Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Trivia

Fear and Loathing

• Duke's tribute to Dr. Gonzo - "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die" - is taken from the foreword of "Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo," the semi-autobiographical novel written by Oscar Zeta Acosta. Zeta Acosta was the famous "Chicano lawyer" and friend of Thompson's whose notorious party binges served as the model for Dr. Gonzo. Thompson changed Zeta Acosta's ethnic identity to "Samoan" to deflect suspicion from Zeta Acosta, who was in some trouble with the militant Chicanos in L.A. at the time the book was written.
• The character of Dr. Gonzo is based on Thompson's friend Oscar Acosta, who is said to have drowned sometime in 1974.

• Prior to filming, Johnny Depp swapped his car for Hunter S. Thompson's red Cadillac convertible and spent weekends driving it around California in preparation for the role.
• Raoul Duke's typewriter has the words "OFF THE PIGS" written on the top.
• According to Johnny Depp, the gorilla statue outside the Bazooko Circus, now "lives" in his front yard.
• Much of the clothing (shirts, hats) worn by Johnny Depp in the movie were actual pieces of clothing that the real Hunter S. Thompson wore in the '70s. Thompson himself let Depp borrow them for the movie, after Depp spent four months with Thompson learning his mannerisms and proper vocal inflection for the role.
• Thompson himself shaved Johnny Depp's head. They were in Thompson's kitchen, Depp refused to look in a mirror, and Thompson wore a miner's hard hat.

• The T-shirt that the hitchhiker (Tobey Maguire) wears has a Ralph Steadman picture on it. Ralph Steadman did the original illustrations for the book and the typeface of the credits is based on his handwriting.
• The Bazuko Circus Casino was modeled closely after the Circus Circus Casino in Las Vegas, which was mentioned in the original book. The real casino refused to have anything to do with the film, and even forbade the use of its name. The casino sign shown in the film replaces the neon clown's pinwheel with a mallet, and the interior shots were partially filmed in the Boardwalk Casino in Las Vegas. The carousel-themed bar in the real Circus Circus revolves in the opposite direction as the one depicted in the film.
• Laraine Newman (the Frog-Eyed Woman) and Harry Dean Stanton (the Judge) both appeared on the 1996 Spoken Word Adaptation CD book of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Stanton was the narrator while Newman played several small roles.

• The "Red Shark" is Hunter S. Thompson's own convertible.
• Whilst Johnny Depp had Hunter S. Thompsons car, Thompson spent that period in Depp's car with a woman named Heidi, writing an essay called "Fear And Loathing In Hollywood: My Doomed Love At The Taco Stand" that was partially published in Time Magazine, along with a new Ralph Steadman drawing of a gargoyle-like Dr. gonzo.
• When Raoul Duke is calling his attorney about a new assignment, there is a poster on the back wall of Dr. Gonzo's office. It has an two-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button inside a sheriff's star. This is actually a political poster from Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff of Aspen. He ran on the Freak Power party ticket, a political party he made up himself.
• Look for the Gonzo Fist logo on the wall of the bathroom drawn in shaving cream during the White Rabbit scene.
• Cameo: [Hunter S. Thompson] at the Jefferson Airplane show.
• When Duke is gambling (he plays a round of roulette) there are two actual Hunter S. Thompson IDs in his wallet.
• The coconut-smashing scene towards the end of the film was not originally in the book. Hunter Thompson wrote the scene when he wrote Fear and Loathing and then omitted it. Terry Gilliam inserted it back into the story for this movie.

• During Raoul Duke's acid trip in the bar of the hotel when he first arrives in Las Vegas, you hear "Roger Pratt, please report to the front desk" being said on the PA. Roger Pratt worked with director Terry Gilliam on Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Brazil (1985), The Fisher King (1991), and Twelve Monkeys (1995) as his cinematographer - but not on Fear and Loathing.
• When Thompson is explaining how to deal with a highway patrolman, the music playing is the same tune used in "The Blues Brothers", another movie that featured some extreme stunt driving.
• Hunter's tribute to Oscar as he boards the plane was actually taken from 'The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat: Fear and Loathing in the Graveyard of the Weird', and was later added to the forward of Acosta's autobiography. The forward is little more than a quote, while the original article is a fascinating eulogy on the mysterious disappearance of his friend Oscar. The article is reprinted in its entirety in 'The Great Shark Hunt', Hunter S. Thompson.
• According to Terry Gilliam's commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD, at the beginning of the movie when they stop on the side of the road after Duke starts seeing bats and wants Gonzo to drive, you can see a strange looking cactus in the background. It was designed by Ralph Steadman and appears many times in the background of the movie in various scenes. Gilliam complained of having to lug it around wherever they went.

• Cameo: [Laila Nabulsi] the producer appears as Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane performing at The Matrix
• Director Trademark: [Terry Gilliam] [bookends] Raoul Duke driving down a stretch of desert road with the top down.
• Terry Gilliam took over as director after Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy) left the picture due to creative differences. Gilliam re-wrote the entire screenplay in a matter of days to fit his unique creative vision and style, while staying true to Thompson's writings.
• Terry Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Alex Cox and Tod Davies are credited for the film's screenplay. Gilliam and Grisoni adapted the novel by Hunter S. Thompson and used their script for the film; however, a nasty arbitration wrangle at the Writers Guild of America found that Cox and Davies had written a screenplay earlier that had also adapted Thompson's novel, and should thus receive credit for the finished work even though they had nothing to do with it.
• During the scene when Duke first arrives at the dirt bike race, it is suppose to be dawn but you can tell from the lighting it certainly isn't. According to Terry Gilliam's commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD, they had the shot set up perfectly with the sun just rising, but when Johnny Depp tried to start the car it was dead. They figured out soon enough that the driver forgot to fill the tank. Due to budget and time constraints, the shot had to be redone later that day.
• In the scene where Benicio Del Toro stops the car and has an "attack" with Tobey Maguire in the car, Maguire's hair seems different. According to Terry Gilliam's commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD, they shot this scene a few months after the scene where they first picked him up and could not get Tobey Maguire to shave his head for the wig. It would have cost $15,000 extra to put that in his contract initially but they opted not to because the movie was already becoming over budget. They ended up spending well over that using a bald cap and makeup effects, as well as using computer editing to erase the line on his forehead.
• Director Cameo: [Terry Gilliam] wearing a cap and holding a microphone protruding from a large tape recorder box in the motorcycle race as the cyclists take off.
• The scene in which Raoul Duke calls his attorney from Baker is filmed entirely backwards. In the back ground smoke can be seen coming back into a fire, and Duke bangs in reverse on the side of the phone booth.

• Near the beginning of the movie, while Dr. Gonzo and Raoul are driving down the highway, there is an accident involving many cars. There is an ambulance about to put a person that is covered with a white sheet in it. If you look on the white sheet, there is a smiley face in blood on it.
• The letter "z" often appears throughout the film. Although it appears to be Dr. Gonzo's signature it is never stated. "Z" was marked on Dukes' head during one scene. Dr. Gonzo cuts the opium after getting off the phone with Lucy in the shape of a "Z" When Dr. Gonzo hands the waitress the napkin it says has "Z" before the question mark. Also, "Z he lives" written in ketchup on the wall of the Flamingo Suite When Duke wakes up to the destruction.
• In the trailer for the movie, when Gonzo fires the gun in the car, it actually goes off instead of just clicking.
• In a scene cut from the movie, Duke and Gonzo tell a DA from Atlanta about a rather gruesome incident which happened at a McDonalds. In the final cut, during check-in scene at the Mint Hotel, a man in a cowboy hat tells the exact same story to someone over a payphone.