2000 Amazing Stranger Things Facts

2000 Amazing Stranger Things Facts

Joe Everson

© Copyright 2021 Joe Everson

Contents

Introduction The Facts Introduction The ultimate book for all Stranger Things superfans! 2000 Amazing Stranger Things Facts contains all you could ever wish to know about this amazingly popular Netflix show. The Facts (1) Stranger Things was originally titled Montauk. Montauk is a hamlet at the east end of the Long Island peninsula and famed for its beaches. Ross and Matt Duffer, the brothers who created Stranger Things, were very inspired by Steven Spielberg's classic movie Jaws in their early plans for the show. "Jaws was our favorite movie of all time," said Matt Duffer, "so we liked the sort of coastal setting that allowed, but for production reasons it started to look more and more unfeasible." (2) One of the main reasons why the show was originally going to be set in Montauk is Camp Hero. Camp Hero (aka Montauk Air Force Station) is an abandoned military base in Montauk which gave rise to all manner of conspiracy theories. It was alleged in a book called The Montauk Project that Camp Hero used kidnapped children in experiments which included telekinesis and time travel. Most of the conspiracy theories involving Montauk are obviously considered to be fiction but the Duffers felt Camp Hero (with its many urban legends and alleged secrets) would be a great backdrop for a sci-fi fantasy horror show. (3) Some of the music score from the cult 1988 movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space can be heard when Dustin's toys come to life in the first episode of season three. (4) Nancy Wheeler has a Debbie Harry calender in her room in season one. Debbie Harry was the lead singer of Blondie. (5) Steve Harrington was originally going to be much nastier in the original plan for Stranger Things. The character was conceived as a very disposable and unlikeable villain who would be killed off by the end of the first season. It was the easygoing comic charisma of actor Joe Keery that made the Duffer Brothers radically alter the fate of Steve Harrington. Steve was given a redemptive arc, softened, and then became a main character (as opposed to a supporting villain). (6) The watch that Max wears in season two is a Swatch Yellow Racer. (7) In the first episode of Stranger Things 3, the kids are surreptitiously smuggled into the Starcourt Mall cinema by Steve to watch a horror movie. The movie is then interrupted by a power failure in Hawkins. The film playing is 1985's Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead was the conclusion of George A Romero's famous zombie trilogy and followed on from Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978). This series of films was a huge influence on both the comic book and television version of The Walking Dead. The specific scene that plays in the mall cinema before the power failure is the beginning of the movie when the heroine Sarah (Lori Cardelle) is suffering from nightmares and dreams of zombie hands smashing through a wall. (8) Stranger Things never divulges where exactly in Indiana the town of Hawkins is supposed to be. One of the spin-off novels seems to suggest it is near Bloomington. (9) Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler has more lines in season one than any other character has in any season of Stranger Things. (10) Dacre Montgomery improvised the moment in The Sauna Test where Billy head-butts the glass in the sauna. You can see the kids are genuinely surprised by this in their reactions. (11) Joyce Byers buying Will an Atari for Christmas in season one is quite clever. Some fans wondered how Joyce could afford such a gift but there was a video game crash in that era which them much more affordable. (12) In season two, Eleven secretly lives with Hopper in his cabin in the woods. She only opens the door if Hopper uses a very specific sequence of knocking. In morse code, Hopper's knock is ••—/••• (which means 'us'). (13) It has been suggested that the three main teen characters in season one of Stranger Things - Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve - are a deliberate parallel to the three teen characters in the 1986 John Hughes film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Steve is the cool Ferris, Jonathan is the moody and complex Cameron, and Nancy is the hip Sloane Peterson. There are a few obvious flaws in this theory - like the fact that Steve was supposed to be a villain (in season one of Stranger Things at least). Natalia Dyer does though have an uncanny resemble to Mia Sara at times. (14) Starcourt Mall is really the defunct Gwinnett Place Mall in Georgia. Gwinnett Place Mall opened in 1984 but was long closed and in rather bad condition when the Stranger Things designers decided it would be perfect for their needs (it was obviously not feasible to build a gigantic mall sized set in a studio). Forty new (1985 period accurate) stores were constructed at Gwinnett Place Mall by the Stranger Things production team. Netflix leased about 20% of the mall in the end to use for Stranger Things 3. This proved more than sufficient. (15) The logo for Benny's Burgers is inspired by the logo for Benny's Billiards in the Francis Ford Coppola film Rumble Fish. (16) The Weirdo On Maple Street, as a title, is most likely a reference to The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street - a 1960 episode of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street is about ordinary suburbanites split asunder by paranoia when it suggested that aliens are among them. The Weirdo on Maple Street could also be a reference The House on Maple Street - a Stephen King story that featured in his Nightmares & Dreamscapes collection. The story is about a house that experiences a strange growth of metal and machinery. (17) In the Portuguese language version of Stranger Things, Eggo waffles are called panqueques. Panqueques means pancakes. (18) When Nancy Wheeler asks after the missing Barb Holland at school in Holly, Jolly, a poster of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven can be seen. This is a visual clue that Barb is dead. (19) A precise calculation is not really possible but it has been suggested that Eleven may have killed up to twenty people in the initial three seasons of Stranger Things. (20) Among the more obvious visual inspirations for the Upside Down are the nightmare planet LV-426 in Ridley Scott's Alien and James Cameron's Aliens. You could equally mention Planet of the Vampires (aka errore nello spazio) - a 1965 Mario Bava Gothic space opera that Alien was heavily influenced by. (21) The flashback with little Billy Hargrove in season three appears to have a costume Easter egg referencing the family movie The Bad News Bears. (22) You can hear the music from the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon when Hopper and Joyce arrive at the fair in season three. The cartoon ran on CBS from 1983 to 1985. (23) In the prequel novel Stranger Things - Suspicious Minds, we learn that Eleven was named Jane after the famed English anthropologist Jane Goodall. (24) The scene at the end of The Mind Flayer when Eleven finally returns feels rather like a homage to the scene in Alien: Resurrection where Winona Ryder's android character Call is revealed again despite apparently just dying. (25) Joyce Byers in season one seems to be partly based on Barbara Hershey's character in the 80s horror film The Entity. (26) The Gravitron, a fairly new ride at the time, features at the Hawkins fair in season three. This ride wasn't enduringly popular though because it made a lot of people vomit. (27) When Jonathan Byers pieces together a potential photo of the monster in season one this is a homage to Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blowup. (28) The snobbish girls at the Starcourt Mall in The Mall Rats who mock Max and Eleven are the same girls who rejected Dustin when he wanted someone to dance with in the season two finale. (29) Eleven uses her powers to make the Orange Julius drink of one of the snobby girls at the Starcourt Mall explode. Orange Julius is a business that is around one hundred years old. Their orange drink is traditionally composed of orange juice, vanilla, ice, milk, and egg whites. One would imagine a vegan version is available today. (30) It doesn't appear to be a coincidence that in season two, when she is living in the woods, Eleven wears a hunting hat similar to the one worn by Holden Caulfield in JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Holden has a fantasy of saving children in a field of rye from falling over a cliff. In season two of Stranger Things, Eleven has her own mission - of sorts - to save children from the government lab. (31) The Duffers suffered over a dozen rejections when they tried to pitch Montauk (eventually to become Stranger Things) in the entertainment industry. The Duffers later said that what seemed to put people off was the fact that this proposed show had some children as major characters. Network executives obviously didn't think this concept would work. (32) The Duffers found that Eleven was the hardest character to cast in season one. The main reason for this is that child actors often find it hard to stay in character when they don't have any dialogue and have to remain silent. The Duffers saw that Millie Bobby Brown was clearly able to sustain the same level of focus at all times - even with the minimal dialogue of Eleven. (33) Project MKUltra features heavily in the story of season one. From 1953 to 1973, the CIA funded experiments in order to learn how to control people for the purposes of spying. These experiments were designed to see if the human mind could be altered or controlled. The psychedelic drug LSD was a big part of the experiments and sensory deprivation chambers were used. The origins of the project are thought to have come from a fear that the Soviet Union was much more advanced in brainwashing techniques. This was a sphere of the Cold War that America was apparently losing and so was born (after several similar if smaller projects) MKUltra. For the CIA, the worst-case scenario was that the Soviet Union could find a way to mindcontrol US military and intelligence officials. It all sounds somewhat crazy but experiments in psychological techniques were very real. The experiments included attempts to 'remote control' people for the purposes of manipulating agents in the field through electrical brain triggers. (34) Millie Bobby Brown and Noah Schnapp became best friends through Stranger Things but - much to their frustration - their characters Eleven and Will Byers barely say a word to one another in the first three seasons of Stranger Things. (35) The scene in season one where Joyce and Jonathan argue in the street over her refusal to accept that Will is really dead is designed to mimic a scene in Halloween H20 where Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her son John (played by Josh Harnett) argue in the street over her obsession with the dreaded killer Michael Myers. (36) Billy Hargrove's look is largely based on Randall Flagg in Stephen King's The Stand. Flagg loves a mullet, denim, and ear-rings - just like Billy. (37) The Demogorgon you see in the first season was mostly Mark Steger in a monster suit. Visual effects were used though to depict the Demogorgon in some scenes - especially the school classroom showdown between the Demogorgon and Eleven in the season one finale. The Duffer Brothers wanted to include as many practical old school effects as they could and in their concept for the Demogorgon were influenced by the creature in Ridley Scott's Alien. Alien came out in an era before CGI and achieved its iconic (not to mention terrifying) monster design by putting a tall slender actor named Bolaji Badejo in an alien suit. Through use of shadow and lighting the end effect was fantastic. There are only a few occasions in Alien where you are patently aware that the creature is a man in a monster suit. (38) In reality, the U.S Department of Energy obviously doesn't experiment with super powered children and open up dimensions to other realities. Paul Lester, who worked for the U.S Department of Energy (and is a Stranger Things fan too), wrote - 'Stranger Things depicts the Energy Department as a federal agency confronting terrifying monsters lurking in different dimensions. We don’t mess with monsters, but the Energy Department is in the business of detecting invisible dangers. Energy Department scientists throughout the country create new technologies that help prevent terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear materials. For example, Sandia National Laboratories developed a mobile scanner that can be used in shipping ports around the world to quickly detect radiological materials hidden inside massive cargo containers.' (39) At the start of Stranger Things 2, we see Dustin and the boys playing Dragon's Lair in the Palace Arcade. What we see though is not the actual game playing but merely animation that was used in advance commercials for the arcade machine. (40) Gaten Matarazzo has cleidocranial dysplasia. Cleidocranial dysplasia is a rare genetic condition that affects teeth and bones, such as the skull, face, spine, collarbones and legs. The bones in people with CCD might be formed differently or might be more fragile than normal, and certain bones such as collarbones may be absent. The condition was written into Gaten's character Dustin Henderson. (41) Ted Wheeler almost certainly seems to be based on the hapless George McFly from Back to the Future. (42) It is Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson who has the most lines in season two. Dustin has 356 lines in Stranger Things 2. (43) Millie Bobby Brown isn't a tremendous fan of Eggo waffles. She said she would much rather have some avocado toast for breakfast. (44) The Duffers think that some of the sequences in season two where Will Byers encounters a blue tinged Upside Down corridor are strangely reminiscent of the special effects in the Disney film Tron. This was an unconscious reference though as they hadn't set out to do this at all. (45) Eleven was originally supposed to be killed off for good at the end of the first season. The Duffers altered their plans when they saw how great the character was and deduced that a second season was on the cards. A second season of Stranger Things sans Eleven became inconceivable. (46) The ghostly mist engulfed town of Silent Hill in the video game and movie series was an obvious influence on the Upside Down in Stranger Things. (47) In the hospital scenes in Stranger Things 3, the medical uniforms and logos are the same as those in the 1981 horror sequel Halloween II. This is a nice little Easter egg for horror fans. (48) The sexist staff at the newspaper in Stranger Things 3 disdainfully refer to Nancy as Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew is a teen detective created in 1930. The character of Nancy Drew has appeared in numerous mystery novels and a number of films and television series. (49) The opening of Stranger Things 3, where we see a team of Soviet scientists wiped out by their attempt to drill into the Upside down, is inspired by the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Nazis try to open the Grail and meet a spectacular and grisly end. (50) Noah Schnapp has to wear a hairpiece in Stranger Things. In real life he obviously doesn't have a pudding bowl haircut like Will Byers. (51) At the start of Stranger Things 3, Eleven makes it appear as if Dustin's toys have come to life. One of the toys is a Transformer Ultra Magnus. One could classify this as a very mild anachronism because the Transformer Ultra Magnus was not available in the United States until 1986. (52) When Joyce consults with Mr Clarke in the third season, Mr Clarke has the song My Bologna by Weird Al Yankovic playing. My Bologna is a parody of My Sharona by The Knack - a song which you can hear in the 1994 teen drama Reality Bites. The two leads in Reality Bites were Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke (father of Stranger Things 3 star Maya Hawke). The choice of My Bologna for the Joyce/Mr Clarke scene functions then as a sort of double Easter egg. (53) Millie Bobby Brown said she always makes sure her trailer is next to Sadie Sink's trailer on the set. (54) The most spectacular sequence in season one arguably comes when Eleven uses her powers to launch the Chevy Hawkins Lab van in the air during the bike chase in The Bathtub. The first attempt to capture this stunt didn't go to plan and a camera was damaged. The Duffers had to ask Netflix for extra funds to stage the stunt again. Netflix said they were happy to do this as long as the stunt was put in the trailer for the show. (55) Dr Brenner was called Agent One in the pilot script. (56) Jonathan has a Pentax MX camera in season one. This was seen as an excellent camera in that era. (57) Because the walls in the Byers house had to be constantly destroyed or graffited in season one, the production team came up with the trick of printing the wallpaper pattern onto latex for whenever they needed a fresh wall. (58) Winona Ryder has an allergy concerning the chemicals actors commonly use to make it appear as if they are crying. She therefore had to try and dredge up real tears whenever Joyce was in an especially anguished state (which happened all the time in season one in particular). (59) Bob Newby has a JVC GR-C1 camera in Stranger Things 2. This camera famously featured in the classic film Back to the Future. (60) Jonathan Byers often has to use a darkroom in Stranger Things to develop his photographs. Younger viewers may (or may not) be puzzled by this. A darkroom is used to process photographic film, to make prints and to carry out other associated tasks. It is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of the light-sensitive photographic materials, including film and photographic paper. When it came to taking photographs, technology was very different in the 1980s than it is today. (61) The way the Upside Down is depicted in Stranger Things owes something to how Hell is depicted in Japanese folklore and animation. (62) Dustin has been to Camp Know Where at the start of season three. Camp Nowhere is a 1994 film starring Christopher Lloyd. (63) The character name Jonathan Byers appears to be a reference to John Fitzgerald Byers. John Fitzgerald Byers was a character in The X-Files. (64) Eleven's ability to eat huge amounts of food in season one might be a sly reference to the DC Comics superhero The Flash. The Flash has to eat a lot of food to replenish the energy expended by the use of his powers. (65) The season two finale shares its title with a 1987 film called The Gate. This was plainly no coincidence. The Gate is a sci-fi horror adventure about kids who discover a portal (from which demons emerge) in their garden. (66) Max Mayfield is a proficient skateboarder and so Sadie Sink had to spend three hours a day with a skateboard instructor in preparation for the role. (67) The school in Stranger Things is really Patrick Henry High School. This school was closed in 2015 because of a mould infestation. (68) Shannon Purser said she was very touched by the positive public reaction to her character Barb Holland. "It still blows me away that she got the kind of response that she did. A lot of it, I think, is timing. I think a lot of people definitely relate to the people who are less than conventional — at least by Hollywood standards — people who are an outcast and awkward, because more often than not, we don’t feel like the cool, popular kid who had everything together in high school. Most of us have been a third wheel or have been stuck at a party we didn’t want to be at. I think there’s definitely this fondness about Barb and her situation because we’ve all been there before." (69) Because of their fondness for Sean Astin, Winona Ryder and Noah Schnapp didn't want Bob Newby to be killed in Stranger Things 2. (70) Dustin's turtle in season two is named Yertle. Yertle is a character in the 1996–1997 television series The Wubbulous World of Dr Seuss. (71) The Lost Sister's depiction of the Chicago skyline is too contemporary for 1984. The Trump International Hotel & Tower only opened in 2009 and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower was constructed in 1997. (72) Over 360,000 people binged Stranger Things 2 inside a day when it was released. (73) When the second season of Stranger Things became available on Netflix, fifteen million viewers streamed the new season inside three days. (74) Netflix began in 1997. In the early days of the company they were a DVD rental business. They began producing their own content in 2013. (75) The arcade machines in Stranger Things 2 were not authentic to 1984 because they have modern flat screens. (76) Eleven's punk makeover in Stranger Things 2 makes her look like Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club - although this might be a coincidence. (77) Troy is the school bully in season one. Troy's full name is Troy Walsh according to the Hawkins year book. (78) Joe Keery was twenty-three when he was cast as high school teenager Steve Harrington. (79) In the original treatment for Stranger Things (or Montauk as it would have been at the time), Dr Brenner was dressed more casually. Matthew Modine decided to make Brenner more regimented and aloof. The sort of man who would wear the same suit and tie each day so that he didn't have to waste any time choosing clothes. (80) The cast in season three were allowed to do some shopping in the mall when production ended. Sadie Sink missed out though because she left her bag of free goodies in her trailer. Millie Bobby Brown had better luck and filled up a bag from the Gap store. (81) Epsom salt (in huge quantities) was used to float Millie Bobby Brown in the season one sequence where they create a sensory deprivation water chamber in the school. (82) The Duffers didn't have a name for Dr Owens at first so in the early Stranger Things 2 script drafts they called him Dr Paul Reiser in tribute to Carter Burke (who was obviously played by Reiser) from James Cameron's 1986 film Aliens. Carter Burke was the company man who is initially ambiguous in that we don't know if he'll be good or bad. With this in mind, it's probably no surprise that the Duffers decided to simply cast Paul Reiser as their new Carter Burke inspired character. (83) Robin sliding down the middle of the mall escalator in season three is a homage to Scott Reiniger doing the same thing in George A Romero's 1978 film Dawn of the Dead. (84) Stephen King, such an important influence on the Duffers, has praised Stranger Things and said he is a big fan. (85) Sesame Street did a Stranger Things parody in 2017. (86) It took Mark Steger over thirty minutes to climb into the Demogorgon suit. (87) Matthew Modine said he took inspiration from Cary Grant in North By Northwest when he had to choose a suit for Dr Brenner to wear. (88) Stilts and puppeteers were deployed to make the arms and legs of the Demogorgon creature appear freakishly long in season one. (89) Dustin is a fan of Three Musketeers candy (a chocolate covered candy bar with a fluffy nougat filling). The Three Musketeers chocolate bar was introduced back in 1932 as the third candy created by the Mars Company. (90) David Harbour said he was both surprised and thrilled to get the part of Jim Hopper. He thought Netflix would insist on a bigger name to play Hopper and somehow veto his casting. (91) There is a poster for Jim Henson's 1982 film The Dark Crystal on Mike Wheeler's wall in season one. (92) The Duffers decided to cast David Harbour as Hopper after watching him in a television series titled Manhattan. Manhattan was a drama about the creation of the atomic bomb. (93) The television set in the Wheeler home in season one that Mike proudly displays to Eleven is a 22-inch Mitsubishi. (94) When the show became a huge phenomenon (and in rapid fashion too), Winona Ryder expressed some trepidation about the overnight fame Stranger things had bestowed on the very young cast members. "I’m grateful that I got to start at the time I did. As much as I love it, I don’t know if I would even have become an actor [if I was starting out now]. I wouldn’t know how to [handle it]. I do worry about the massive exposure at that age." (95) Joe Keery was told that the character of Steve Harrington would be the school swimming ace in the show and so underwent intensive swimming training. In the end though this was all dropped and Steve is not depicted as the swimming ace in season one of Stranger Things. (96) David Harbour said he binged the first season of Stranger Things when it became available on Netflix. "I couldn’t stop watching... I knew what was coming, but I will say I got lost in it to the point where — and this is sad and pathetic — I was on my couch in the East Village watching the scene where I’m saving Will and I’m crying on my couch. I forgot completely that it was me, that I was involved in the show." (97) There are some clowns over the baby bed Terry Ives keeps for Eleven in season one. This seems to be another reference to Stephen King's IT. (98) Millie Bobby Brown, who is English, wasn't au fait with Eggo waffles and neither were her family. "Eggos are an American thing," said Millie, "and my British family is like - We don't know what that is!" (99) There is a mistake in season one that will only be noticed by those with good eyesight. Hanz Holzer’s book Great American Ghost Stories appears in a scene but this book was only published several years later in 1990. (100) The Upside Down was known as the Nether in the scripts for season one. (101) After the success of the first season, the Duffers and some of the cast were invited to the White House. It transpired that President Obama was a Stranger Things fan. (102) The electronic movie scores of John Carpenter in the seventies and eighties are often cited as a huge influence on the music in Stranger Things. One person who would beg to differ is Carpenter himself. "I saw a preview of Stranger Things — I haven’t watched it," said John Carpenter. "It didn’t sound anything like me. And I’m not sure which ones people are talking about. As far as I can see, nobody scores movies like I do. They just don’t. They don’t even try to do it the way I do it, which is fine. If you point out something to me, I’ll take a listen to it." (103) Wanna Fight from the Only God Forgives soundtrack by Cliff Martinez is patently the biggest influence on the Stranger Things title theme. (104) The Wheeler family seem quite fond of tater tots. Tater tots are grated potatoes formed into small cylinders and deep-fried, often served as a side dish. The name "tater tot" is a registered trademark of the American frozen food company Ore-Ida. (105) Stranger Things producer and director Shawn Levy said it was exceptionally difficult to obtain permission to use the Michael Jackson song Thriller in the trailer for Stranger Things 2. "Getting Thriller for the season-two trailer took months," said Levy. "We tried fifty other songs. Literally, I’d wake up at 4 a.m. thinking, “It’s a good trailer, but it’s not going to make people lose their minds.” So without telling the brothers, I went back into it with the lawyers for Michael Jackson’s estate, which was complicated by factors I won’t go into right now. Suffice it to say, it was a big group of people that had to come to a yes." (106) The Upside Down was not supposed to feature much in the original plans for Stranger Things. It was supposed to be a place that was largely unseen and would have to be imagined by the audience. A place of Lovecraft inspired horror that would be too terrifying to endure or show. By the time that Stranger Things went before the cameras, the Duffers changed their mind and decided that the Nether (as it was) would be shown onscreen several times. (107) The Duffers said that many of the executives who rejected Stranger Things suggested the show would work better if they got rid of the children and made it all about Jim Hopper. These executives were obviously completely wrong as it was the children that made season one so special. (108) Billy Hargrove has a Camaro. This is the car the baddie Buddy Repperton drives in Christine (a Stephen King book made into a film by John Carpenter). (109) Most of the dust particles and spores in the Upside Down are conveyed by computer special effects. (110) Millie Bobby Brown's hair obviously grew considerably after season one was produced and so for the scene in the second episode of Stranger Things 2 where there is a flashback that takes place right after Eleven has confronted the Demogorgon in the first season finale, CGI had to be used to give the impression that Eleven still had her famous buzzcut. (111) The looming spider-like Shadow Monster in Stranger Things 2 was based on natural phenomena in nature. "We knew from the Duffers that it would be humongous, like fifty stories tall," said special effects producer Christina Graff. "Since we had all these electrical disturbances last year in season one, where the Christmas lights were blinking or any sort of electrical light is blinking, we knew there were going to be storms in season two. The Shadow Monster is somehow connected to all of that energy, and then we determined it’s gonna be like cloud-like or storm-like. We had conversations also with the production designer, Chris Trujillo, and we searched for a lot of references to storms and clouds and things like tornadoes." (112) Designing the Demogorgon for season one was a long process. There were test models of the creature that took over a month to construct. (113) In Dungeons & Dragons terms, Mike is the Paladin, Dustin the Bard, Will the stealthy Rogue, Lucas the Ranger, and Eleven the Magician. (114) Stranger Things might take place in Indiana but the show is produced in Atlanta, Georgia. (115) The Duffers and Shawn Levy had to ask permission from Dan Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman (Aykroyd and Reitman held the rights to Ghostbusters) to put the boys in Ghostbusters costumes for Stranger Things 2 . Aykroyd was a fan of Stranger Things so this didn't turn out to be a problem. (116) Joyce driving Will to the lab for a medical check in Stranger Things 2 is shown overhead as a homage to Jack Nicholson driving his family to the hotel in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. (117) In the first episode of season two, MADMAX, Mike is sorting out some of his old toys to give away and becomes reflective when he picks up a dinosaur toy. This is because that was the first toy he showed Eleven when she lived in his basement in season one. (118) Charlie Heaton and Natalia Dyer became a real couple after playing Jonathan and Nancy in Stranger Things. (119) Noah Schnapp was the last of the boys to be cast in Stranger Things. Noah was at summer camp when the Duffers telephoned him to say he had the part of Will Byers. (120) Over 300 girls auditioned for the part of Eleven before Millie Bobby Brown was cast. (121) Although it is sometimes suggested that the first season of Stranger Things operated on a modest budget this is not really true. At $6 million an episode, the first season cost around $50 million. While this is modest compared to big Hollywood movie blockbusters, $6 million an episode is fairly high end for a TV show - especially a brand new one with no track record to speak of. (122) Mind Flayers are called illithids in Dungeons & Dragons. They have psychic abilities and seek to dominate all dimensions. (123) At the conclusion of shooting on season one, Millie Bobby Brown took home some props as mementoes. The props she chose were a print of Eleven's 011 tattoo and some of the fake blood used to depict Eleven's nosebleeds. (124) When they first conceived Montauk (eventually to become Stranger Things), the Duffers toyed with the idea of the show taking place in a winter landscape of heavy snow. (125) The children in Stranger Things keep in touch through TRC-214 Radio Shack walkie-talkies. These are from the 1984 Radio Shack catalogue (a mild anachronism) and somewhat high end for kids to own (these walkie-talkies were more commonly used by employees on large construction sites) but they serve their function in Stranger Things by allowing the children to communicate and simultaneously add another retro eighties veneer to the show. (126) Steve Harrington having to wear a humiliating costume in season three is a reference to Judge Reinhold's character having to do the same thing in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (127) A special cloth grid was put in the Starcourt Mall set to block out daylight for certain scenes. This was so that scenes supposed to be set at night could be shot during the day without any sunshine infiltrating the mall. (128) Joyce Byers drives a Ford Pinto in season one. Joyce has a 1976 model. The family in the film version of Stephen King's Cujo have a Ford Pinto. (129) Netflix hired some of the voice actors who had dubbed Winona Ryder in movies to voice Joyce Byers in foreign language versions of Stranger Things. (130) Priah Ferguson as Erica Sinclair has a sizeable 110 ten more lines in season three than she did in season two. (131) Steve Harrington has a BMW 733i in season one. (132) The shooting location for police station in Hawkins is 48 Pray Street, Douglasville, Georgia. (133) In season two there is a scene where Jonathan and Nancy have breakfast at Murray Bauman's house and they all seem amused when Murray drops some scrambled egg. This moment was not scripted but something that just happened. They left it in because it was funny. (134) In the finale of season three, Suzie has Dustin's cap from the first two seasons in her bedroom. (135) In a twist of fate, around the time he was cast in Stranger Things, Finn Wolfhard also won a part in a forthcoming film adaptation of Stephen King's IT - a story the Duffers had always wanted to turn into a film themselves. (136) During the auditions, Gaten Matarazzo and Noah Schnapp both initially read for the part of Mike Wheeler. (137) Dacre Montgomery said that Billy Hargrove was partly based on Kiefer Sutherland's character Ace in the 1986 film Stand By Me. (138) Noah Schnapp is one of the few cast members in Stranger Things who actually plays a character older than his real age. (139) To give Noah Schnapp as Will Byers a feverishly green tongue in Stranger Things 2 they actually used cake frosting. (140) Amy L Forsythe, who has worked on the makeup in Stranger Things, says that some rather ingenious solutions have been found to add a realistic layer of dirt and dust to characters who have endured the Upside Down. "We had a mud that we really liked, kind of like clays and that kind of stuff, but it didn’t quite have the texture that I wanted, and I wanted more textural layers to it. So, we were playing in the trailer, and we have an espresso machine in the trailer, so I took our concoction and I threw in the espresso grounds, and it was perfect." (141) Kali is the name of a Hindu goddess. Kali is the chief of the Mahavidyas, a group of ten Tantric goddesses who each form a different aspect of the mother goddess Parvati. (142) Season one costume designer Kimberly Adams said that social class was a salient factor in choosing the clothes specific characters would wear. "Will is the youngest in the family. His mom doesn't have a lot of money. He would have had hand-me-downs. I really tried to get, same with his brother as well, just that kind of that odd, ill-fitting, not trendy-of-the-time kind of fit. Different than somebody like Mike, whose family was upper-middle class and conservative. He would have had newer things for the school year." (143) Barbara Holland's first name is sometimes alleged to be a tribute to the heroine of the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. (144) In season three, Eleven has a photo by her bed of Mike in his Ghostbusters uniform. (145) Season two costume designer Kim Wilcox said they deliberately made Will's Ghostbusters costume more homemade and droopy than the other boys. "We thought about whose costume would be more 'together' and whose would be less, and whose mom maybe made it from scratch and whose mom didn't." (146) To win the part of Maxine Mayfield, Sadie Sink had five call backs and an audition (in which she was required to perform two scenes) all in the space of two weeks. (147) The casting department on Stranger Things looked at nearly a thousand boys when they were casting the roles of Dustin, Mike, Lucas, and Will for season one. (148) The Duffers said they took an instant liking to Finn Wolfhard because Finn was an eighties movie buff. (149) The Duffer Brothers used to be writers on the M. Night Shyamalan television show Wayward Pines. (150) Shannon Purser had no previous professional acting experience when she was cast as Barb Holland in Stranger Things. (151) In the Palace Arcade you can see a game called Quest for the Space Knife. This game is fictious and based on the fact that one of the production crew had a music band called Space Knife. (152) You can pick up some music from the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink playing during the funeral scene of Will Byers in season one. (153) The Byers' family dog Chester did not return in season two. David Harbour said the dog was a nightmare in season one because it never did what it was told on the set. The Duffers obviously decided life would be somewhat easier without a disobedient dog on the set. (154) Caleb McLaughlin only auditioned for the part of Lucas at the last minute because a slew of rejections in other auditions had left him deflated. (155) It is often reported that Millie Bobby Brown's father was reduced to tears when she had her long hair cut to play Eleven. Millie said this story is slightly muddled up. It was her mother who got tearful - not her father. (156) David Harbour said that a surprising amount of thought went into the design of Hopper's hat. "Orlando Palacios at Worth & Worth designed that hat for me. He actually made a hat for me for the Black Mass premiere in Toronto. I fell in love with him and his shop, so much that I went back to him when we were developing the character of Hopper, and on paper, there was no hat for Hopper. So I told the Duffers that I wanted an iconic hat, like the pork pie in The French Connection, or Indy’s fedora. I went to Orlando and said, “hey, this guy was born in 43, he’s 40 years old in 1983, let’s talk about a hat for him. Maybe he went to Vietnam, or maybe his dad was in World War II.”. And Orlando says, “great, maybe it’s his dad’s hat. There’s a hat called the open road that Eisenhower used to wear.. So we developed this open road hat that was great, and we had three of them made for the character. Orlando is an extraordinary artist, and he’s really detail-oriented, so if you look carefully at the hat, you’ll see the remnants of a band, which is an invisible band – that’s created when things are faded when the Sun hits them. So we decided that at one point it was his father’s hat, and then the band fell off, but Hopper still wears it. That was really important to me, and I felt like it was something I could mess around with, and it felt like an old glove. But it also felt like something he could hide behind. In many ways, Hopper likes to hide and he doesn’t want people to see the pain that he experiences every day and doesn’t want people to see what he’s feeling. So he has this big wide brim, a 3 inch rim that he can pull down and hide behind." (157) When the children heave the radio tower aloft in the first episode of season three, the shot is based on the iconic World War 2 image of American soldiers hoisting the flag atop Mount Suribachi at the Battle of Iwo Jima. (158) The real location for Hawkins Library in Stranger Things is Butts County Probate Court in Jackson, Georgia. (159) Linnea Berthelsen, who played Kali, said she wasn't too bothered by the poor critical reception The Lost Sister seemed to endure. "I haven’t really paid much attention to it, it’s not my storyline and I didn’t write it, and I didn’t direct it. I just admire the Duffers for taking big risks this season and I think it’s really brave and really great that they’re doing it." (160) Millie Bobby Brown calculated that she herself only consumed the equivalent of about two Egg waffles shooting season one. Her character Eleven was obviously depicted as eating way more than that. (161) Noah Schnapp did not enjoy Will Byers coughing up in the slug in the bathroom at the end of Stranger Things 2. "They made this weird mixture of, I think it was licorice and gummies and apple sauce. I actually thought it would taste good! So I took a big scoop on the first take, and I put it in the back of my mouth, and oh God, it was so disgusting. At the beginning of the scene, I'm supposed to pretend it's not in my mouth, and then I cough it up. But inside, I was already gagging." (162) Sadie Sink said she turned temporarily off her social media notifications when she was cast in Stranger Things 2. She found the prospect of overnight fame somewhat intimidating. (163) Just before Mike and Eleven kiss at the Snow Ball in Stranger Things 2 you can see Finn Wolfard whisper a warning to Millie Bobby Brown. (164) In the initial plan for the second season, Mike and Eleven were not going to see each other again until the finale. (165) Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine knew each other long before Stranger Things. They were both in the music video for the Roy Orbison song A Love So Beautiful. (166) Finn Wolfhard has a strong (and very deliberate you would imagine) resemblance in season one of Stranger Things to Henry Thomas in the 1984 kids spy film Cloak & Dagger. Mike Wheeler and Davey Osborne (the character played by Henry Thomas in Cloak & Dagger) have the same hairstyle, brandish a walkie-talkie, and wear similar clothes. (167) Because he was one of the stars of The Goonies (a 1985 family adventure film that is an obvious touchstone for Stranger Things), the Duffer Brothers were worried that casting Sean Astin in season two might be too obvious. "They actually hesitated to hire me because I was in The Goonies," said Astin, "because the critical thing is you’re not distracted." (168) When Joyce takes an axe to the wall in season one, this is a homage to Jack Nicholson in Kubrick's The Shining. (169) Kyle Lambert was hired to produce the posters for Stranger Things. His brief was to replicate hand painted film artwork found in vintage movie posters from the 1980s. (170) Although the first season of Stranger Things, like all modern television, was shot with digital cameras, film grain was scanned in to give the show a more vintage period look. (171) Jim Hopper is the name of the Green Beret that Arnold Schwarzenegger's commando unit is searching for in the 1987 film Predator. (172) Hawkins is the name of the character played by Shane Black in Predator. Given how much the Duffers love pop culture references this appears to be no idle coincidence. (173) After the Duffers ditched the idea of setting the show in Montauk, everywhere from Texas to the Pacific Northwest was considered as the new backdrop until they settled on Indiana. (174) The Hawkins Department of Energy building in Stranger Things is really the former Georgia Mental Health Institute (now Emory University Briarcliff Campus, Atlanta). This mental institution closed down years ago and the bleak and functional exterior of the building was perfect for the secret government lab in Stranger Things. (175) The former Georgia Mental Health Institute building had an elaborate underground tunnel that took you right inside the facility. When they asked about this, the production team were told that the tunnel had been dug so that new inmates to the institution could be taken in and out and never be seen by the public. (176) The interior scenes for the Hawkins Lab in Stranger Things were mostly filmed in a studio. (177) Season one costume designer Kimberly Adams said it was great fun choosing the clothes for Millie Bobby Brown to wear as Eleven. "I loved working with Millie Bobby Brown! Not your typical eleven year-old, an old soul! She brought so much to that character! I sketched out her looks to make sure we captured what the Duffers envisioned. The hospital gown had to be a clue where a piece of it is found later. Benny’s t-shirt he puts her in had to be specific. When she had to get clothes from Mike’s house, we tried her in his clothes and of course she was adorable! Millie brought so much emotion to the character with virtually no words, like a silent star!" (178) The quarry scenes in the first season were filmed at Bellwood Quarry, Atlanta. (179) The shooting location for the funeral of Will Byers in season one was Bethany Cemetery, Rivers Road, Fayetteville. (180) The design of the Upside Down was made easier by everyone involved in the production design and special effects having a similar concept of what it should look like. They all saw this as a place of vines and spores and a landscape that appeared ravaged by disease. They wanted the Upside Down to look wet and swampy and be a murky and misty place to explore. (181) The Duffers allowed Shawn Levy to direct the third and fourth episodes of season one to give themselves more time to refine the scripts for the episodes to come. This would become a tradition on any season of Stranger Things. The Duffers had originally planned to direct all eight episodes in season one but this would have a created an impossible workload for them and left no time to revise any scenes (182) The Duffer Brothers are fans of manga and Japanese anime. They have said that Elfen Lied and Akira were influences on Stranger Things. (183) Dustin's wears K-Swiss Heaven S sneakers in season one. Mike's sneakers are PUMAS while Lucas wears Saucony. (184) Eleven often wears Converse sneakers in Stranger Things. Millie Bobby Brown has appeared in commercials for this brand. (185) The scene in Stranger Things 2 where Steve and Nancy have dinner with Barb's parents and Steve refers to Kentucky Fried Chicken as KFC created some debate as Kentucky Fried Chicken had yet to rebrand themselves as KFC in 1984. It was not unheard of for people to use the term KFC in 1984 but very rare all the same. (186) Craig Henighan, a sound designer on Stranger Things, supplied the voice for Dustin's unusual (and dangerous) pet Dart. (187) There is toy mistake in season one when Eleven levitates Mike's Millennium Falcon model. The toy is plainly not period accurate to 1983 because it doesn't have the orange stickers on the back which represented the ship's engine blast. (188) The main child actors in season one were alleged to have earned $30,000 an episode. The success of the show meant they would get much more than this in future seasons. (189) Charlie Heaton had few screen credits before Stranger Things and was inexperienced but he impressed the casting director in an audition conducted through Skype in a London cafe. (190) When Eleven steals the Eggo waffles from the store in season one, there is a mistake because you can see some Trident gum as she leaves. This gum was not sold until 2001. (191) Georgia International Horse Park was used for some of woodland scenes in season one. This park hosted the equestrian competition in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. (192) East Point First Baptist Church at 2813 East Point St in East Point, Georgia was the shooting location for the hospital scene in the last episode of season one. (193) In their interviews for Stranger Things 2, the Duffers said that Millie Bobby Brown was always game to do multiple takes of a scene to make it absolutely perfect (194) During the funeral of Will Byers in season one, Dustin complains about the quality of the Nilla Wafers. Nilla is a brand name owned by Nabisco that is most closely associated with its line of vanilla-flavored, wafer-style cookies. (195) There is a food mistake in season one when Dustin has a 1999 Jack in the Box PEZ dispenser. (196) The home of Joyce Byers in Stranger Things is a real house in Georgia that the set department found on the edge of some woodland. The exteriors of this house were used while the interiors were shot on a soundstage in Atlanta. (197) The special effects team on season one said the most complex sequence to design and capture was the moment in the finale when Eleven battles the Demogorgon in the school classroom. (198) Millie Bobby Brown did a Skype audition for Stranger Things in London with an impeccable American accent (which she taught herself by watching the Disney channel). (199) The producer and director Shawn Levy said there are very few deleted scenes in Stranger Things. "It’s really, really interesting because in a given two-hour movie there’s usually at least half an hour of scenes that get cut. On Stranger Things, both seasons, because the Duffers write and rewrite and rewrite they just like hammer this material so rigorously before it ever shoots that everything has a purpose. They also don’t believe in scenes that aren’t plot necessary. So you’ll notice there’s very few scenes—even like a delicious treat like Billy flirting with Karen Wheeler, it serves a purpose; he’s trying to get information from her. So because the Duffers like all scenes to anchor into plot and necessity it means there’s very, very, very few deleted scenes." (200) We learn in Stranger Things 2 why Terry Ives keeps saying 'Breathe. Sunflower. Rainbow. Three to the right. Four to the left. 450.' The explanation for these words is - 'Breathe' Terry gave birth, 'Sunflower' was a flowery vase she saw when she woke up, 'Rainbow' was a child's painted room she found in the Hawkins Lab, 'Three to the right, four to the left' was the safe combination for the gun so that she could go to the lab and try and get Jane back, '450' was the voltage of the shock treatment Brenner imposed to silence her. (201) One of the early designs for the Stranger Things titles was based on the opening credits to the 1979 film Alien. They obviously decided not to go with this font in the end though. (202) The Ghostbusters costumes in Stranger Things 2 were really modified mechanic uniforms. (203) Despite the significance Dungeons & Dragons plays in the first season of Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers never played this game when they were children. (204) The Duffer Brothers said they cast Finn Wolfhard because they liked the somewhat nervous energy he projected. They thought this would be perfect for the character of Mike Wheeler. (205) At the end of Stranger Things 3, Eleven is wearing the same shirt that she wears at the end of the first episode of Stranger Things 2. This shirt is too big for her and plainly belongs to Hopper. (206) A Dish Network satellite dish is visible in season one. This is a mistake because they not for sale until 1994. (207) Joe Keery injured his back shooting the junkyard sequence in Stranger Things 2. Keery estimated that he had to do thirty takes of one scene in the junkyard and it was almost certainly this ordeal that hurt his back (208) Sadie Sink said it was sometimes tough to shoot confrontational scenes with Dacre Montgomery in Stranger Things 2 because they were friends away from the camera. (209) Netflix floated the possibility of filming seasons two and three back to back to mitigate the fact that the children (who were, you might plausibly argue, the trump card of the cast in season one) were growing up fast. The Duffer Brothers did not concur with this plan though. They were perfectly relaxed about the fact that the kids would be growing teenagers in new seasons. (210) Season one costume designer Kimberly Adams said that Shannon Purser tried on many clothes before they found the right look for Barb Holland. "I believe it was Shannon’s first role, so fittings were new to her, but she enjoyed the process of discovering the character. We tried lots of clothing, but when she put on that first ruffled plaid blouse, we both looked at each other and knew we had found her!" (211) Although the exteriors for the lab were mostly shot in a studio, the production team did deploy some of the atmospheric tiled corridors they found in the Georgia Mental Health Institute. (212) The production designers had to build an extra duplicate of the Byers hall for season one so that it could be set on fire. A number of fake walls were installed in the Byers set to be rigged with special effects. (213) The cinema in season one of Stranger Things is a furniture store in Georgia with the exterior decorated to make it look like a picture house. (214) The Tom Cruise film All the Right Moves is on at the Hakins cinema in season one. (215) Benny's Burgers is in reality Tiffany's Kitchen in Lithia Springs, Georgia. Tiffany's Kitchen is a real diner which you can go and eat in. (216) The address of the gas station where Steve falls out with Tommy in season one is Winston, GA on US 78. (217) Sadie Sink and Millie Bobby Brown got on so well they went on a family holiday together when shooting on season two ended. (218) Stranger Things 2 was budgeted at $8 million per episode. (219) Once the Duffer Brothers took their concept for Stranger Things (or Montauk as it was still called at the time) to Netflix, it took less than a day for Netflix to agree a deal to make the show. (220) Benny and Barb were killed quite early in Stranger Things to heighten the tension. The Duffer Brothers wanted the audience to feel that none of the characters were safe. (221) The most impenetrable reference in Stranger Things 2 comes when Dustin is on the telephone to Mr McCorkle. Mr McCorkle was the name of a neighbour the Duffers had when they were kids. (222) The arcade machines in the Palace Arcade were all real (though not entirely period accurate). The cast and crew played on them between takes. (223) Although Max is supposed to be an avid and expert gamer, Sadie Sink said she was hopeless playing the arcade machines between takes on Stranger Things 2. (224) Millie Bobby Brown's native English accent threatened to break through occasionally shooting season one. Whenever this happened they had to do another take. (225) Officers Powell and Callahan are patterned on the paranormal investigator's assistants in the 1982 film Poltergeist. (226) Jonathan has a poster for Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead in season one. (227) Brookhaven National Laboratory (in Upton, NY) is another facility that could have provided some inspiration for Stranger Things. This lab is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and most definitely not open to the public. It engages in all manner of remarkable scientific experiments and has a Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider which is used to learn more about dark matter and the nature of the universe. (228) When she joined the cast in season two, Sadie Sink already knew Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo from Broadway. They all had stage backgrounds. (229) Millie Bobby Brown auditioned to be in Hugh Jackman's Logan and Steven Spielberg's The BFG but she obviously didn't get these parts. (230) Sadie Sink said she watched the first season of Stranger Things with her hands over her face because she found it too scary. (231) Hasbro produced an Ouija board Stranger Things game based on the Joyce's Christmas lights. (232) When they shot season one, the cast were not given all of the scripts and so for much of the production they had no idea how it would end. (233) Holly Wheeler's clothes in season one are deliberately similar to Drew Barrymore's Gertie in Steven Spielberg's E.T. (234) The 'shark cage' that Hopper and Eleven descend on in the season two finale had to sway and this left Millie Bobby Brown feeling seasick. (235) There was speculation before Stranger Things 3 that Steve Harrington would become one of Hopper's police deputies. While this was a fun idea, it had no basis in fact and simply seemed to be a fan suggestion rather than anything that was considered. Steve was probably a little on the young side to go straight from school to police deputy. (236) The trail of meat that Steve and Dustin drop to lure Dart to the junkyard in season two was (in reality) mostly watermelon. (237) Eleven's clothes in Stranger Things 3 were (her mall montage dress aside) designed to be slightly too loose and also garish. The costume department found that if they put Eleven in anything too fashionable she ended up looking like Millie Bobby Brown rather than Eleven. (238) Millie Bobby Brown hated being kissed by Finn Wolfhard in the season one finale. She would enjoy kissing scenes more when she got a bit older. (239) When she visited the Stranger Things sets for the start of production on season one, this was the first time Millie Bobby Brown had ever seen a record player. (240) All the Epsom salt in the child's paddling pool (for the sensory deprivation school water tank scene in season one) gave Millie Bobby Brown a migraine. (241) A 2010 Canadian film called Beyond the Black Rainbow is a popular suggestion when pinpointing Stranger Things influences. Beyond the Black Rainbow is set in 1983, has an electronic synth score, and is about a girl with special powers being held captive in a neon laboratory. The Duffers though, when asked, said that they were not very familiar with Beyond the Black Rainbow. (242) Paul Reiser, despite his famous roles in Aliens and Stranger Things, said he is not really a science fiction fan but enjoys science fiction roles because they are very different to the comedic parts he usually known for. "I just don’t always watch ’em. That’s not what I’m drawn to. Aliens was a similar thing where, first of all, it was early in my career. I was just thrilled to be invited into a big flashy picture like that. But I also knew it was going to be great. I knew Jim Cameron’s skill and I read the script. When you get invited to play out of your comfort zone in a different world, it’s a great opportunity." (243) The Duffers said that Bob Newby was written as more of a 'dope' in their original scripts and that Sean Astin's performance made them alter the personality of this character. (244) David Harbour said that, in contrast to the Duffers, he did play Dungeons & Dragons when he was a child. (245) Dacre Montgomery improvised the moment in Stranger Things 2 where Billy Hargrove takes a cookie while flirting with Karen Wheeler. (246) A generous 37% of Millie Bobby Brown's lines in Stranger Things 2 come from The Lost Sister alone. (247) Stranger Things 4 was unusual in that production began early in 2021 but then had to shut down for several months because of COVID. As a consequence of this delay though the Duffers had more time to refine and complete the scripts. When shooting began again in the summer of 2021 they were in the rare situation of having all the scripts finished. Usually on Stranger Things the scripts are still in a mild state of flux when production begins on a new season. (248) When Dart escapes in the school during season two, a few bars of the music from the classic 1984 film Gremlins can be heard. (249) To help the boys understand the concept of alternate dimensions in season one, the school science teacher Mr Clarke explains it like this - "Picture an acrobat standing on a tightrope. That's our dimension. And our dimension has rules. You can move forwards or backwards. But, what if, right next to our acrobat there is a flea. And the flea can also travel back and forth, just like our acrobat right? The flea can also travel this way, along the side of the rope. He can even go underneath the rope." (250) The scientist Ranga-Ram Chary said that Mr Clarke's flea analogy to the boys in season one concerning alternate dimensions could have been better written. Chary suggested something different - "You are stuck in a traffic jam. You can only go forward, backward or change lanes. That is being stuck in two dimensions. If you could get the car to get off the ground (there are a few prototypes that I have seen), that would help you move in a third dimension. Strictly speaking even that isn't accurate, because the driver is extended in the third dimension. But then, neither is the flea or a tightrope — both of which are three-dimensional objects!" (251) In the Starcourt Mall you can see the book Breaking with Moscow early on. This is a book about a Soviet defector and anticipates the plot of Stranger Things 3. (252) In a season one flashback, Joyce surprises Will with tickets for a screening of the 1982 horror film Poltergeist. Will would have been able to watch this film because its producer Steven Spielberg managed to obtain a PG rating for the movie. (253) Dr Owens quotes George Sarton in season two in the scene where Nancy and Jonathan visit the lab and are warned not to pry any further. George Alfred Leon Sarton was a Belgian-born American chemist and historian. The Sarton quote Owens uses is - "Men of science have made abundant mistakes of every kind." (254) Out of the six young leads in Stranger Things, Noah Schnapp is the youngest and Caleb McLaughlin is the oldest. Caleb is three years older than Noah. (255) Billy Hargrove in season two is a lot like the Duffers' original conception of what Steve Harrington was supposed to be like in season one (before they softened Steve's character and gave him a redemptive story arc). The Duffers wanted Dacre Montgomery's Billy to feel much more dangerous and unpredictable than Joe Keery's Steve was in season one. (256) Matt Duffer said that Matthew Modine completely informed the character of Dr Brenner. "When we cut to him as little as we do and give him so little dialogue, how do you make him an interesting character? That’s a character who we didn’t really figure out until we started working with Matthew. And he brought a lot himself. He informed it, and I’m really happy with where we wound up with him at the end, with something that was discovered during the course of shooting, really." (257) You can see some of the teen characters with Trapper Keeper folders in season one. These folders were very big in the eighties and used by many students. (258) One could argue that the sleeveless puffer coat Will Byers wears in season one is a nod to Michael J Fox in Back to the Future. (259) Sound effects designer Craig Henighan said it was quite complex to create the sonic backdrop for the scene in season one when Holly Wheeler ventures towards the Christmas lights in the Byers house. "For most of the electrical sounds, I recorded little electric things around my house, and things I had in my garage. I don’t ever throw out old electric things that make noise. I keep bins of old toothbrushes, shavers, phones, etc. The one main thing I used was my battery charger, which has a 50 amp setting on it. I recorded that and then took little pieces, to which I added light bulb filament sounds. I broke some light bulbs and Christmas lights and I recorded the sound that the filament makes when you shake it a little bit. Of course, these are such low-level sounds – so I had to crank the heck out of them just to get them at a volume that I could use. So that was the two core sounds and then the other main thing I wanted to do, either when Joyce or the little girl was following the light bulbs, was actually have a little tone play. So I found a little tone in a synth patch and I used it for a little touch. I used Close Encounters as an idea of how to make somebody follow something in a simple sort of way. Those are the three main elements and I manipulated those using pitching and stretching, to make them feel similar but different enough, to give you a breadcrumb trail of sounds to follow. Particularly for the little girl, I wanted the sound to start small and then build up when she gets into the bedroom and the lights flicker all around her." (260) Sean Astin was considered for the part of Murray Bauman before he was assigned the role of Bob Newby. (261) The child extras at the Snow Ball dance in the season two finale were not initially told that they were appearing in Stranger Things. (262) David Harbour said that some rather old school tricks are deployed to depict the Upside Down on the show. "In the show it’s amazing and beautiful, but on the actual set, it’s really silly. There’s a bunch of purple piping that looks really fake and it pulsates, so it kind of feels like you’re in a haunted house. For the spores, there’s a dude with a big ‘ol pillowcase full of dandelions and a big fan. So you’re walking down the hall and then this guy is just standing there blowing dandelions at you." (263) When Barb Holland is found expired in the Upside Down, we see some icky goo in her mouth. This concoction was mostly composed of baby food and marmalade and wasn't very pleasant for Shannon Purser. (264) Charlie Heaton was found to have trouble saying 'Nancy' convincingly in an American accent so eventually had to be dubbed most of the times he said Nancy's name. (265) For the Christmas scenes at the end of season one, the production crew had to import large amounts of ice and powder to create a realistic winter landscape. (266) Bob Newby's death scene in season two was inspired by the memorable death of Robert Shaw in Steven Spielberg's Jaws. (267) Because it promised to be a rather taxing ordeal (to say the least), Mark Steger was given two months of preparation before season one so he could become accustomed to the Demogorgon suit. (268) Bob Newby's death includes some little movie Easter eggs. When Hopper stops Joyce and says 'he's gone', this is a little homage to Drake's death in Aliens where Hicks says the same line to Vasquez. When Hopper pulls Joyce away after Bob's death, this feels a lot like the moment where where Aragorn pulls Frodo away after Gandalf dies in Lord of the Rings. (269) Season two has some obvious Easter eggs pertaining to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Max driving the car despite being too small to operate the pedals is based on a similar scene involving Short Round in Temple of Doom. The scene where Nancy and Jonathan argue (despite their obvious attraction for one another) in Murray's house is plainly a homage to Harrison Ford and Kate Capshaw in the Temple of Doom palace scenes. Another connection between Stranger things 2 and temple of Doom is that in the movie the sinister cult group worship a goddess named Kali. (270) Over the course of the first three seasons, Eleven is the character with the most screen time, just edging out Hopper. (271) Peyton Wich, who played the odious school bully Troy, had fun on the set with the other children. Wich later said that the kids were so nice in real life that it was difficult sometimes to get into character as Troy and be mean to them. "Troy was a hard character to play," he said." All of the kids were so nice and amazing to work. So, that being said, it was extremely difficult to be mean to these awesome people. I just had to mentally prepare for it." (272) The worst scene for Peyton Wich to shoot came when Troy and Mike confront each after the school memorial for Will and Eleven makes Troy wet himself. Although this was obviously not real, Wich said it was sort of embarrassing all the same to have to simulate wetting himself on the set. (273) When Dustin can't find anyone to dance with in the Stranger Things 2 finale, he is saved by Nancy - who not only dances with him but provides some words of wisdom. Ross Duffer said this scene was based on a female cousin of his doing the same thing when he was a child. (274) A 2016 poll in Time Out named Hawkins as the fictional place where people would most like to go on vacation. King’s Landing and Hogwarts were second and third. (275) In season two, Nancy has to stab the possessed Will Byers with a hot poker. The dummy of Noah Schnapp in this scene is the same dummy they used in season one when Hopper has to deduce if Will's body in the morgue is real or not. (276) Eggo waffles were called Froffles when they first appeared in supermarkets. (277) Randy Havens said that - alas - unlike his character Mr Clarke he knows absolutely nothing about science. (278) Before he was assigned the role of Steve Harrington, Joe Keery read for the part of Jonathan Byers. (279) David Harbour had some worries about the plot of Stranger Things 2 and was slightly fearful that Hopper keeping Eleven in a woodland cabin might give off a kidnapping hostage vibe but the onscreen relationship was endearing and innocent enough to vanquish this fear. "I was very, very proud," said Harbour, "and overwhelmed by the response of people just getting that Hopper is a good guy and that he does really love her and care about her and is worried about her and that that relationship really resonated on a father-daughter level." (280) Before Stranger Things 2 came out, Shawn Levy unwittingly let slip a big potential spoiler when he called Bob the new Barb. (281) Karen Wheeler is enjoying Johanna Lindsey's romance novel Heart of Thunder in the bath when Billy Hargrove knocks on the door in Stranger Things 2. The lovers on the cover of the book are manipulated to resemble Karen and Billy (282) When we see Max and Eleven discover the body in the bath in Stranger Things 3, this seems a lot like a homage to a similar scene in the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone (283) The early version of Dustin's pet Dart (before he started growing) was depicted by a rubber model on the set. (284) The rubber model of Dart on Stranger Things 2 was nicknamed Sushi by the kids. (285) The fairground scenes in Stranger Things 3 involving Hopper are patently inspired by the 2014 thriller film The Guest. At the end of The Guest, Dan Stevens is an apparently unstoppable antagonist doggedly pursuing his quarry through a neon carnival. (286) The character of Eleven is full of allusions to Jean Grey in The X-Men. The specific arc is the Dark Phoenix saga by Chris Claremont and John Byrne that collects X-Men #129-137. Will suggests in the first episode that X-Men #134 should be the prize in a cycle race with Dustin. The telekinetic Jean Grey loses control of her powers in this comic arc and becomes the terrifying Dark Phoenix. (287) Mike's line ("Holy s***! What happened to you?") to Dustin at the Snow Ball dance is the same as a line Finn Wolfhard has as Richie to Ben Hanscom in the film IT. (288) Lovecraft was a big influence on Stranger Things. Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American writer known for his strange and atmospheric horror and science fiction stories. (289) The Duffers wrote a thirty page document that established the ground rules for the Upside Down. This enabled the set designers and special effects team to have a clearer idea of what was expected of them. The document did not though explain what the Upside Down was. The Duffers thought the Upside Down would be much scarier if it retained some mystery and we didn't truly understand it. (290) A purplish tint to the Upside Down scenes by the visual effects department added an appropriately otherworld quality while also happily mirroring the eighties neon aesthetic of Stranger Things. (291) In season two, we learn that Mike called Eleven each night for 353 days. 3 + 5 + 3 = 11. (292) The branding power of Stranger Things was illustrated when Dustin wore a Science Museum of Minnesota dinosaur top in Stranger Things 2. When the museum decided to sell these tops their website crashed due to the demand. (293) Shawn Levy has a cameo in the season one morgue scenes a coroner. (294) Hopper is fond of Schlitz beer. This was once the most popular beer in the United States but in the second half of the 20th century it became a somewhat obscure cheap beer. (295) Hopper reads Anne of Green Gables in the cabin to Eleven in Stranger Things 2. This is the same book we saw him reading to his late daughter Sarah in hospital in the season one finale. (296) It doesn't seem a stretch to suggest that the pudding bowl haircut of Will Byers is inspired by Barret Oliver as Bastian Balthazar Bux in the 1984 fantasy film The NeverEnding Story. (297) The NeverEnding Story is about a world that is threatened by a mysterious entity known as the Nothing. That isn't a million miles away from the core premise of Stranger Things. (298) Cara Buono was supposed to have a bigger part as Karen Wheeler in Stranger Things 2 but there simply wasn't sufficient room in the end. (299) Although the alleged unpopularity of 3 Musketeers candy bars is referenced in Stranger Things 2, Gaten Matarazzo said that in real life he would have them in his top three candy bars. (300) You don't really see much evidence of the boys in Stranger Things using a computer or playing video games at home. You would expect a science nerd like Dustin to have a home computer and the Wheeler family certainly seem wealthy enough to have a high end (for the time) computer. We did see in season one though that Will Byers seemed quite excited at the thought that one of his Christmas presents might be an Atari. (301) Will Chase has a small part as the very strict father of Billy Hargove in season two. Chase is another member of the Stranger Things cast known for his work on Broadway and the stage. (302) The Hawkins cinema is showing The Terminator during season two. (303) The VHS tapes that Bob chooses for Halloween in Stranger Things 2 are laced with references. WarGames gives the Palace Arcade its name, Mr Mom stars Winona Ryder's Beetlejuice co-star Michael Keaton, and Twilight Zone: The Movie was a Steven Spielberg production that had a segment about a boy with psychic powers. (304) In the first episode of Stranger Things, Benny gives Eleven some strawberry ice cream when she takes refuge at the diner. Millie Bobby Brown didn't enjoy this scene at all because she doesn't actually like strawberry ice cream. (305) In the season two scenes where Eleven is a fugitive living in the woods, some sunburn cream was put on Millie Bobby Brown to give her a cold and frozen glaze. (306) When Will Byers emits a bizarre scream after an encounter with the Flayer in season two, this is a homage to the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (where the 'pod' people would emit an eerie rasping scream to point out humans). (307) Will Byers tells Mike in Stranger Things 2 that his connection to the Upside Down is like a View-Master. View-Master was a popular toy in the eighties. It was essentially like 3-D goggles into which you put photographic slides to view. The slides you purchased for the View-Master were usually television and film tie-ins like the Muppets or the latest Hollywood blockbusters. (308) In the second season episode The Lost Sister there is some graffiti which refers to the comic book The Invisibles by Grant Morrison. (309) The scene in season two where Will Byers is tied up and interrogated is inspired by the famously tense blood test scene in John Carpenter's the Thing. (310) The kids in Stranger Things were given relatively little makeup because the Duffers thought it would be more realistic if they had a few spots and blemishes. (311) The Duffers were always adamant throughout the planning and writing that Stranger Things would have a very limited number of episodes. They didn't want their show to ever feel like it was treading water or spreading its premise out too thinly. (312) Billy sabotages an engine ignition in season three. This is a reference to Jack Nicholson's character doing the same thing in Kubrick's Stephen King adaptation The Shining. (313) Connie Frazier, the agent who murders Benny, is armed with a Colt M1911A1 in season one. (314) Chief Hopper has a Smith & Wesson Model 66 handgun in season one. (315) Dustin's toys coming to life in season three is based on a scene in the 1985 German kids film Making Contact by Roland Emmerich. (316) The mall montage featuring Max and Eleven in season three was inspired by a mall montage in the 1984 movie Night of the Comet. (317) Near the end of Stranger Things 2, Hopper uses a Colt Model 723 M16A2 Carbine gun. (318) The shotgun Hopper uses in the season two finale is an Ithaca 37. (319) In the pilot script, Benny's Burgers was going to be a fish and chip diner. The fact they didn't do this must have been a relief to Millie Bobby Brown because the pilot script had a scene where a starving Eleven bites the head off a raw fish in Benny's diner. (320) Eric Demeusy was one of the designers for the Stranger Things title sequence. "In this case because of the time period of the show and the thriller aspect to it there was an intention to throw it back to classic 80’s thriller book covers,. Originally the logo had pointed serifs which added a bit of menace to the lettering but was later changed out. I tend to think of serif to be more classic. I think it’s just a matter of trying to change it up. The logo stayed pretty true to what was in the design boards from the beginning. The only real change was a slightly different modified typeface. We went through many versions of the sequence when it came to which letters we see in each shot and what parts of the letters we see. We experimented with having the sequence be one long zoom out as well. Overall it was a very fun process and everyone on board loved the direction we were going." (321) Charlie Heaton said it was a delight to meet and work with Winona Ryder on season one. "I mean, she is an icon and she's worked with some of the best people. Yeah, I freaked out a little on the inside, but I tried to keep it together. She's gorgeous and cool. It was nice, we hit it off pretty well. It was just super fun to be able to hang out with her. She gave me some t-shirts, actually, as presents." (322) Because Max is from California, the pale skinned Sadie Sink had to have some fake tan applied to her for season two "Yeah, they wanted my character to be this California girl that spends a lot of time in the sun, and I don’t look like I spend a lot of time in the sun because I don’t - sun is my worst enemy. So they wanted to give me a subtle sun-kissed glow, so they put some tanner on my face and on my hands. I just remember the smell being so distinct, so when I think of my experience on Stranger Things I think of that smell." (323) Sadie Sink said she was amazed to get the part of Max in Stranger Things "I was at school at my speaking debate practice and my mom texted me and was like, “Get in the car right now.” I was like, “Mom, I can’t, I have to practice!” and she was like, “No I don’t care you need to get in the car.” So I knew something was off. I was like, “Why do you need me in the car so fast?” and she said, “I need to take your sister to a play date!” and I was really confused. So then I started to put everything together and realized that I must have been getting a call from the director soon to tell me I got the part. Sure enough, when I got home the phone rang and my mom handed it to me and they told me I got it. I didn’t really know how to process it. I just stood there stunned. I think there’s a video of me or picture of me somewhere and I’m just on the phone and my face was so shocked and I couldn’t stop smiling." (324) Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon of the electronic synth group Survive (S U R V I V E) were chosen to compose the score for Stranger Things. The Duffers were impressed by their work on the offbeat 2014 thriller film The Guest. (325) Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon were heavily influenced by Tangerine Dream - a German electronic group who composed the scores for films like Firestarter and Ridley Scott's Legend. Three songs by Tangerine Dream were eventually used in season one of Stranger Things. (326) Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon said they were asked by the Duffers, as a test of their suitability, to compose some light-hearted playful pieces of music. The Duffers knew that Dixon and Stein could do moody atmospheric pieces but they would also need some jaunty and more whimsical music in Stranger Things from time to time. Dixon and Stein passed this test. (327) The dress that Eleven wears in season one when the boys dress her up to go to the school and use the ham radio took a long time to find. It had to be a special dress because why would Nancy have saved it otherwise? There were several versions of the yellow dress made because it had to appear progressively dirty and worn the longer that Eleven wore it. (328) A lot of people didn't like Lucas much in season one because he is quite short with Eleven at times. Caleb McLaughlin felt this was praise because he was simply playing Lucas in the manner the script dictated. He was relieved though that Lucas lightens up near the end and makes amends with Eleven. (329) Shawn Levy said that casting children is quite complex. "I’m looking for not only talent, but that special synchronicity between the actor and the character. So, with the kids on our show, we definitely talk with them more before and after their reading than we do with most adults auditioning. With an adult actor, you’re betting so much on the reading. With a kid actor, you’re betting just as much on their innate quality in real life in the room. I can tell you for a fact we saw 1,000 kids [for] Stranger Things, and many, many talented kids didn’t get the part. I always tell my actor friends, you can nail an audition and you can be incredibly talented, and sometimes you still won’t get the part if it’s not in sync with the filmmakers’ vision of that character and their feeling—or lack of feeling)—that that person is in the room with them. So much of it comes down to that stuff beyond an actor’s control. That’s important to remember so you don’t beat yourself up for the wrong reasons." (330) The Duffers said they felt some guilt at killing Barb off so quickly because it was Shannon Purser's first acting job and she was so nice to work with. (331) The former lab employee that Kali seeks revenge on in Stranger Things 2 is watching Punky Brewster. Punky Brewster was a children's sitcom about a feisty orphan girl adopted by a slightly cranky man. This is a nice little easter egg given its parallels to Hopper and Eleven. (332) The cast were allowed to do some free shopping at the Starcourt Mall near the end of shooting on season three. The expensive period authentic sneakers were off limits though because they were on loan. (333) David Harbour said that Hopper was conceived as a sort of blend of Nick Nolte, Chief Brody, and Indiana Jones. "When I read the character, it reminded me a lot of Roy Scheider from Jaws. It reminded me a lot of Nick Nolte in those old 48 Hours movies. It reminded me a little bit of Indiana Jones. It just reminded me of all these leading men that I had grown up with as a child when I went to movies in the ’80s. I hadn’t seen a character, at least one has not really come across my radar, that is so messy in a certain way and so complex. I just sort of fell in love with him. I like the whole story, too. I thought it was great, but in general, I really just fell in love with him." (334) David Harbour said that before season one came out he was annoyed by what seemed to be a lack of promotion for the show. "It was so funny, because of Netflix’s marketing — and I don’t know if this was conscious or not, because I know they liked the show, but I don’t know if they even knew it was going to be a hit — a couple weeks before the show started to air, there were no posters. I live in New York City, and there were no posters on buses, there was no advertising going on." (335) As production neared on season two, David Harbour said that if season one of Stranger Things was a delicious vanilla ice cream then Stranger Things 2 would have to be a delicious strawberry ice cream. You couldn't just give everyone vanilla ice cream again. (336) Joe Keery said he was delighted by the teaming of Steve and Dustin in season two. "The characters kind of come together because they’re both kind of left in the dust. They find what they need in each other. It ends up helping both of them and they learn from it. That scene is a moment where they both let their guard down and you can see that he really cares about this kid, and it’s helpful in his journey to care more about others than he does himself. It’s also these two characters who think they have it all figured out—but in no way have it all figured out." (337) Natalia Dyer said she was amazed by the overnight fame she experienced through Stranger Things. "I was very nervous as to how it would be received, but literally the first night that it came out, I got recognized on the street—I was living in New York at the time, so you’re on the street a lot. To see that amping up, people recognizing you everywhere, and just seeing face to face how people felt about the show and how much it meant to them, it was wild!" (338) Winona Ryder explained her casting in Stranger Things in the following way - "Um, gosh, I wish I had a more interesting or exciting story. But I was sent the script and I'd had one experience in television, a HBO miniseries called Show Me a Hero. I had a small part, but I really wanted to work with David Simon. But I really didn’t know much about the world of television; I just knew that it was becoming incredibly interesting and much more like film than films. But you know, I met with them (the Duffers). I really only was given a script of the pilot episode. We had a good meeting and I sort of took the leap. It’s been sort of overwhelming with the reaction. I don’t think any of us were prepared, but it’s been really amazing. To work with the really incredibly talented young actors has been great." (339) When the first photos from the set of Stranger Things 2 emerged, Millie Bobby Brown was conspicuously missing. The Duffers and Millie were vague about whether or not Eleven was returning at first in order to make her return more of a welcome surprise. This ruse didn't really fool anyone in the end and Millie's presence on the set and in publicity photographs was soon apparent. No one seriously believed they were going to make a second season of Stranger Things without the biggest breakout star of the first season! (340) Shannon Purser said she was quite touched to see Barb Holland fan art "It's been totally surreal. I love it! The fan art is definitely one of my favourite things that have come up from the show. I'm an artist, I draw a bit, and I just love creativity and all forms of art. I love that people were inspired by the show and the characters and just inspired to create. I think that's what good art does. It breeds more creativity. I can't even explain how crazy it feels to have your own face being drawn over and over. It's absolutely incredible." (341) The season one set decorators trawled through dozens of thrift stores and garage sales to look for items that might be authentic to the middle America of 1983. (342) The Byers house seems to bear the brunt of the carnage in season one and quickly became the most complex and chaotic set in the production. There were days where the Byers set was trashed for one particular scene and then had to be rapidly restored for another scene. (343) Stranger Things uses the ITC Benguiat font. This font was designed by a man named Ed Benguiat. The main reason why the Duffers loved this font (besides it simply being a great font) is that it graced Stephen King paperbacks in the eighties. (344) Noah Schnapp did some of the crazy crayon sketches that Will Byers rushes off in Stranger Things 2. (345) When Eleven watches All My Children on television in season two she mimics the actress Susan Lucci. (346) In season one, Dustin has dinner at the Wheeler house. Meatloaf and mashed potato is on the menu. (347) When Caleb McLaughlin met Millie Bobby Brown for the first time she had very long hair. After she had her Eleven buzzcut and lost the hair, Caleb McLaughlin had no idea who she was at first when he bumped into Millie again. (348) The Triple-Decker Eggo Extravaganza (a modest 8,000 calories) that Hopper makes for Eleven in Stranger Things 2 consists of waffles, whipped cream, Reese's Pieces, Hershey's Kisses, and jelly beans. (349) Matt Duffer said that one of their biggest fears concerning Stranger Things is that there are now (with the advent of streaming) more television shows than any one person who could ever watch. He did have some trepidation that Stranger Things might struggle to attract any attention in this ever more crowded entertainment landscape. "There's so much content out there in the world that the fear was you're just going to get lost. Even if people do like it, and we thought best case scenario is we're appealing to people like us who are nostalgic for this style of storytelling. So the surprise to us came when especially the younger generation started to fall in love with these characters, and then start tweeting about it and then word started to spread. Netflix was always behind the show and they always loved it. What they told us is that they were hoping that word of mouth would spread, but it's going to take some time. Word of mouth is certainly what got the show its popularity, but I think everyone was taken aback by how quickly that word of mouth spread." (350) Terminator 2 was a big influence on the look of Stranger Things 3 - especially the night sequences. (351) Matty Cardarople (who plays Keith in Stranger Things) had to use a spit bucket in his scenes because Keith is always eating Cheetos. (352) One of the most complex scenes for Noah Schnapp as an actor was the scene in season two where Will encounters the Flayer and smoke seems to assault him. "That was such a hard scene to film." he said. "When they filmed the scene, there’s nothing there, they’re not gonna put a fake monster in the sky. So it was just a big green screen and I had to imagine that there’s this big terrifying monster coming after me, and it was so hard to wrap my mind around that, so I had to imagine that. This was Will’s moment in the season to stand up for himself and be courageous and this is not like Will. Will’s usually the quiet kid. He doesn’t talk too much and in this scene he’s standing up for himself and it was a big scene for Will and for me as well, so I definitely had to prepare for it a lot. I did a lot of research on stories about kids getting possessed and stuff and things about that. I thought, “If he’s taking me over, he’s coming in my mind so I have to think about what it feels like.” It was hard. I had to make it up a little by myself and I thought about what it feels like." (353) The children in the cast had to arrange their schooling around Stranger Things and were assigned tutors and a classroom on the set. (354) Bellwood Quarry in Georgia has been used not just for Stranger Things also The Walking Dead (which also has its production base in Georgia). (355) Bob Newby having a Dracula costume at Halloween in Stranger Things 2 is a light-hearted Easter egg. Winona Ryder starred in Francis Ford Coppola's version of Dracula in the early nineties. (356) The local people in Douglasville were said to be disappointed when they learned the Palace Arcade was not permanent and only for scenes in Stranger Things 2. It was so authentic they thought it was a real arcade. (357) The Duffers decided to keep Eleven apart from the other children for most of season two because they wanted to remove their 'safety net' and do some things that the audience might not be expecting. (358) David Harbour was rather worried about season two because the expectations were now so high after season one. "I’ve gotta say," said Harbour at the time, "I’ve talked to different people in the production and the cast, and they’re a lot more nervous. I was much more nervous for season one. Season two, to me, is the big sophomore slump hurdle. I loved True Detective so much in season one, and then when the season two monstrosity came around, I was like, “What is this show?! What have you done to this show?!” For me, the big hurdle is having this lightning in a bottle moment, where the stars aligned and you created a beautiful, amazing show that people loved, and can you do it again? Once you do it a second time, it’s smooth sailing from then on out." (359) Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler has more lines than anyone else in season one. Mike has 433 lines in the first season. (360) The Duffer Brothers named The Bathtub as their top season one episode in a EW article. "We feel a lot of affection for this episode, because it’s a little bit bonkers. And, at least for us, it’s the most purely fun episode of the season. Our three disparate story lines collide as our teens, kids, and adults all finally team up. After spending six hours trying to keep these story lines separate, it was incredibly satisfying to merge them into into one. At last, we could explore new dynamics. Eleven and Joyce, Dustin and Hopper, Nancy and Eleven (“Is that my dress?” is a favourite line of ours). If anything, this episode is also just a showcase for our three wonderful boys: Finn (Mike), Caleb (Lucas), and Gaten (Dustin). They really grew as actors over the course of the season, and we love them in this episode. But it wasn’t easy to get there. We were several months into shooting at this point, and their nervousness had at this point all but totally evaporated." (361) Craig Henighan, the sound designer on Stranger Things, said an awful lot of thought when into creating the sonic effects for the Demogorgon in season one. "I didn’t want to go down the normal animal route, using pigs or cats. I think in Alien they used cappuccino makers and peacocks amongst other sounds. So I try to be aware of those sounds and initially I thought I’d try not to make the Entity out of real animals or human sounds. I thought I could do it with dry ice and squeaks and other oddball sounds that I could record or that I’ve collected over the years. But, that sort of failed. A lot of those things just didn’t sound right for this monster. I recorded my own voice and tried to manipulate that. I did a little bit early on with Dehumaniser (vocal processing software by Krotos, Ltd.) and other plug-ins to get something working but that sounded a little too heavy-handed. I wanted to come up with something similar to Predator, in terms of having an identifiable vocal, because initially you don’t see the Entity. I wanted it to sonically evoke creepiness and intellect. In all of my recordings, I didn’t quite find what I wanted, but then I started looking through my libraries. I have to give credit to Tim Prebble, who runs Hiss and Roar out of New Zealand. It’s a great boutique sound design/sound effects library. Years ago I bought his seal recordings, and in there I heard a few things that I felt I could use as the hook. I took that seal vocal, and tried to pitch it and mask it, and put a lot of sounds in there so that people wouldn’t really know where it came from. But then I went back to pitching the seal vocals just a little bit, and shortening the length of it. In a cool kind of way, it’s really simple and effective, and to the point. That’s the core sound of the Entity. When we get into the flesh, I recorded splatty sounds of water hitting flour, and other splats. I also used some great stuff from Boom Library and my good friend Rob Nokes has done a lot of specific recordings for me over the years. I had other fleshy movement sounds and door squeaks, rubber yoga ball creaks. I did some dry ice recordings that are part of the Entity’s bigger roars and screams." (362) The junkyard sequence in Stranger Things 2 was shot in a real junkyard. (363) In the second season, you can see a periodic table on the wall which contains some elements not yet discovered in 1984. You'd have be a science whizz to notice this goof. (364) Mike Wheeler has a birthmark in the pilot script which the bullies make fun of. (365) The real Dig Dug arcade machine only permitted you to key in three digits when you registered a high score. In reality Max would not have been able to key in MADMAX - as she does in the second season. (366) Dustin's mother is played by a different actress in season one. Tabitha Kilgore appears briefly as Mrs Henderson during Will's funeral. Catherine Curtin would take over the role in season two. (367) Mike Wheeler might have a poster for John Carpenter's The Thing in season one but it's difficult to see how he would know too much of this film. The Thing was not yet on VHS in 1983 and was R-rated in cinemas. Although a revered cult classic today, the movie got terrible reviews when it came out too. (368) Charlie Heaton had to stay in a dingy hostel in Hollywood auditioning for pilots before he got a big break with Stranger Things. (369) Millie Bobby Brown and Noah Schnapp pranked the costume designer on season one by pretending that she'd had a call saying her wedding venue was double booked. (370) The windows on the Camaro driven by Billy in Stranger Things 2 have automatic windows in some scenes and non-automatic windows in others. This is what you could describe as a continuity mistake. (371) Craig Henighan, the sound designer on Stranger Things, explained the unique sonic backdrop of the Upside Down by saying - "I knew The Upside Down would be dark and swampy but I hadn’t seen any visuals. In my first conversations with Matt and Ross, I tried to find out what this alternate reality would be like. Is it supposed to be reverberant? Is it supposed to be dead dry? You try to establish ground rules about what it is you’re trying to create. They said it would be wet, and give the impression of being wet, but they’re not going to be walking around in the swamp. It had to be spooky and haunting but at the same time be familiar. I worked with these great forest recordings with trees creaking and I tried to use a bit of comb filtering. I didn’t want it to sound like it was comb filtered though. I didn’t want it to have this robotic sort of sound. Using GRM Tools, I went through and adjusted filter settings and found one that gave me a sound that was not really a delay or a slap but just added a bit of enticement. It’s something between a reverb and a delay. So I loop recorded long passages of me plunking around on my sampler with these different sound files. Then I re-sampled those, and then re-sampled them again. That’s when all of the weird creaks and weird spores/soft ambiances came in. There’s a bit of moaning in there. There’s a bit of otherworldly winds. The big thing is everything is moving in those sequences and so I tried not to make anything sound static. That was a big payoff. To the Duffers credit, they didn’t put music all over The Upside Down. They chose strategic spots for music. They let the sounds work, and that’s half the trick, to have confidence in your sound design so that you don’t need to put music everywhere. When the music does come in, it’s there for a reason and it makes the scene more powerful." (372) Amazingly, Eleven's blonde wig in season one was worth $8,000. (373) Finn Wolfhard said he was more scared of Pennywise the Clown than the Demogorgon. (374) Winona Ryder said she liked the fact that Joyce wasn't your stereotypical television mother. "Usually the roles that you get offered that are the mom roles are very much the mom role. This was different. She was much more than something to service the plot. So it was a really great opportunity." (375) Max refers to Lucas and Dustin as stalkers when they show an interest in her at the start of season two. Many felt this was an anachronism because 'stalker' wasn't a common term in 1984. However, this could be a (fairly) topical reference to a terrifying serial killer named Richard Ramirez who was later captured in 1985. Ramirez became known as The Night Stalker. (376) The Weirdo On Maple Street finds Dustin worrying that Eleven might be an escaped lunatic like Michael Myers. Michael Myers is the murderous antagonist of the Halloween horror film franchise. (377) The Duffers said it was very deliberate in season one the way that the different age groups of characters seem to be in different sorts of movies. "For the teens they’re more in a classic horror film; John Carpenter’s stuff like Halloween or Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street. That’s where the teens live. For the kids it’s more the adventure thing, like The Goonies or Stand by Me. And then the adults are a bit more in the classic Spielberg movies like Close Encounters where they’re slowly coming to realise that something extraordinary is happening around them and the sense of wonder that provokes. So that was what we were trying to do. Those are some of the big touchstones for us." (378) When she was told that Stranger Things would be streamed to Netflix viewers, Winona Ryder didn't have the faintest clue what streaming meant. Winona said she rarely used a computer and was something of a luddite when it came to technology. (379) Despite the significance of the band's music in season one when it comes to his character, Charlie Heaton said he isn't the biggest fan of The Clash. (380) The scientist who meets a grisly fate in the Upside Down during The Body is named Shephard. Shephard is a character in Silent Hill. (381) In the famous season one scene where Eleven brazenly steals waffles from the store, the eagle eyed might spy a few modern cars go past in the background. (382) The Demogorgon was going to appear more humanoid in the early designs. The creature was given a more unfathomable Lovecraftian twist in the end. (383) Ross Duffer said that Eleven was considerably more violent in the initial plans for Stranger Things but they softened this part of the character because they wanted an all ages rating (and appeal) for the show. They didn't want Eleven slaughtering scientists all over the place in blood drenched fashion. (384) Steve's red bandana in Stranger Things 2 is almost certainly a homage to Josh Brolin's character in The Goonies. (385) The Duffers have not specifically cited it as an influence, but season one of Stranger Things has the same premise as a Richard Matheson penned Twilight Zone episode called Little Girl Lost. Matheson's story is about a scientist who must rescue his daughter after she becomes trapped in an alternate dimension thanks to a portal in her bedroom. (386) The villain of Stranger Things 2 is the Mind Flayer - an unspecified big boss of the Upside Down. The Mind Flayer is clearly inspired by Lovecraft's cosmic entity Cthulhu. Louise Bourgeois' spider like sculpture Maman is often suggested as another influence. (387) David Harbour said it was tough in season two to shoot confrontational scenes with someone as young as Millie Bobby Brown. "I had to work a lot harder while working with Millie, and I don't know exactly why. I think it's more complicated for me to yell at a young woman that way. It was very emotionally complex for me to play that. That was a really messed up day when we did that scene. I mean I was feeling all messed up about it. But I did want to treat the scene with the respect it deserves and I wanted to treat Millie with the respect she deserves as my female co-star, and really give her my all and my power, and she's able to give it right back. So that was a very complicated day." (388) Mark Steger said that he thinks of the Demogorgon as some sort of plant based creature. "I feel like the monster maybe is more mushroom, which is kind of between plant and animal. Mushroom DNA is more similar to animal DNA than to plant DNA, [but the monster is] something else. He bleeds—or maybe they bleed, or she bleeds. I don't know what pronoun to use for the monster! But it feels like a little bit of both [plant and animal] to me." (389) Mark Steger said he could barely hear a thing once he was inside the season one Demogorgon costume. "It was actually really loud in there. Even when the motors were turned off, there was this high-pitched whine. And there were 26 motors running the head, and when we were actually doing a shot, I couldn't hear directions. They would have to shout at the top of their lungs, and then maybe I would hear them. The suit probably weighed about 30 pounds or so, and you're completely sealed in. It's like wearing a wetsuit and covering your whole body." (390) Gaten Matarazzo said that he and the other younger cast members love night shoots most of all on Stranger Things. (391) Winona Ryder said she relished the role of Joyce Byers in Stranger Things because she was finally getting a play a character her own age. "I would not want to go back to playing the ingénue," said Winona. "I’m not someone like Norma Desmond who’s harking back to her younger days." (392) Shawn Levy said it was amazing how different production on season two was in comparison to season one. "It’s a very different experience. No one even cared what we were working on. We had this little show shooting in Atlanta with these twins that no one had ever heard of and a bunch of kids. So, we went from working in absolute anonymity to now working with, without question, a level of expectation and anticipation that is as daunting as it is exciting but for us the whole trick has been embracing the popularity of the show and appreciating it but knowing when it’s time to put the blinders and the earplugs in and to quiet down that cultural noise and focus on the instincts that brought us here." (393) The season two subplot where Steve teams up with Dustin and becomes the babysitter and guardian for the kids wasn't conceived until four episodes were already in the can. (394) The scene in season two where Eleven has a temper tantrum and breaks the glass in the cabin windows was done for real. "The Duffers had scripted flinging the dictionary, shoving the couch, but all those door slams and things were things we had to come up with as we were shooting it," said Shawn Levy. "Our special effects crew had to figure it out on the fly. [And that part with the windows blowing out] That’s real. No visual effects. We rigged all the windows. [David Harbour even did it himself]. We had blocked it in a way — we knew he would be facing that door, and so we knew his faces would be protected, and he did NOT want to use stunt double, and so that was all real." (395) Even when production began on Stranger Things 2, the Duffers still hadn't quite decided if Paul Reiser's new character Dr Owens was going to be a goodie or a baddie. (396) Stranger Things 2 saw the show move further away from practical effects and become more grand scale and (unavoidably) digital. While you could depict a lone human sized Demogorgon through practical effects for a good portion of the time in season one, it would obviously have been impossible to convey the monstrous gargantuan shapeshifting Mind Flayer through practical effects. (397) Stranger Things 2 was a much more immersive and communal experience for Noah Schnapp because he was based in Atlanta for the shoot and no longer shuttling back and forth from his family home in New York (as he had done during season one). (398) The crayon sketches that Will Byers does in season two had to be isolated elements of a map of Hawkins. This proved to be a very complex task. "We invented a map of Hawkins last season and we refined it this season, so there is a working sense of what the geography of Hawkins is," said designer Chris Trujillo. "We had to hone in on how representational and true to scale what he was drawing could be, based on the square footage of the interior of the house and how big Hawkins is. We really did our best to try and ground it in some sort of consistent, rational physics." (399) Dacre Montgomery improvised the scene in Will the Wise where Billy grabs Max by the wrist. Dacre Montgomery and Sadie Sink worked on this moment together before the scene was shot so that it would be safe and Sink would be prepared. (400) Erica Sinclair has a sunflower and rainbow on her wall in season two. A sunflower and rainbow are the keys to understanding the catatonic state of Terry Ives. (401) Ross Duffer has always joked that the characters in Stranger Things should pack their bags and get out of Hawkins. In season three, we see Joyce and her family do this very thing. (402) Matthew Modine believes that Dr Brenner is not quite the black and white villain he appears to be. "Did he ever force Eleven to perform the experiments? Did he ever physically harm her? Was he always kind and careful to explain each test/experiment? Have you considered that the cat may have been a test to explore her empathy for another living creature? You perceive Dr Martin Brenner to be sinister. It’s quite possible he is passionately pursuing Eleven simply because he knows her potential and worries what might or what could happen if she were to get in the hands of someone that is truly sinister." (403) Winona Ryder estimates that, as Joyce Byers, she spent about ten hours crying during the production of season one. (404) Among the Stranger Things comics is one called The Bully - which features the bullies Troy and James and is set at the time of Stranger Things 2. This story attempts to somewhat redeem Troy. He has an encounter with DemoDogs, has his bad attitude blamed on a strict father, and ends up leaving Hawkins with his family. (405) David Harbour as Jim Hopper is the character with the most lines in season three. Hopper has 353 lines in Stranger Things 3. (406) Finn Wolfhard was cast in Stephen King's IT before he was cast in Stranger Things. There was the very real prospect of a clash of schedules and it is almost certain that Wolfhard's management, in that scenario, would have chosen a Hollywood movie over Stranger Things. However, IT had a last minute change of director and this delay meant he was able to do both. "I had actually been hired to do IT before Stranger Things," said Wolfhard. "This was when Cary Fukunaga was going to direct and then pulled out. From there I got Stranger Things and then, when It came back with Andy Muschietti directing, I got the opportunity to audition again." (407) Finn Wolfhard said that because Mike in Stranger Things and Richie in Stephen King's IT are very different characters, it was a fun acting challenge to play both roles around the same time. (408) The Duffers played Magic: The Gathering as children. This game has obvious similarities with Dungeons & Dragons. (409) The mullet hairstyle of Billy Hargrove in Stranger Things is really a hairpiece. Dacre Montgomery had short hair in real life. (410) A number of actors in Stranger Things have said that Duffer Brothers allow them to have a lot of input into the evolution of their characters. (411) Production designer Chris Trujillo said that everyone agreed the Upside Own would be depicted as a place of disease and infection. Despite the shared vision the designers had of the Upside Down though, it was no easy task bringing it to life. "It was an object lesson in how tricky the alchemy of turning a shared fantasy into a physical set can be," said Trujillo. "Ultimately, we arrived at the Upside Down we all now know and love and fear through a lot of trial-and-error team work between physical effects and visual effects, with a large helping of creative construction, incredible scenic work, inspired lighting design and consummate camera work." (412) David Harbour said that he would love to have more scenes with Joe Keery because he thinks Hopper and Steve would make for a funny duo. (413) Billy Hargrove in season two was conceived to be like a human villain in a Stephen King book. "Stephen King has this concept of humans being scarier than the supernatural, and the Duffer Brothers wanted to play around with that," said Dacre Montgomery. "So we meet initially and in the first half I am a stereotypical jock character, but in the second half I’m deeper. He was a great character to play around with and heavily oriented around Jack [Torrance] from The Shining with his unpredictable nature. I hope the audience connects to that." (414) The production of season one passed in something approaching complete obscurity. That all changed on season two. As shooting on Stranger Things 2 began, the crew noticed overhead drones attempting to capture footage. Media and fan interest in the production was massive. "We also had drones flying over, trying to get shots," said David Harbour. I've never experienced that kind of madness before. There was a silly element to that." (415) Stranger Things 2 saw a notable decrease in dialogue given to Mike, Nancy and Jonathan. These characters had (respectively) 199, 163, and 146 less lines in season two than in season one. (416) David Harbour said he doesn't especially enjoy the scenes in Stranger Things where Hopper has to use guns. They can be very loud and jarring so it isn't the most pleasant experience. (417) Heather Taylor, one of the casting directors on the show, said she had absolute confidence in the project right from the start. "The moment I met the creators and the cast I knew it was going to be giant success. These kids have the most incredible personalities and are so unique- they also embody the traits of their characters, and are fantastic actors- that's a trifecta right there. There are no current shows out there that have a main cast of almost all kids, unless you’re watching Disney or Nickelodeon (which is targeted for one specific age group). This show felt relatable to every age, from kids to adults. I would get totally lost from the outside world when I would read the scripts, not to mention how much everyone loves the 80s (including myself), how could this not be a hit!" (418) Gaten Matarazzo is usually cited as the cast member who plays the most pranks during shooting. (419) The Duffers initially planned for Jonathan and Nancy to end up together at the end of season one. In the end they altered this plan and had Nancy get back with Steve Harrington. (420) The one constant in Kyle Lambert's wonderful Stranger Things posters is that Eleven is always the focal point. She is always the central presence in the art. (421) Sean Astin said he reached out to the Stranger Things producers himself in the hope of getting a part in the show. (422) Joe Keery was hurt by a breakaway prop plate being smashed over his during the shooting of the fight scene between Steve and Billy near the end of Stranger Things 2. This take was left in the episode though because it looked very convincing (which it WAS) and Keery didn't really feel like doing any more takes. (423) The cast of Stranger Things are not all American. Dacre Montgomery is from Australia, Charlie Heaton and Millie Bobby Brown are from England, Finn Wolfhard is from Canada, and Linnea Berthelse is from Denmark. (424) Finn Wolfhard became known as Emo Mike on the set of Stranger Things 2 because Mike Wheeler is more grouchy than he was in season one. (425) The singer-songwriter Father John Misty said he turned down an invitation to audition for Stranger Things 2 because he didn't want the fame that would have come with an appearance in the show. It seems reasonable to presume that the part they had in mind for Misty was Murray Bauman. (426) Millie Bobby Brown invented Eleven's head-flick and 'magician's wave' for when Eleven deploys her powers. (427) The reason why the Duffers decided not to set the show in Montauk was a matter of logistics. Shooting the show on the coast would have left the production at the mercy of the elements. (428) Sadie Sink's sister Jacey plays the younger version of Max you see in the flashback that takes place during E Pluribus Unum. (429) In the season two episode Trick or Treat, Freak, the Halloween fancy dress party includes a girl who has come as the punk singer Siouxsie Sioux. (430) The Duffers said that the scene in season one where the kids are fugitives and hide in the abandoned bus became something of an ordeal because one of the boys decided to break wind. (431) Millie Bobby Brown said she very nearly gave up acting before Stranger Things came along. (432) In season two, Dustin (much to the dismay of Steve) adopts a growl when he displays his pearls (teeth). This was inspired by Gaten Matarazzo's mimicry of Chewbacca from Star Wars. (433) Priah Ferguson as Erica Sinclair was included in a few more scenes than planned in Stranger Things 2 because the Duffers thought she was an amusing scene stealer. (434) The teeth of the Demogorgon in season one were designed so that they could move in many different ways. (435) The budget for the props department in season one was $220,000. (436) Lynda Reiss was the main 'propmaster' in season one. Reiss said that they had to do considerable research on Dungeons & Dragons in particular. (437) The props people on season one had to acquire more than one copy of Jonathan's eighties Pentax camera in case there were several takes of the scene where Steve destroys it. (438) Mike Wheeler was supposed to wear an E.T - The Extra-Terrestrial watch in the first season but they didn't manage to obtain the rights. (439) Dustin's bike in season one is deliberately designed to be a melange of different shades. The props department thought that Dustin would be the sort of kid who started painting his bike but then never got around to finishing. (440) The production of a new season of Stranger Things is an increasingly complex and lengthy operation. Even when the actors have filmed their scenes and gone home it still takes months to complete the digital effects. (441) Although it inspired the title of an episode in season two, the Duffer Brothers said they don't personally like the arcade game Dig Dug an awful lot. (442) Robert Englund is one of the new cast members in Stranger Things 4. Englund is best known as the star of the Nightmare On Elm Street movies. (443) Some Stranger Things fans believe that when the screen turns upside down right at the end of Stranger Things 2 the cars seem to take on an anachronistic quality. (444) Jonathan Byers has a Timex Weekender watch in the first season. (445) For the Halloween party scene in season two, over seventy hairpieces were needed for the cast and extras. (446) Amy Seimetz said she based the character of Becky Ives on her grandmother. (447) When he shot the chase scene in the lab which leads to Bob Newby's demise, Sean Astin was chased by a golf cart with a camera on it to represent the DemoDog point of view. (448) Millie Bobby Brown found the blonde wig that Eleven wears in season one itchy and uncomfortable because it was quite humid at the time. The hairstylist said that Millie got so fed up with the wig at one point she left it hanging in a tree. (449) The main production base of Stranger Things is the 10-stage, 33-acre EUE Screen Gems Studios in Atlanta. (450) The second teaser for Stranger Things 4 arrived in the summer of 2021. The teaser featured Dr Brenner at the lab presiding over numerous 'gifted' children. (451) 930 Garibaldi Street Southwest, Atlanta, was used for the home of Lonnie Byers in season one. (452) The Duffers have said that they especially enjoy the telekinetic temper tantrums of Eleven in Stranger Things. (453) The facial features of the Demogorgon were influenced by the motion of a snapping turtle. (454) The designers used 3D printers when they were experimenting with models to look at potential Demogorgon designs. (455) Stranger things, despite its scope and popularity, has a surprisingly small team making all the decisions. "There’s no studio, there’s no outside showrunner, there’s no big TV company," said Shawn Levy. "There’s literally [producer] Dan Cohen, me, the Duffer Brothers and we deal with three execs at Netflix. This TV show is made by a smaller team than almost any TV show or movie I’ve ever heard of." (456) Aimee Mullins, who plays Terry Ives, was born with fibular hemimelia and had both of her legs amputated below the knee as a baby. She competed in the Paralympics in 1996, which, appropriately enough, were in Atlanta. (457) Season two takes place during an election. Ted Wheeler has a Ronald Reagan placard in his garden. Dustin's mother is clearly a Democrat as she has a Walter Mondale placard. (458) The Duffers said that - happily- it was evident straight away when filming began on season one that the four lead boys had excellent chemistry together. This was obviously a great relief as the show would not have worked nearly as well if these boys were not believable as friends. (459) A Red Epic Dragon camera was used to shoot season one. (460) One theory for why the Duffers got over a dozen rejections when they first tried to pitch the show is that there had been a number of underwhelming television shows and miniseries based on the stories of Stephen King. The prospect of another show heavily inspired by Stephen king evidently wasn't an appealing prospect to many executives. (461) Ross Duffer said that the most important task they faced on season one was casting the right children for the main roles. "We knew right away that if we didn’t get the right kid actors, the show would fall apart. There’s really nothing worse than a bad child performance, so we needed them to be great. Once the show got the green light, we just started looking for kids. These kids flooded in with takes and our casting director Carmen Cuba would weed through some of them. I think it was about 900 kids or something. But actually, it’s not an impossible task. You can tell within five or 10 seconds of a kid performing. So you just skip to the next, skip to the next, skip to the next. Because you’re just looking for something authentic, and most kids don’t have it. They’re the ones that are obviously well-trained, but it feels like Disney, where they’re winking at the camera." (462) The many children who auditioned for Stranger Things were required to play scenes from Stand By Me and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. (463) Noah Schnapp thinks that the sexuality of Will Byers is not really important and should remain ambiguous. "For me, Will being gay or not is besides the point. Stranger Things is a show about a bunch of kids who are outsiders and find each other because they have been bullied in some way or are different. Does being sensitive, or a loner, or a teenager who likes photography, or a girl with red hair and big glasses, make you gay? I do know we all relate to being different. And that’s why I think the Duffers wrote the show the way they did. So you can ask all these questions. I hope the real answer never comes out." (464) The Duffers have always said that they have a very good idea of how Stranger Things will end. (465) Kim Wilcox was the costume designer on Stranger Things 2. Wilcox was in charge of Eleven's punkish change of image for The Lost Sister. "What I wanted to do was find something that would be slightly more pop culture but still punk," said Wilcox. "If you remember in the '80s, Madonna was famous for wearing these blazers, rolling up the sleeves and popping the collar. Madonna stole that from the punks, so it's kind of a hand-me-down already. We definitely tried a few different kind of jackets on and this was the one that definitely spoke the most to us. It made a lot of sense for her. The thing about that jacket is it feels a lot older than it is. We needed something that we felt like, in the '80s, when you were looking in the thrift store and your parents' closet, the things you thought were cool was from the '60s. So if you were thrifting, that's what you would pick. So we wanted something that actually felt much older than the ‘80s, but that would make sense for her." (466) One thing that might have been a contributing factor in Noah Schnapp's casting is that he looks like he could easily pass for Winona Ryder's son on real life. (467) The costume designer Kim Wilcox said that a lot of thought went into the transformation of Nancy through her clothes in season two. "She's evolving, she's becoming a woman. In the first couple of episodes, she's trying to be normal, but it's not normal for her - there's just a lot that she goes through this season that we wanted to make sure that she grew. We wanted to take her out of the prim and proper plaid cardigan and skirt set, and start working her into jeans. It's really fun to see her grow and for that journey to be reflected in the costumes as well." (468) Eleven watches a 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein in season two. This classic film had Boris Karloff as the monster. (469) Dustin's bird's nest hairstyle at the Snow Ball dance is based on Jon Cryer in the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink. The dance at the end of Pretty in Pink was probably an influence on the Snow Ball too. (470) Hopper's trip to the cornfield in Stranger Things 2 could be a reference to Stephen King's Children of the Corn. (471) There is a Quentin Tarantino Easter egg in The Bathtub when Jonathan's car trunk is opened. Tarantino usually has a similar trunk shot in his films. (472) When they shot The Sauna Test in season three, lipgloss was applied to Dacre Montgomery to make Billy Hargrove look hot and sweaty in the sauna. (473) Nancy wears a shearling jacket in season one. (474) Should I Stay or Should I Go is from the 1982 Clash album Combat Rock. (475) Ted Wheeler has a period station wagon with wood panels in season one. (476) The Duffers were ambiguous about the fate of Dr Brenner after season one. Matt Duffer said though that if Brenner was gone for good they would have shown his death more clearly. (477) Stranger Things 3 is the first season of the show where the Hawkins Lab doesn't really play a major role in the story. (478) Shawn Levy said that some of the Easter eggs and references in the show are completely unconscious. "The Duffers and I are always amused at how everyone assumes that the visual referencing is super conscious and deliberate. That Spielbergian, Stephen King ‘80s cinema runs through our veins. Those images are baked into our film nerd DNA." (479) When a frazzled Joyce paints an alphabet on the wall in season one, Winona Ryder (rather impressively) did this scene in one take. (480) In the original plan for Stranger Things, Eleven was going to have no hair at all. In the end they gave her more of a Jean Seberg crop. (481) Along with Winona Ryder (Alien: Resurrection) and Paul Reiser (Aliens), Amy Seimetz is one of three Stranger Things cast members to have been in the Alien franchise. Seimetz was in Alien: Covenant. (482) The Duffers decided to take Eleven's powers away at the end of Stranger Things 3 to add more tension. They were mindful of the fact that Eleven's powers had saved everyone in the previous two finales and didn't want the end of each season to be exactly the same. (483) The costume designers on Stranger Things researched eighties fashions in vintage issues of Tiger Beat and Cosmopolitan magazines. (484) The costume designer Kim Wilcox suggested that the clothes the boys wear at the Snow Ball hint at what occupations they might have as adults. (485) David Harbour said that when they were first shown the Stranger Things sets, the children in the cast were especially baffled by the 1980s wall telephones. (486) Ross Duffer said of the void sequences involving Eleven in season one - "What we were trying to do was come up with a visual representation for being in Eleven's head. And [the emptiness of the Void] is just a way to sort of get that across in a very simple way that obviously is not going to be involving heavy [visual effects] like in the 'X-Men' movies with Professor X. And again, you know, I think it’s one of those things where the limitations of [having] a TV schedule and budget made us be more creative." (487) The season one void scenes with Eleven were surprisingly easy to design "It's just an inch of water on the ground," said Ross Duffer, "and then we just hung up black curtains, and suddenly we’re in Eleven’s head. It's cool how you can achieve something that we think is such a big idea so simply." (488) Charlie Heaton had to wear a hairpiece in season one because he had burnt some of his fringe on a candle. (489) The extras in the high school scenes in season one were put in light pastel shades to project an eighties aura. (490) Erica crawling through the vent in season three is potentially a double Easter egg. It makes us think of John McClane in Die Hard and Bishop in Aliens. (491) The 'dead' body of Will Byers in the quarry river was really a female member of the stunt crew dressed in his clothes. (492) The costume designers in season one gave Steve Harrington very preppy clothes to signal his social class. Steve plainly comes from a fairly wealthy family. (493) There is a glimpse of the Byers Christmas lights from season one in the season two finale. Joyce has understandably banished them from the house. (494) Eleven is shy and meek but incredibly powerful like the main character in Stephen King's Carrie. (495) Eleven's use of television static in season two is a reference to Poltergeist. (496) The Duffers love horror video games. The influence of these games has plainly seeped into Stranger Things. (497) One thing that puzzled more pedantic fans in season one is how the Hawkins Lab managed to construct such a realistic dummy of Will Byers in such short order.