100 Fun Facts About Labyrinth

Who directed Labyrinth?

Jim Henson. The Muppets' creator watched it take barely half its budget in American cinemas, and it proved to be the last feature film he directed.

Which member of Monty Python wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth?

Terry Jones. He received the only screenplay credit, yet he clashed with the director over the story and later said the finished film never felt much like his own.

Who plays Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth?

David Bowie. He took the part because the script made him laugh and he liked the idea of setting it to music, and he ended up writing five songs for the film.

In Labyrinth, which complaint of Sarah's makes Jareth wonder 'what your basis for comparison is'?

It's not fair. The labyrinth agrees with her: when she says it at a dead end, the door guards laugh and reply, 'That's right, it's not fair, but that's only half of it.'

In Labyrinth, Hoggle explains that an oubliette is a place where people are put to be what?

Forgotten. The word is a real one: a dungeon whose only opening is in the ceiling, named from the French verb oublier, to forget.

In Labyrinth, how long does Jareth give Sarah to solve the labyrinth?

13 hours. She does not even get all of them: when she boasts that the labyrinth is 'a piece of cake', he turns the clock forward and takes some away.

In Labyrinth, what is the name of Sarah's treasured teddy bear, given to Toby?

Lancelot. She starts the film furious that the bear has been given to her baby brother, and ends it by handing it to him herself.

In Labyrinth, what kind of creature does Jareth call Hoggle?

A dwarf. 'The dwarf' is about the politest thing Jareth calls him: he keeps getting the name wrong, trying Hedgewart, Higgle and Hogbrain.

In Labyrinth, what does Jareth order Hoggle to give Sarah?

An enchanted peach. One bite and she forgets everything, drifting into a dream of a masked ball while her time runs out.

In Labyrinth, what is the name of the flatulent swamp that Sarah has to cross?

The Bog of Eternal Stench. Set one foot in it, Hoggle warns Sarah, and you will smell bad for the rest of your life, because the stink never washes off.

In Labyrinth, Sir Didymus is what kind of animal?

A fox terrier. The tiny knight fears nothing and rides into battle on a sheepdog who is as cowardly as he is brave, and who keeps turning tail.

In Labyrinth, what is Ludo's special ability?

Summoning rocks. When he howls, boulders roll to his call: they become stepping stones for Sarah when a bridge gives way, and later scatter the goblin army.

Which artist's work inspired the staircase set in Labyrinth's climax?

M. C. Escher. Sarah chases Toby across stairs that run sideways and upside down and has to jump off them to reach him, and the end credits thank the artist's estate.

In Labyrinth, what is the final line Sarah must remember to defeat Jareth?

You have no power over me. It ends a speech from her book that she can never finish, and it comes back just as Jareth offers to be her slave if she will only fear him, love him and obey.

In Labyrinth, into which animal does Jareth transform?

A barn owl. One is already watching Sarah rehearse in the park before she ever makes her wish, and at the end it watches her party through the window, then flies off.

Who designed Labyrinth's creatures?

Brian Froud. The screenwriter built whole scenes around his goblin sketches, and the artist supplied one more cast member: his baby son, Toby, plays the stolen child.

In Labyrinth, which small creature invites Sarah to 'come inside and meet the missus'?

A worm. It shows Sarah a hidden opening in the wall, then kindly warns her off the turning that leads straight to the castle, never guessing that is where she wants to go.

Which earlier film did Labyrinth's director and creature designer make together?

The Dark Crystal. It had no human characters at all and came out heavier than its makers meant, so their next fantasy got two human leads and far more comedy.

In Labyrinth, which creatures is Hoggle spraying like garden pests when Sarah first meets him?

Fairies. Sarah feels sorry for one and it promptly bites her: she had assumed they did nice things, like granting wishes.

In Labyrinth, Sarah falls down a shaft whose walls are made of what?

Hands. They catch her, arrange themselves into talking faces and ask whether she wants to go up or down; she picks down, and they drop her into a dungeon.

In Labyrinth, one door leads to the castle, the other to what?

Certain death. One guard always lies and one always tells the truth, so Sarah asks one what the other would say, picks her door with confidence, and falls straight down a hole.

In Labyrinth, what does Sarah trade to Hoggle for his help through the maze?

A plastic bracelet. Hoggle hoards jewellery, so the cheap trinket buys his help, until Jareth spots 'that plastic thing' on his wrist and works out whose side he is on.

In Labyrinth, what do the wild, dancing Fireys try to take off Sarah?

Her head. The Fireys pull off their own heads and limbs for fun and want hers to come off too; when she throws their heads away, they protest that it is against the rules.

In Labyrinth, which talking animal does the old Wiseman wear as a hat?

A bird. It heckles every piece of wisdom the old man offers, asks Sarah for a contribution once he nods off, and calls her and Hoggle 'suckers' as they walk away.

Which Star Wars performers appear among Labyrinth's Goblin Corps?

Kenny Baker and Warwick Davis, the men inside R2-D2 and Wicket the Ewok. Davis later founded an agency for short actors with another of the Goblin Corps, Peter Burroughs, who had become his father-in-law.

In Labyrinth, where was the juggler standing while he spun Jareth's crystal balls?

Behind the actor. Juggler Michael Moschen reached round to roll Jareth's crystals for him, working entirely by feel because he could not see them.

In Greek myth, on which island did King Minos keep the Minotaur in its Labyrinth?

Crete. When Arthur Evans dug up the sprawling palace of Knossos there from 1900, he called the lost civilisation he found 'Minoan', after the king in the story.

Which Labyrinth song do the Fireys sing as they dance around Sarah?

Chilly Down. The Fireys' voice actors sing it in place of the film's star, whose own demo went unheard for thirty years until one of those actors, Danny John-Jules, released it in 2016.

Which Last of the Mohicans composer wrote Labyrinth's score?

Trevor Jones. He had resolved to write music for films as a small boy, and here he scored everything around the star's five songs.

Which children's author does Labyrinth thank in its end credits for its debt to his books?

Maurice Sendak. In his Outside Over There, goblins steal a baby while the sister minding her is not paying attention, and a copy sits in Sarah's bedroom beside Where the Wild Things Are.

Labyrinth's 'You remind me of the babe' routine comes from a 1947 comedy starring whom?

Cary Grant and Shirley Temple. In The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer the pair chant 'You remind me of a man.' 'What man?' 'The man with the power', and Jareth's version just swaps in a babe and voodoo.

Most of Labyrinth was shot at which studios near London?

Elstree. The whole of its Stage 6 was turned into Goblin City, a town of crooked cobbled streets built so that an army of puppets could lose a battle in it.

Which royals attended Labyrinth's London Film Festival premiere in December 1986?

Charles and Diana. The Prince and Princess of Wales were met by a guest nobody had to brief on etiquette: a life-size Ludo, the film's shaggy giant.

Which publisher released the manga-style comic sequel Return to Labyrinth?

Tokyopop. Its sequel picks the story up with Toby grown into a teenager, and was planned as three volumes before the publisher stretched it to four.

Labyrinth's Jennifer Connelly later won an Oscar for playing whom?

Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind. The real Alicia divorced John Nash in 1963, took him back in as a boarder, and remarried him in 2001, the year the film came out.

Labyrinth's concept designer said Jareth was partly inspired by which brooding literary figures?

Heathcliff and Rochester. The Goblin King was designed as Sarah's own daydream, so his costume mixes the Brontës' dangerous romantics with a biker's leather jacket and a ballet dancer's tights.

In Greek myth, who built the original Labyrinth for King Minos?

Daedalus. When he later fell out with the king, he built wings held together with wax so that he and his son Icarus could fly away, and the boy flew too near the sun.

What did the Minotaur have the head of?

A bull. In the usual telling the monster's mother was the king's own queen, made to fall in love with a bull that her husband had vowed to sacrifice to Poseidon and then kept.

Who gave Theseus the thread that let him escape the Labyrinth?

Ariadne. She betrayed her own father, King Minos, to save him, and in the best-known version he repaid her by sailing away while she slept on the island of Naxos.

In Greek myth, which city had to send seven youths and seven maidens to feed the Minotaur?

Athens. The tribute was the price of the death of King Minos's son there, and it ended when the Athenian prince Theseus sailed as one of the fourteen and killed the monster.

In specialist usage, how does a labyrinth differ from a maze?

It has a single path. A maze is a puzzle of branches and dead ends, while a true labyrinth winds one route to the centre, so the Minotaur's lair, which took a thread to escape, was strictly a maze.

Which French cathedral has a famous walkable labyrinth in the floor of its nave?

Chartres. Laid in the early 1200s, it spends most of the week hidden under chairs, which are cleared on Fridays from Lent to All Saints' Day so that pilgrims can walk it.

Which royal palace beside the Thames has Britain's oldest surviving hedge maze?

Hampton Court. William III had the maze planted, and in the novel Three Men in a Boat the boastful Harris calls it too simple to bother with, then gets a whole crowd lost inside it.

Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth is set in the years after which country's civil war?

Spain. Franco has won, and while young Ofelia follows a faun into an overgrown labyrinth, her stepfather, an army captain, hunts the last rebels hiding in the hills.

Which famous film-maker was Labyrinth's executive producer and helped shape its final cut?

George Lucas. He came in after the director's first cut and tightened it toward action, and the director then loosened it again with slower, more lyrical pauses, the two trading passes.

In Labyrinth, what is the name of Sarah's sheepdog, seen with her in the park at the start?

Merlin. Inside the labyrinth he has a double, Sir Didymus's cowardly steed Ambrosius, and the two names belong together: in some tellings the wizard of legend is Merlin Ambrosius.

At the end of Labyrinth, where does Sarah see Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus again?

In her mirror. Safely home, Sarah admits that she still needs her friends now and then, and at once the whole cast of the labyrinth piles into her bedroom for a party.

Which British actress auditioned for Labyrinth's Sarah but was passed over in favour of an American?

Helena Bonham Carter. She read for the part in Britain and made the shortlist, but the makers decided Sarah ought to be American and moved their monthly auditions to the US.

Which Star Trek actress choreographed Labyrinth, credited under her first name, Cheryl?

Gates McFadden. She took the job because she had been promised a part as Sarah's mother as well, but once she reached London the British actors' union refused to let her act.

Which comedy writer polished Labyrinth's script just before filming?

Elaine May. Her uncredited polish made the characters more human, and it pleased the director so much that shooting began with her material in the script.

The original Hoggle puppet from Labyrinth was lost in transit and now sits in a lost-luggage store in which US state?

Alabama is home to the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, where Hoggle turned up in a stray suitcase in 1997. The store was allowed to keep him, and he has been restored twice.

In Labyrinth, what does Sarah do to Hoggle that sends them both plunging through a trapdoor?

Kisses him, and the ground opens at once: the Goblin King had warned Hoggle that a kiss from Sarah would cost him dearly. She only meant to thank him for rescuing her from the Fireys.

In Labyrinth, what does Sarah use to mark her route on the paving stones, only for them to be flipped over?

Lipstick marks seem a clever way to keep track of dead ends, until Sarah finds that the stones she marked have been turned over. In this maze, nothing stays where she left it.

The baby wished away to the goblins in Labyrinth was played by the real-life son of which crew member?

The creature designer and his puppet-maker wife had a son during pre-production, and at the age of one he was cast. He grew up to sculpt puppets for stop-motion films.

Which singer who had just acted in the film Dune was considered to play the Goblin King in Labyrinth?

Sting was on a shortlist with Prince, Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. The director wanted a big, charismatic pop star who could change the film's whole musical style.

An accessory given to Sir Didymus in Labyrinth copied a puppeteer's trick for performing which Star Wars character?

Yoda only came alive once his puppeteer gave him a stick to lean on, the designer recalled, and Sir Didymus got one for the same reason. He is forever bashing and tapping things with it.

Which Sesame Street character's longtime performer puppeteered one of the wild, dancing Fireys in Labyrinth?

Elmo became Kevin Clash's signature character in 1985, the year he was also overseas filming as a Firey and as one of the four door guards. He sang on the Fireys' musical number too.

Jennifer Connelly later starred in the sequel to which hit that outgrossed Labyrinth on its opening weekend?

Top Gun was among seven films that beat the fantasy when it opened in eighth place in June 1986. Thirty-six years on, Connelly played Penny Benjamin in Top Gun: Maverick.

The human body has its own labyrinth, a maze of bony passages that governs balance, inside which organ?

The ear holds the bony labyrinth in the temporal bone of the skull: the cochlea for detecting sound, plus a vestibule and semicircular canals that keep a person upright.

Which relative of Labyrinth's director supplied the voice of Hoggle and worked the puppet's jaw?

His son, a puppeteer in his own right, voiced Hoggle after plans to match an outside voice artist to the performers proved too hard. The director tried re-recording the part later, then kept it.

Which boy of Greek myth, son of the Labyrinth's builder, died during an escape his father had engineered?

Icarus was warned by his father to fly neither too high nor too low, and ignored him. The stretch of water where he fell is still called the Icarian Sea.

What colour is Sarah's ballgown in the masquerade scene of Labyrinth, chosen to set her apart from the other dancers?

Silver lamé and iridescent rainbow paper went into the gown, which the costumers wanted to look like it belonged to an otherworldly princess. Cosmopolitan has named it among film's most iconic dresses.

Dave Goelz, who puppeteered Sir Didymus in Labyrinth, is best known as the longtime performer of which Muppet?

Gonzo's performer worked the knight on set, but the director thought his voice too recognisable from the Muppets, so someone else re-voiced Sir Didymus after filming.

Before Labyrinth, Jennifer Connelly made her screen debut in Once Upon a Time in America for which director?

Sergio Leone cast her at 11, partly because her nose resembled that of Elizabeth McGovern, who played the same character as an adult. She had to imitate a ballerina with no ballet training.

Time magazine's review of Labyrinth called Sarah a modern version of the heroine of which classic film?

The Wizard of Oz gave the critic Richard Corliss his image: a modern Dorothy lured out of drab, real-life Kansas. A copy of the novel sits in Sarah's bedroom at the start.

Which sea is said to be named for Theseus's father, who drowned himself as his son sailed home from the Labyrinth?

The Aegean took the old king's name, in one telling, after Theseus forgot to hoist a white sail to signal that he had survived. Seeing none, his father assumed the worst.

Clippings in Sarah's bedroom in Labyrinth reveal that her absent mother works in which profession?

A stage actress named Linda Williams fills the scrapbook and clippings in Sarah's room. They follow her romance with a co-star, a subplot the film never spells out.

In Labyrinth, the sight of which object reminds Sarah of her quest and ends her dance with the Goblin King?

A clock is all it takes: Sarah runs from the masquerade, escapes the trance and falls into a junkyard outside the Goblin City, where another distraction is waiting.

Which accessory did Labyrinth's designer give Sir Didymus to hint that the little knight had been in the wars?

An eyepatch gives him a rakish quality, the designer said, implying a colourful past for a knight who is probably in retirement. His outfit copies flamboyant German mercenaries, the Landsknechts.

Inside the Hoggle costume in Labyrinth, performer Shari Weiser could only see out through which part of the puppet?

Its mouth was her only window, so Hoggle was given a habit of grunting, moaning and grumbling to himself, which kept the jaw open as often as possible while she walked.

Ron Mueck, who built, performed and voiced Ludo in Labyrinth, later became world famous in which art form?

Sculpture made his name: Mueck's hyper-real human figures play with scale, from a half-size study of his late father to a boy five metres tall that was shown in London's Millennium Dome.

Which musical style did Labyrinth's star choose for the theme song Underground, calling it the most emotional he knew?

Gospel suited a story about a girl's feelings for her family, he explained, so the track builds to a finale with a Baptist church choir. A slower, re-scored version opens the film.

The ballad As the World Falls Down is first heard in Labyrinth as a tune played by what in Sarah's bedroom?

Her music box plays the tune in the opening minutes, and the little doll on top of it wears the same gown that Sarah later appears in at the masquerade.

Labyrinth's director was so impressed by the promo video for Underground that he hired its maker for which TV series?

The Storyteller won an Emmy for its pilot, directed by Steve Barron, who had also made the video for A-ha's Take On Me. He later took Creature Shop animatronics to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Which British humorist spent a week in London brainstorming ideas for the 1986 Labyrinth computer game?

Douglas Adams suggested the opening, in which a plain text adventure bursts into graphics once the player is pulled into the maze. In America the game was a bigger commercial success than the film.

What did the director of Labyrinth insist Sarah wear on the film's poster, only for the painter to overrule him?

Blue jeans kept Sarah a girl of the modern world, the director felt, but artist Ted CoConis painted her in the ballgown anyway, saying nothing else suited the picture.

Which Minoan palace did its excavator Arthur Evans suggest was the real Labyrinth of the Minotaur?

Knossos was so architecturally complex that Evans thought the palace itself had inspired the legend, and he found double-axe symbols carved into its walls. Later archaeologists have been sceptical.

In Pan's Labyrinth, one performer played both the Faun and which grotesque monster with an appetite for children?

The Pale Man only wakes when the heroine, warned to eat nothing in his lair, takes two grapes. The performer had agreed to both roles before learning the script was in a language he did not speak.

Which famous puppeteer briefly performed the Wiseman in Labyrinth while directing Little Shop of Horrors?

Frank Oz only worked the old sage's puppet; the voice is Michael Hordern's. Both of the films he was juggling were shortlisted for the same Hugo Award the following year.

Who auditioned to play Sarah in Labyrinth and decades later married the man who voiced Hoggle?

Mia Sara missed the part but was on screen the same summer as the girlfriend in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, one of the films that beat Labyrinth at the box office. She married Hoggle's voice in 2010.

How was Hoggle's face operated in Labyrinth while a performer inside the costume moved his body?

By radio control, four puppeteers off camera worked the 18 motors in his face, making Hoggle the first fully wireless character the company had made. He could wander the set freely.

Michael Moschen, the juggler who performed Labyrinth's crystal-ball tricks, went to high school with which magician?

Penn Jillette and Moschen were classmates in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and worked up juggling acts together straight after graduating. Moschen later won a MacArthur fellowship.

Sarah's dash home through the streets at the start of Labyrinth was filmed on location in which US state?

New York towns Upper Nyack, Piermont and Haverstraw supplied the streets, while the park where she rehearses her play is an English country estate, West Wycombe Park.

The opening titles of Labyrinth are credited with which milestone in the history of computer animation?

First realistic CGI animal: the creature that swoops through the credits was animated at Digital Productions, and its sculpted reference model was later rescued from a skip when a studio went bust.

Which fantasy film written by Neil Gaiman grew out of talks about making a sequel to Labyrinth?

MirrorMask was commissioned after strong DVD sales made the rights-holders want another film in the same spirit, rather than a direct follow-up. The artist Dave McKean directed it.

Which publisher released a three-issue comic adaptation of Labyrinth in the year the film came out?

Marvel Comics first sold the story as one volume, Marvel Super Special No. 40. Decades later, Archaia picked up the licence for prequels and short stories about the maze's creatures.

In one early version of the Labyrinth story, the heroine was a young girl from which period, not modern America?

Victorian England was one idea; in others the lead was a king whose baby was under a spell, or a princess from a fantasy world. A present-day American teenager was judged more commercial.

In Labyrinth, which of Sarah's belongings breaks the Junk Lady's spell and brings her memory flooding back?

Her book, the copy of The Labyrinth she was reciting from in the park, snaps Sarah awake. She realises the treasures piled around her are all junk and goes back to her quest.

In Labyrinth, what is the name of the cowardly sheepdog that Sir Didymus rides as his steed?

Ambrosius was played by a real Old English Sheepdog in full-body shots and by a puppet in close-ups. His cowardice constantly embarrasses the little knight who rides him.

When the Goblin King first appears in Labyrinth, what does he offer Sarah in exchange for her baby brother?

Her dreams, held inside a crystal, are the bribe, and he makes the same offer again in their final confrontation. Sarah turns him down both times.

Whose baby was booked to gurgle on the Labyrinth song Magic Dance, only to stay silent at the microphone?

A backup vocalist's baby, the child of Diva Gray, would not make a sound in the studio, so the film's star gurgled into the microphone himself.

Which soul star joined Chaka Khan in the large chorus heard on Labyrinth's theme song Underground?

Luther Vandross sang in a chorus that also included Daphne Rubin-Vega, while bluesman Albert Collins supplied a lead guitar that the song's writer called savage and rough.

What was the baby in Labyrinth called in the script before being renamed to match the infant who played him?

Freddie became Toby so that the one-year-old on set would not be confused by a strange name. He has since been described as one of the most famous babies in cinema.

Where on Ludo's body was a tiny camera hidden so the performer inside the Labyrinth costume could see ahead?

In his horn sat a camera feeding a monitor inside the nine-foot suit, beside a second screen showing what the film camera saw. Two performers took turns wearing the 75-pound costume.

Which science-fiction film beat Labyrinth to both the Hugo Award and the BAFTA for special visual effects?

Aliens took both prizes, leaving the goblin fantasy with nominations only. Its effects team included Stan Winston, and the Hugo shortlist that year also featured Little Shop of Horrors.

The word-wheel menus of Labyrinth: The Computer Game led its makers on to which point-and-click classic?

Maniac Mansion grew out of the same team's dislike of typed commands: the film tie-in let players build sentences from two scrolling word lists, a step towards pointing and clicking.

In Pan's Labyrinth, what is the name of the young heroine who is set three tasks by a faun?

Ofelia is taken by the faun for the reincarnation of a lost underworld princess, Moanna. Ivana Baquero was eleven during filming, a little older than the character as first written.

Which toy company released the tilting wooden marble game Labyrinth in the 1940s?

BRIO launched the game in Sweden in 1946: the player tilts the playfield to steer a steel marble past a trail of holes. It reached American shops around 1950 and has been widely imitated since.

Which games maker published the sliding-maze board game Labyrinth in the same year the film came out?

Ravensburger called it Das verrückte Labyrinth, a pun on the German words for 'displace' and 'crazy'. Its designer, Max Kobbert, was a psychologist.

A year before Labyrinth, Jennifer Connelly took her first leading role in Phenomena for which Italian horror director?

Dario Argento cast her as a schoolgirl who communicates with insects to track down a killer. During the shoot a chimpanzee attacked her and bit her finger.