Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-07-01 (Tuesday)

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

7/2/2025 9:01 AM, Melissa Hollingsworth wrote:

I watched Jumanji. I didn't see it when it came out, because the
advertising made it look like they were all pulled into the game and
just had a dopey adventure.

It's a good movie. It explored some themes about trust and growing up,
and I liked Alan's realization that his "evil and abusive" father did
love him.

Did you catch the same actor played both the father and the big-game hunter?

I just looked at the uncited IMDb trivia. It wasn't originally intended,
but it makes so much sense to do so.

Originally Jonathan Hyde was not supposed to play dual roles of
Sam Parrish and Van Pelt. He had been cast as Van Pelt
immediately after Tim Curry passed on that role but at that
point Sam had yet o be cast. Several character actors were
considered for the role including Michael Moriarty, David Graf,
Edward Herrman (who co-starred with Hyde in Richie Rich (1994)
the previous year) and Rowan Atkinson. However all declined the
role due to other commitments leaving nobody else available so
director Joe Johnston asked Hyde to play both Sam and Van Pelt.
Hyde initially did not want to do two roles feeling it would be
pretty obvious he would be recognized as the same actor who
played Sam even with Van Pelt's makeup but he eventually
relented when he realized that Sam was such a small role and
ultimately agreed.

. . .