Short Circuit [1986] (1 disc)

Random Trivia For This Title:

• Stephanie and Number 5 dance to a scene from Saturday Night Fever which was also directed by John Badham.
• This film was originally conceived as a dark high-tech thriller with Number 5 as the villain of the picture: an out-of-control, heavily-armed military robot that had escaped from the lab that had developed him.
• After Frank is knocked down with the tray, the arms of the person operating Johnny 5 can be seen as the robot turns to run.
• The [3 Stooges] short that #5 is watching is the end of Woman Haters.
• The gangster movie featuring George Raft that Number 5 is watching, and later imitating (using Raft's famous "coin flipping") is Scarface.
• In this film and Short Circuit 2, Johnny 5's voice is provided by puppeteer Tim Blaney. This casting decision was made due to the director's belief that real-time interaction with the robot prop would make the interaction seem more natural on-screen than if they edited Johnny's voice in during post-production.
• Many of the little tricks done by Johnny 5 on-screen (like flipping through book pages in a blink of the eye and tossing a washer into the air in a mimic of a scene from an old gangster movie he saw) were done using relatively simple, yet ingenious sleight-of-hand prop effects. For instance, the pages were flipped using an air hose, while the washer was flipped using a piece of string at both ends sideways. Not only did this save money for the producers for the actual robot and the screenplay, but they proved remarkably effective in getting just the right look needed for the scenes.
• As per the original movie's attempt to portray a living robot in the "real world", every part of Johnny and his brethren was built to have a specific, logical purpose behind them; this was originally a source of contention between the director and the prop designer, the latter of whom insisted on giving Johnny "eyes" to give the character a method of visually expressing emotion. As a result, Johnny's iconic "eyelids" were created, with the explanation that they were sun guards/camera coverings.
• From the first movie to the second, Ben's last name changes.