48 Fun Facts About Kindergarten Cop

Kindergarten Cop's 'Kissing Boy' is the director's son Jason Reitman, who grew up to direct which Oscar-nominated comedy?

Juno brought Jason Reitman an Oscar nomination for directing. He has said the kiss in his father's film was his first in real life too: 'My kissing was half as bad as my acting.'

In Kindergarten Cop, Kimble's classroom game asks each child which question?

'Who is your daddy, and what does he do?' is really police work: Kimble has to pick out one particular boy among his pupils. The director said half the children's answers were true stories about their own fathers.

Kimble goes undercover as a kindergarten teacher in which small Oregon town?

The town had already hosted The Goonies and Short Circuit, and would later host Free Willy.

Kindergarten Cop reunited Arnold Schwarzenegger and director Ivan Reitman after which earlier comedy?

Twins was their 1988 hit. Schwarzenegger said he insisted on the same director here because he was sweating at the thought of acting opposite a room full of five-year-olds.

While filming Kindergarten Cop in Oregon, Schwarzenegger saw which vehicle pass the set and set out to buy one?

A Humvee convoy rolling past on its way to a military base gave him the idea. He pestered the maker until it sold him one, and a civilian model, the Hummer, went on sale in 1992.

In Kindergarten Cop's opening, Kimble warns off some street toughs by giving his name and adding that he loves what?

His car: 'My name is John Kimble... and I love my car' is a warning to the toughs loitering beside it, and one of them promptly offers to keep an eye on it for him.

Why did the Oregon school seen in Kindergarten Cop cancel a trip for its pupils to watch the film?

It was too violent, the principal decided after watching it first. Many of her pupils had been paid $35 a day as extras, but she left it to their parents to take them.

Where were Kindergarten Cop's classroom interiors filmed?

Universal Studios in Hollywood housed the classroom, on a sound stage, after a calm month of exteriors in Oregon. The director said pandemonium began the moment thirty children saw the cameras.

In Kindergarten Cop, Kimble reads his class a nap-time poem, 'Spring Morning', by which children's author?

A. A. Milne, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, wrote it for When We Were Very Young. It works too well: the children drift off, and so does Kimble, who has a nightmare about the man he is after.

In Kindergarten Cop, which famous speech do Kimble's five-year-olds learn to recite line by line?

The Gettysburg Address comes out as 'Fourscores and seven years ago', and when the class reaches 'our forefathers' one pupil wants to know whether Lincoln really had four fathers.

How did Arnold Schwarzenegger say he won over the child actors on Kindergarten Cop?

With jumping jacks: he admitted he was sweating like his character until he tried exercise, and a hundred children joined in. 'From that point on,' he said, 'I had them totally on my side.'

Which future Oscar nominee has a small role as a flight attendant in Kindergarten Cop?

Angela Bassett serves breakfast on the flight to Oregon, three years before her Oscar-nominated turn as Tina Turner. Asked minutes later whether his queasy 'wife' is okay, Kimble replies, 'Compared to what?'

In Kindergarten Cop, what does O'Hara tell Kimble to take to his first day of teaching after all?

His gun: she first tells him to take it off, then hears him say that six-year-olds can't be much trouble. 'On second thought,' she says, 'take the gun.'

In early January 1991, Kindergarten Cop climbed to second at the US box office behind which film?

Home Alone held number one for twelve straight weekends, from November to early February, so Kindergarten Cop never reached the top.

In Kindergarten Cop, how does principal Miss Schlowski react when Kimble punches a pupil's abusive father?

She approves: having told him he is a very good teacher, she asks for one more honest answer, what it felt like to hit the man. 'It felt great,' says Kimble.

Which critic said Kindergarten Cop's parts 'shouldn't fit, but somehow they do'?

Roger Ebert gave it three stars. There was no way Schwarzenegger could plausibly teach a class, he wrote, but that didn't stop him finding 'warm-hearted possibilities in the role'.

On April Fools' Day 2012, Kindergarten Cop was jokingly announced by which prestige video label?

The Criterion Collection went all in, with a full product page and joke extras such as 'From Fingers to Finger-Painting', an interview with the film's cinematographer.

In Kindergarten Cop's opening, where does Kimble finally arrest the villain, Cullen Crisp?

A beauty salon: Crisp complains that he was only trying to get a manicure, and when Kimble is ordered to drop his gun he has to shout that he is the cop.

Which action star headlined the 2016 direct-to-video sequel, Kindergarten Cop 2?

Dolph Lundgren took over 26 years after the original, with none of its cast. Schwarzenegger's own wish for a sequel turned into something quite different: an animated series.

In Kindergarten Cop, which animal does Kimble bring to class as a mascot?

A ferret, which Kimble swears never bites when a pupil warns the class about rabies. It makes one exception in the finale, sinking its teeth into the villain so that Dominic can get away.

In Kindergarten Cop, Kimble's partner O'Hara stays in town posing as what?

His Austrian sister, 'Ursula', is a cover she invents on the spot, accent and all, when she spots a romance starting between Kimble and Joyce over dinner.

In Kindergarten Cop, what is the true identity of Joyce, the teacher Kimble grows close to?

The drug dealer's runaway wife has been living under a new name with their son, and is said to have taken $3 million of his money with her. Kimble works out who she is for himself.

In Kindergarten Cop, Kimble restores order with a game called 'police school', in which the children become what?

Deputy trainees is his name for them, after O'Hara tells him to treat the classroom like any other police situation. They learn to freeze at his whistle and march in step, and the principal is impressed.

In Kindergarten Cop, why does the murder case against Cullen Crisp collapse?

The key witness dies of a drug overdose before she can testify, so Crisp walks out of jail a free man and heads straight for Oregon and the son he wants back.

In Kindergarten Cop's finale, how does Crisp create a diversion at the school?

He starts a fire and grabs Dominic in the confusion. As the school empties, two pupils caught kissing tell Kimble they thought it was just another drill.

In Kindergarten Cop, how does O'Hara finally stop Eleanor Crisp?

Knocks her out with a baseball bat: Eleanor had run O'Hara down minutes earlier and was holding the wounded Kimble at gunpoint. 'You're not so tough without your car, are you?' says O'Hara.

In Kindergarten Cop, what does Kimble do once the case is closed?

He stays on as a teacher: O'Hara flies back without him, while Kimble accepts the principal's offer of a permanent job, walks back into his classroom and kisses Joyce in front of the cheering children.

In Kindergarten Cop, which ailment does a pupil say might be a tumor?

Headache is Kimble's complaint. Lowell, who has already told the principal that 'everyone dies, you know', offers his diagnosis, and Kimble roars back that it is nothing of the kind.

In Kindergarten Cop, what does Kimble say after blasting a thug's sofa with a shotgun?

"I'm the party pooper." He says it before he ever sees a classroom, having just cleared a drug den to lean on his reluctant murder witness, when a thug on the sofa asks who he is.

In Kindergarten Cop, which line ends Kimble's rant at his class about complaining?

"There is no bathroom!" is his answer to a class that has spent days asking to go. It closes the speech in which he tells them their mommies are no longer around to help.

Who plays Kimble's partner, Detective Phoebe O'Hara, in Kindergarten Cop?

Pamela Reed's O'Hara is the former teacher who was meant to take the class herself. A bout of stomach flu on the trip north puts the job in Kimble's hands instead.

Which actress plays Joyce, the teacher Kimble falls for, in Kindergarten Cop?

Penelope Ann Miller had doubts at first. Fresh from acting opposite Robert De Niro in Awakenings, she has said she wondered what a film with the star of 'the barbarian movies' would do for her career.

Which Oscar-winning actress plays school principal Miss Schlowski in Kindergarten Cop?

Linda Hunt won her Oscar for playing a man, the photographer Billy Kwan, in The Year of Living Dangerously. Her principal greets the huge new teacher with a warning: 'I'll be watching you.'

In Kindergarten Cop, the part of young Dominic is played by whom?

Identical twin brothers Joseph and Christian Cousins shared the part. The director called it luck: it was hard enough to find one child who could handle the lines, 'and in comes this kid, actually two kids'.

In Kindergarten Cop, who is the villain Cullen Crisp's ruthless partner in crime?

His mother, Eleanor, collects him from jail, travels with him to Oregon and comes after Kimble with a gun. She is played by Carroll Baker, a 1950s star once Oscar-nominated for the title role in Baby Doll.

One of Kimble's pupils in Kindergarten Cop is played by the child actor who was Gage Creed in which 1989 horror film?

Pet Sematary's murderous toddler was Miko Hughes, who is on better behaviour here as Joseph, the pupil with the frank anatomy lesson, and who later turned up in Apollo 13.

Kindergarten Cop's Ross Malinger later played Tom Hanks's son in which film?

Sleepless in Seattle made him famous three years later as Jonah, the eight-year-old at the heart of the story. He later quit acting altogether and reportedly went into the car trade.

Odette Annable, later of Cloverfield and House, made her screen debut in Kindergarten Cop as Rosa, who answers Kimble in which language?

Spanish is how Rosa answers when Kimble asks what her father does: he works at home and plays with her a lot, she says, and all Kimble can reply is 'Thank you. Very good.'

Kindergarten Cop writers Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris also wrote which Eddie Murphy comedy?

Trading Places ends with a commodities swindle on a leaked government report. Such trading was legal at the time, and the 2010 law that banned it became known as the Eddie Murphy rule.

In the 2016 sequel Kindergarten Cop 2, what is the undercover agent looking for at the school?

A stolen flash drive holds a copy of the witness protection database, and it has ended up among a kindergarten class because the teacher who hid it has died.

Schwarzenegger said his wish for a Kindergarten Cop sequel became Superhero Kindergarten, an animated series created with which comics legend?

Stan Lee asked him what his biggest wish was. Told it was a sequel to Kindergarten Cop, Lee proposed the title on the spot and wrote him a part as a retired superhero who becomes a teacher.

In Kindergarten Cop, Kimble is a narcotics detective with which city's police department?

Los Angeles is where the film opens, with Kimble losing his man in a crowded shopping mall and then storming a drug den to make a witness talk: methods that will be no use at all in a kindergarten.

In Kindergarten Cop, what does Kimble reveal about his own family to Joyce and Dominic?

He has a teenage son, Alex, whom he has hardly seen in seven years because his remarried ex-wife keeps him away. Admitting it is what finally persuades Joyce to trust him.

Which famously short star was considered for tough cop John Kimble before Arnold Schwarzenegger took the role?

Danny DeVito's name came up too. Accounts differ on why it went no further: one says the director thought him too short to convince as a tough cop, another that he simply said no.

In Kindergarten Cop, what has the pupil Kimble lifts off the floor been taking from his classmates?

Their lunches: 'You mean you eat other people's lunches?' Kimble asks, hoisting the boy to eye level, and he settles the matter with two words: 'Stop it!'

In Kindergarten Cop, Joyce warns the new teacher that kindergarten is like what, something you should never turn your back on?

The ocean is her comparison, offered on Kimble's first day as she comes to the rescue of one of his pupils. He assures her that everything is under control, which it plainly is not.

In Kindergarten Cop, little Emma refuses an order from Kimble by declaring that she is what?

A princess, she tells him twice ('I'm not a policeman, I'm a princess!') before giving in. The director named her actress, five-year-old Sarah Rose Karr, as his favourite: 'She marched to her own drummer.'

In Kindergarten Cop, how does Kimble silence the boy pestering him on the flight to Oregon?

He snaps a pencil in two and says that is what he will do to the boy if the fooling around doesn't stop: a first taste of how unsuited he is to working with children.