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When Reese Witherspoon's character is sitting at the desk reading, there is a cheerleading trophy and the cheerleader on it is wearing a mini skirt, - they didn't have mini skirts on the cheerleading outfits then. See more...

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The film was filmed entirely in color and had the color removed from the black and white portions in post-production. See more...

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Pleasantville (1998) - 25 corrections

Directed by Gary Ross, starring Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, Reese Witherspoon, Tobey Maguire, William H. Macy (add more)

Genres: Fantasy, Comedy, Drama

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Trivia
Corrections
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When David and his friend are questioning each other on Pleasantville trivia, David is eating chips. There are continuity mistakes between the front and rear views of David - e.g. when they're asking about the name of the cat the rear view shows David eating but the front view shows him dipping a fry into ketchup. [I watched this frame by frame and David is eating french fries the whole time.]
Edit Time
When Bud's mom gets scared because she turned "coloured," Bud puts makeup on her to hide the colour. When he is done, she is entirely black and white again. But how did he get the inside of her mouth, irises and edges of her eyes, and hair to change back to black and white? [The irises of her eyes, if looked at closely during this scene, remain in colour.]
Edit
In one scene, Mr. Simpson says he heard that Bud's "dad's got a new car." Later on, when Bud is on his date with Margaret, he's driving a 1954 Buick, which would have been four years old in the show's time of 1958. [It's "new" to Bud's dad in the sense that it's not his old car. And if it's never been owned by anyone before, it's "new" in that sense as well.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
When George comes home and finds no Betty on the night it rains, Jen is upstairs reading. George yells "Honey, I'm home" four times, then shouts "Where's my dinner?" several times. Jen hears none of this and George apparently does not go upstairs to hunt for Betty. At the bowling alley he says, "No one was there" and "No lights were on," yet in a wide shot of the house we see Jen's bedroom light on and she was there. [Character mistake. He was extremely confused, then when he told the story to his buddies, he confused the details.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
In the introduction to the Pleasantville marathon, viewers are tempted with a trip to the Pleasantville of their choice. The map shown does not accurately represent the Pleasantvilles of the USA. For example, there is one in Wisconsin that is not shown on the map and, more importantly, the map shows a Pleasantville in Oregon that does not exist in reality. [This is a fictional movie, the pleasantvilles may also be fictional.]
Edit Time
David is returning to the real world, and presses the remote. His reflection in the TV fades to black, then disappears. However, when he disappears, the reflections of the two women standing behind him are not there either. [The camera is filming from an angle, and the reflection is of another part of the room. From the TVs PoW, the camera is filming from the left side, and the women is standing to the left of the TV. Clearly the reflection won't show them.]
Edit
When the Black and White people turn coloured, their clothes change too. Whereas when Betty Parker turns coloured, it's only her head that changes and not her clothes. [Some people in Pleasantville changed gradually, like the girl whose tongue & lips turned color first before the rest of her did. Others changed suddenly. Not everyone is meant to change at the same pace, so this inconsistency is not a mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Matty Blast
David and Jennifer transfer themselves to Pleasantville without any belongings apart from the remote control. Since there has never been rain in Pleasantville, the umbrella the "Bud" gave his girlfriend when standing outside could only be David's school prop, from "outside" Pleasantville. [They never had a fire, but they had a fire department and a truck with hoses, and hydrants, and protective gear. They even called it the Fire Department, not the Cat Rescue Department. They have books with nothing written in them. There's no reason umbrellas can't exist in Pleasantville.]
Edit Corrected by K.C. Sierra
At the start of the film the Pleasantville Marathon Quiz is being introduced. On a blackboard a cartoon figure is pointing at three questions. The first one says "Buds Little League Team?" Shouldn't "Buds" be spelt with an apostrophe? On the blackboard it isn't. [Character mistake - or in this case, the TV show Pleasantville made a mistake. It's not a movie mistake.]
Edit Time
in the scene where the fireman are saving the cat, they put up a ladder. if you look a the top of the ladder you can see that the hooks are facing outward . as a fireman you would never allow that to happen they would get in the way and you could impale yourself. [Those ladders have never been used for anything but to pull cats from trees. And besides, nothing bad ever happens in Pleasantville.]
Edit Corrected by Rlvlk
When the tree in front of Bud's house flares up people stop and watch in shock. Therefore, it doesn't make sense that the firemen are unable to see the fire when they arrive by car, only later when Bud shows them how to use their equipment. The firemen don't even look into the direction of the fire when they come to the scene; on the other hand, passers by stop and look very much as if they realize the danger. [The firemen are able to see the fire, they have just never had to put one out before, because it was originally impossible to have a fire in any dangerous way in Pleasantville. They look at the fire, but do not know what to do, as all they have ever had to do is save cats trapped in trees, and so Bud/David has to show them how to work their equipment.]
Edit Time
You can't make clean holes when throwing stones at glass without shattering the whole pane, as it happened to Bill's front window. [It depends what kind of glass the window is made of, also there is a considerable amount of paint on the window which would help stop cracks from spreading.]
Edit Corrected by umathegreatstationarybear Time
In the finale it's anger that changes the Chamber of Commerce's director into colour, however when the townsfolk are working up a rage throwing items through the diner's window, they do not change colour. Also the character that Reese Witherspoon sleeps with does not change colour even though this is the main cause of the teenagers' colour changes. [Anger has nothing to do with changing to color. You have to "find yourself" then you change to color. Look how long it took Tobey Maguire to change.]
Edit Corrected by William Bergquist
When the mayor is talking to the men in the bowling alley, directly above his head is the score sheet. For the very top name the score has not been tallied in a couple frames but all of the other names have been tallied. [This is because the last two balls he threw were strikes, denoted by the X, in bowling you do not score strikes until you have thrown 2 more balls. The scoring is correct as shown.]
Edit Corrected by Pam-I-am
Despite what "Bud" says, the present-day television used in the movie can still be turned on without a remote. [He could be referring to the satellite dish. My old reciever was run entirely by remote, except for the power button. I had to buy a new remote when my daughter lost my first one.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
Since the citizens of Pleasantville don't know what, if anything, is outside of Pleasantville, then why is there an American Flag flying outside the high school? [They still know that they live in the USA. Whether they know anything about it or not.]
Edit Corrected by wolfchild
When Margaret hands some cookies over to Bud the arrangement of cookies on the plate is different in close-up. The rather precarious pile must have been glued in some way otherwise it wouldn't have survived the handing over. [The magic of Pleasantville isn't totally broken yet, they didn't fall off because that's how it would have been done on the TV show. Just because they can't make perfect baskets anymore doesn't mean girls can't stack and pass perfect piles of cookies.]
Edit Time
When the people of Pleasantville burn the books the fire is in black and white. Earlier on in the film it was clear that fire didn't exist because the fire brigade only knew how to rescue cats. Since fire didn't exist in the black and white world shouldn't the fire be in colour? [Fire does exist, other things just don't usually BURN. This would allow them to have things like chestnuts roasting on an open fire but no accidents. When they first go to school in Pleasantville Jennifer lights a lighter with a black and white flame and waves a handkerchief over it. The book fire is probably black and white because it was lit by the black and white people.]
Edit Time
The thunderstom had been raging already for quite a while when Bud's father arrived at the bowling alley. Given its absolute novelty, why hadn't the bowlers heard anything before he pointed it out to them? Bowling alleys are noisy places, but not that noisy. And we can hear the thunderstorm very well inside the bowling alley. [You really only hear the storm outside once the bowlers have stopped bowling to listen to George's story. Even if they heard something, they wouldn't think it to be a thunderstorm since "that wouldn't happen in Pleasantville". They probably just thought it was the echoes of bowling sounds.]
Edit Corrected by Ral0618 Time
How do the Pleasantville inhabitants know what green, blue and yellow is? If everything's supposed to be in black and white, plus they don't think there's anything outside of Pleasantville, how do they even know what colours are? [The basis of Pleasantville is that it is old TV show. They know what blue and rain are, but because it is an old and perfect world they have experienced neither.]
Edit Corrected by jle

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