompson Twins track appears on the film's soundtrack?

It comes from the trio's 1983 album Quick Step & Side Kick and was never released as a single in its own right.

The original soundtrack release was a 'specially priced mini album' containing how many songs?

The film itself uses more than 30 songs, from AC/DC and Spandau Ballet to David Bowie and the Peter Gunn theme.

Ira Newborn, who scored the film, is best known for the music of which comedy franchise?

He was also musical director on The Blues Brothers and scored Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Planes, Trains and Automobiles for Hughes.

Gene Siskel gave it three and a half stars and called it the best teenage comedy since which film?

His partner Roger Ebert agreed it was 'a sweet and funny movie', praising Ringwald as its 'perfect center'.

Ringwald and Hall both won which honours for the film in December of its release year?

They remain the only juvenile performers to take that ceremony's lead actress and lead actor prizes for the same film.

After retiring from acting in 1991, what did the actor who played Jake Ryan do for a living?

He has never given an interview since walking away, which has only fed the character's mystique.

Justin Henry (little brother Mike Baker) was the youngest-ever Oscar nominee for which film?

He was eight when nominated for Best Supporting Actor, a record that still stands across every category.

The actress who plays bride Ginny is the daughter of which Hollywood star?

Blanche Baker had already won an Emmy for the 1978 miniseries Holocaust before playing the self-absorbed bride.

Wedding organist Zelda Rubinstein was best known as the tiny medium in which horror franchise?

At her tallest she stood 4 ft 3 in; her Tangina Barrons had told the Freelings to 'go into the light' just two years earlier.

The reverend at Ginny's wedding is played by the older brother of which comedy star?

Brian Doyle-Murray also co-wrote Caddyshack and later played the boss Frank Shirley in Christmas Vacation.

Paul Dooley (Sam's dad Jim) played the frustrated father in which 1979 coming-of-age film?

He co-created The Electric Company for PBS and voiced Wimpy in Robert Altman's Popeye.

Carlin Glynn, who plays Sam's mother, won a Tony Award for originating the lead in which musical?

Her real-life daughter is actress Mary Stuart Masterson, another 1980s teen-movie face.

Jami Gertz, who plays Sam's friend Robin, became a co-owner of which NBA team in 2015?

She and husband Tony Ressler led the group that bought the team in 2015; she grew up in Glenview, another Chicago suburb, and later played Star in The Lost Boys.

The 'Brat Pack' label later hung on Ringwald and Hall was coined in a 1985 cover story in which magazine?

Writer David Blum came up with the Rat Pack pun after watching young actors get mobbed at the Hard Rock Cafe.

In 2022 Peacock announced a comedy series reimagining the film with four Latina leads. What is it called?

The title nods to the quinceañera, the fifteenth-birthday celebration in many Latin American cultures.

A 2009 Salon essay by Amy Benfer asked whether the film condones what?

The trigger is Jake handing his passed-out girlfriend to Ted with the line that she is 'so blitzed she won't know the difference'.