Lindsay Lohan, who was fourteen years old at the time of production, was originally signed on to play Kaylee. She dropped out shortly before filming began, deciding to take a temporary hiatus from acting for a year. She was replaced with Amanda Bynes.
This is Amanda Bynes' film debut.
The blue dye was tattoo ink that was sprayed in several layers on his body occasionally throughout the day to keep it topped up. According to Paul Giamatti (Marty Wolf), it was fairly easy to apply, but was a bit more difficult to get off, particularly his feet, for some reason. They stayed blue for several months.
John Cho was asked to do his role with an accent. He turned down the part, saying he didn't want young people thinking it was okay to laugh at someone's accent. In Cho's entire career, he has not once played a character with a fake accent
The protagonist's last name is Shepherd as the antagonist's last name is Wolf. This may be a reference to The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf fairy tale about a young boy who lies to adults about a wolf coming in to attack the sheep and the night the Wolf really did come to harm the sheep, he told the adults, but they didn't believe him thus relating to Jason Shepherd lying to other characters in his story such as his parents and is not believed at first when he finally is telling the truth.
Jaleel White: As himself acting in Marty Wolf's latest movie. Wolf never does learn his name, condescendingly and erroneously referring to him as "Urkel", to which White gets angry, saying that "Urkel is a character I played when I was a child!" Jaleel White played Steve Urkel on Family Matters (1989), which brought him much success, but ultimately cursed him with typecasting, to the point that he once said that if anyone ever saw him in Urkel's outfit again, to just shoot him and put him out of his misery.