Trivia: The real name of Chucky is Charles Lee Ray, which is derived from three well known real life killers - Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray.
Trivia: When Chucky is running behind Maggie, many children and child relatives of cast and crew were filmed doing the run while dressed up as Chucky, including Alex Vincent's younger sister, since it would have been impossible for the animatronic Chucky to run across screen like that. However, it is unknown which child ultimately was used in the final cut.
Trivia: In all, nine menacing Chucky figures were constructed for the film: a simple "toy" doll; a doll that could stand upright; a doll that could walk; two hand-held puppets for quick, specific movements (such as sitting, biting or flailing about); and expendable "stunt dolls" that could be tossed round the set or otherwise subjected to rough treatment.
Trivia: The filmmakers closed the famed Chicago loop as they filmed the massive toy store explosion sequence. A team of pyrotechnics experts rigged the mock store with explosive charges and set off the fiery blast, obliterating the front windows. Yet amazingly, only a few of the toys were actually destroyed; the rest were donated to charities that included the Children's Memorial Hospital and Ronald McDonald House.
Trivia: An early draft of the script went by the working title "Batteries Not Included", which had to be changed when it was discovered that Steven Spielberg was developing a film by the same name. The title was then changed to "Blood Buddies" and then eventually to "Child's Play."
Trivia: Many ideas from the original script that were cut were later recycled into the various sequels. Series creator Don Mancini has stated that if he comes up with a good scene that doesn't quite fit one Chucky movie, he always keeps it written down because there's a very good chance it could be used in a later sequel.
Trivia: Chris Sarandon was supposed to be top-billed, but insisted that Catherine Hicks instead be given top billing, despite being a smaller "name," as she was the lead character and he admired her performance.
Trivia: Series creator Don Mancini originally conceived of the film as a very dark satire, and in the first draft of the script, "Chucky" wasn't even the name of the killer doll. The first draft of the script (then called "Blood Buddies") revolved around a child who is given a top-of-the-line new doll from his ad-executive mother. The doll, "Buddy", was a gimmick doll whose skin could break, but be repaired with accessory toy "First Aid" kits. The child, who is horribly bullied and ignored by the mother, cuts his and the doll's hands and performs a "blood right" with the doll, which brings it to life. Buddy then acts as the boy's id, and begins to lash out at and kill off people the boy dislikes. Subsequent drafts of the script eventually introduced the idea of Chucky being the killer doll and his backstory as a serial killer.
Trivia: Chucky's voice actor Brad Dourif brought his young daughter to the recording studio one day to spend time with her and show her what it was like to record a voice-over role. Unfortunately, he didn't realise that the day he brought her in was the day he was supposed to record Chucky's howls of pain when he is burned alive near the end of the film. He would have to pace around, panting and grunting to himself to psych himself up, burst into wails and howls of pain for the take... And then immediately run into the other room to calm his daughter down, as she would understandably freak out and start crying when her dad began to scream in pain, thinking he was in trouble. Ironically enough, the daughter in question (Fiona Dourif) would later go on to star in the sixth film of the franchise ("Curse of Chucky") as the lead heroine who is forced to square off against Chucky.
Trivia: In an eerie example of life sort of imitating art, Ed Gale, an actor with dwarfism who doubled as Chucky in a couple of shots in the first few of the "Child's Play" movies (in addition to playing the titular character in "Howard the Duck"), was caught by an online sex predator hunting group in a sting operation in 2023.
Trivia: The actor in the full-sized Chucky suit on the commercial was John Franklin, perhaps best known for playing Isaac in the original "Children of the Corn." Isaac often portrayed younger or smaller-statured "suit" characters despite being an adult due to a growth-hormone deficiency that resulted in him being shorter than average. (And having a very young-looking face.)
Trivia: By chance, while he was in college, franchise creator Don Mancini had audited an acting class being taught by actor Brad Dourif, who he greatly admired. He was pleasantly surprised when he found out Dourif was cast as Chucky several years later after his screenplay was purchased and went into production. The two later became good friends.
Trivia: Director Tom Holland left the film during editing because he had severe creative differences with the rest of the production team. His initial cut of the film was about two hours long and had nearly 20 more minutes of scenes with Chucky running around and interacting with other characters, which the producers felt made the doll less threatening and killed the pace. Holland refused to voluntarily cut the scenes and walked.
Trivia: Most of the crew reportedly hated director Tom Holland. Holland was allegedly rude, difficult, and had violent outbursts, including starting a physical fight with producer David Kirschner by throwing a glass coffee mug at his face over a simple disagreement about a shot. He also reportedly pulled a gun on Kirschner and fired at him, only to reveal it was loaded with blanks. The "Tommy" doll that gets killed and buried in the sequel was reportedly named after Holland as a subtle "f**k you."
Trivia: The film establishes that the longer Chucky's soul inhabits the doll, the more "human" it becomes. To subtly allude to this fact, the special effects team made several variations of the doll that were used throughout filming, with each new doll having slightly more "human" qualities than the previous doll. A prime example is the skin tone - the films starts with Chucky looking like a real doll with shiny and bright plastic skin, but by the end of the film, the skin is less shiny, less vibrant and a bit more "elastic" in quality, more like human skin than plastic. Chucky's eyes were also made somewhat more translucent and realistic as the film progressed, and were even set back further into the head in later scenes.
Trivia: Chucky's voice was a major hurdle for the film's production. The director and producers tried several different voices for the doll. Most notably, actress Jessica Walter (perhaps best known for playing Lucille on "Arrested Development") was even brought in to voice Chucky at one point, in order to give the character a more light, doll-like voice. However, a test screening of the film using Walter's voice was disastrous, as audiences felt her voice didn't work with Chucky's dark humor. Eventually, it was decided that the voice of Brad Dourif, who played Chucky as a human, should be used. And of course that decision paid off big time.
