Trivia for
Shrek (2001) More at IMDbPro »

• Chris Farley was originally cast as Shrek and even recorded the dialogue. However, after his death, the role was given to fellow "Saturday Night Live" (1975) performer, Mike Myers. A remnant of Farley remains when Shrek uses "finger quotes" - a trademark of Farley's character Bennett Brower.
  
  
• Donkey was modeled after Pericles (aka Perry), a real life miniature donkey who lives in Barron Park, Palo Alto, California. The people from Pacific Data Images/DreamWorks did an online search for a donkey to study, and found one right in their neighborhood.
  
  
• Mike Myers actually read opposite his wife Robin Ruzan when recording his lines for the climactic love scene at the end of the movie.
  
  
• There are 36 unique locations in Shrek - more than any other computer-animated film at the time.
  
  
• Computer animation production started on the project on 31 October 1996 and took more than four and a half years to complete.
  
  
• The principal actors never met each other. All read their parts separately, with a reader feeding them the lines.
  
  
• In Yiddish, Shrek means monster (from the German for terror or fright).
  
  
• A fairy godmother named Dama Fortuna was originally included in the movie, but was cut out in the beginning of the movie's production. She eventually appeared in Shrek 2 (2004).
  
  
• This film was the first winner for the inaugural Best Animated Feature Film category of the Academy Awards 2001.
  
  
• In the fire scene outside of Shrek's house you see Papa Bear comforting Baby Bear... later, in Farquaad's castle as he is watching the picture of Fiona on the mirror you see Mama Bear as a rug, skinned and laying on the floor. Her ultimate fate, however, seems to be ok. She re-appears during the Video & DVD Karaoke scene, dancing with Papa and Baby.
  
  
• When the masked executioner, Thelonious, is singing, it is a direct reference to a "Stacker 2" commercial that the "WWF (World Wrestling Federation)" character Kane (Glenn Jacobs), who also wears a mask, appears singing karaoke.
  
  
• Although he's supposed to a hooved animal, Donkey's movements are instead based on those of a dog, except in the chase scene early in the film, during which Donkey's movements are based on those of a rabbit.
  
  
• According to a storyboard that was never animated, Princess Fiona was born an orge to the late King and Queen of Duluc.
  
  
• Jim Lange, the original host of "The Dating Game" (1965) as well as Jimmy Fallon recorded the voice of the magic mirror. However, no one could top Chris Miller, a storyboard artist, whose voice was in the temp track.
  
  
• The effects department actually took mud showers in order to study fluid dynamic simulation.
  
  
• When Art Director, Douglas Rogers, visited a magnolia plantation in Charleston, South Carolina to do research into the look of Shrek's swamp, he was chased by an alligator.
  
  
• An expert on armor came in to show the animators a variety of armor that they could use as inspiration for both the Rescue sequence and the Tournament sequence. The animators tried on the armor, studied how they moved with the armor on, and also took turns flailing different swords.
  
  
• Over 1,000 fantasy characters invade Shrek's swamp at the beginning of the movie.
  
  
• 1,250 props and environments were created in the computer for the first film.
  
  
• Cameron Diaz became very physical when recording her Matrix-style kung fu moves for her scene with Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and even broke out into Cantonese at times since she had completed Kung Fu training during the production of Charlie's Angels (2000).
  
  
• According to director, Andrew Adamson, Shrek's height varies between seven and eight feet depending on who you ask. He was 7 feet and since then he's grown in people's minds, and now he's usually referred to as 8 feet.
  
  
• The song "Welcome to Duloc", which is sung by the wooden dolls in the cabinet at the entrance to Duloc, is not only a parody of Disney's "It's a Small World", but is in the same key and has the same beats per minute (tempo) as the Disney song.
  
  
• Prior to release, the movie was viewed by DreamWork's lawyers, since there were concerns that Disney would sue over the movie's not-so-subtle satirical references to the company's films and theme parks.
  
  
• The scene where Princess Fiona burps was not originally included, and was written only after Cameron Diaz burped after drinking some coke during a recording session.
  
  
• Mike Myers was in New York when they realized that the line "What are you doing in my swamp!" had never been read. So producer Jeffrey Katzenberg flew to New York, and had Mike Meyers read the line in the back of a limo.
  
  
• The line "You're on your way to a smacked bottom." was not actually in the script. Mike Myers was getting annoyed at one of the directors and improvised the line.
  
  
• During a voiceover session, Cody Cameron suggested that Cameron Diaz marry him "... so you can become Cameron Cameron".
  
  
• The only characters who refer to Shrek by name in this movie are Fiona and Donkey. All other characters refer to him as either "Beast", "Ogre", "That Thing", "It" or "Him".
  
  
• The song at Shrek and Fiona's reception, "I'm a Believer", was chosen specifically because of the line "I thought love was only true in fairy tales."
  
  
• Gingy, the Gingerbread Man, later became a spokescharacter for Wal-Mart.
  
  
• 'John Lithgow' later admitted that, although he enjoyed recording the voice of Lord Farquaad, he was a little disappointed that he never actually got to work directly with Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, or Eddie Murphy.
  
  
• When Donkey and Shrek are looking up at the stars, Shrek points out the constellation "Bloodnok the Flatulent", a reference to the character Major Bloodnok, created by Peter Sellers in the 1950s BBC Radio program "The Goon Show".
  
  
• Voted number 2 in channel 4's (UK) "Greatest Family Films"
  
  
• There are many references to University of Notre Dame in the movie as a handful of the people that produced the movie were "Domers", Notre Dame graduates. The biggest example being the shape of the castle, exactly like that of the Hesburg Library. Another reference is "DuLac" The University's Name is University of Notre Dame du Lac, our lady of the lake. The Student guide/disciplinary manual is called DuLac. A third reference is the "Farquad" There are many quads on the ND campus, and there is a dorm that is in the middle of nowhere, on a "Far quad". You can see the famous golden dome of the university on the back of Shrek's vest.
  
  
• While still working on Shrek, Shrek 2 (2004) was already being made.
  
  
• The song "All Star" by Smash Mouth, heard during the opening credits, was never intended to be in the final cut of the film. It was used as a place holder in test prints until a new song could be found. But test audiences loved it, and the producers kept it in. When the producers decided to keep "All Star" they figured they should ask SmashMouth to sing the last song in the movie, "I'm a Believer."
  
  
• Kathleen Freeman's final feature movie.
  
  
• When Shrek compares onions to ogres, it is a reference to the play ‘Peer Gynt’, where the main character declares himself an onion for similar reasons.
  
  
• [June 2008] Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Animation".
  
  
• Mike Myers recorded Shrek's voice one way, without the Scottish accent, before the film was test screened. After watching it, he decided that the voice didn't sound right and had all of his lines re-recorded, basing the accent on the voice his mother used when reading him bedtime stories as a child.
  
  
• Steven Spielberg bought the film rights to the book in 1991, before deciding to co-find Dreamworks, he decided to be the executive producer of a traditionally animated feature film version of the book released under the Amblin banner, with Bill Murray playing Shrek and Steve Martin playing Donkey.
  
  

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