Wargames

Top 10 Fun Facts

1. Screenwriters Walter Parkes and Lawrence Lasker conceived the character Falken as the mind of Stephen Hawking inside the body of John Lennon. Lennon had actually expressed interest in the role before his death.
2. Good boys do their homework: to play an avid gamer, Matthew Broderick practiced for two months on Galaga and Galaxian arcade consoles that had been delivered to his house by the movie studio. (Tough gig.)
3. The studio spent $1 million to construct the NORAD command center set - the most expensive set in movie history up to that time. Somewhere, James Cameron is chuckling.
4. "Goose Island" is actually Anderson Island in Washington - and just like in the movie, if you miss the last ferry at 6:30pm, you're stuck there for the night.
5. The tunnel used as the entrance into NORAD can be found in Los Angeles's sprawling Griffith Park. You can also spot the same tunnel in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Back to the Future Part II.
6. Go go gadget reunion! Matthew Broderick worked with co-star Dabney Coleman again 16 years after WarGames in the big screen version of Inspector Gadget.
7. Beethoven would have been... honored? The touch-tone numbers used to reach the president from NORAD control center play the legendary melody from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (You know the one: da da da dummmm).
8. Rock band The Strokes went geek chic for their "Hard to Explain" music video, using the Tic-Tac-Toe scene from WarGames in part of a montage. We bet they're huge Ally Sheedy fans.
9. Wait, what? When Matthew Broderick comes home after the NORAD computer break-in, there's a TV news report on in the background about a "prophylactic recycling center."
10. Believe it or not, WarGames produced a sequel - 25 years later and direct to DVD. But hey, that still counts!

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