Anna Daniels
If you like the classic 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, here’s a bit of trivia that’s been available for a while but may not be widely known, even among the film’s big fans.
John Hughes‘ classic comedy features a rivalry between Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) and his sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey). Since Ferris is babied by their parents, Jeanie has it out for him and can’t get over the fact that he gets to stay home sick, knowing full well that he’s faking his illness to play hooky. But there were almost two other Bueller siblings in the movie, a 7-year old brother named Todd and a 12-year old sister named Kimberly. The two are prominently featured in the film’s script, but in the movie, you’ll only find background evidence of their existence.
We’re circling back around to this bit of trivia because legendary editor Paul Hirsch, who worked on Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, recently mentioned it on the Light the Fuse podcast while talking about his work on the Mission: Impossible franchise.
However, this is something that was revealed long ago on the director’s commentary track from John Hughes for one of the earliest DVD releases of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. For some reason, the commentary track wasn’t included on later re-releases of the movie, and it’s still absent on even the most recent editions of the movie. The commentary surfaced online in 2012, so you can listen to it while watching the movie, but otherwise it’s not part of any other recent official home video releases.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzpTx2rePaU?feature=oembed&w=740&h=416]
During the commentary, Hughes makes a passing reference to the younger Bueller siblings by mentioning the only evidence that exists of them in the movie. In certain shots, you can see a family photo that includes the younger siblings, and in the kitchen, on the fridge, there are crayon drawings that were clearly done by the younger kids (which were actually done by John Hughes’ son at the time). Otherwise, their scenes were cut from the movie entirely.
The good news is, if you want to know what those scenes entailed, you can read the original 124-page screenplay for the movie right here. Another fun fact: the script for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was written in less than a week. So maybe start the New Year by writing a screenplay yourself.
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