Coming to America - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[jeffrey]

F. Gary Gray: in the front row of the Black Awareness Program, seated in front of Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, and Clint Smith.

[javier]

The barbers call Akeem "Kunta Kinte." John Amos played the adult Kunta Kinte in Roots (1977). Madge Sinclair played Kunta Kinte's wife, and James Earl Jones played Alex Haley, Jr. in Roots: The Next Generations (1979).

[cassandra]

The Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station in Brooklyn which was used for the scenes at Sutphin Boulevard was also where Michael Jackson: Bad (1987) video was filmed in November 1986.

[kyle]

(At around fifty-three minutes) Associate producer and first assistant director David Sosna appeared as "Cartier Delivery Man".

[linda]

At 35 minutes into the film, Eddie Murphy has dialogue with several women he's interviewing to be his queen. One of them says "Some guys go an hour, even an hour and a half, that's it. A man's got to put in overtime for me to get off." This would later be used as the intro for Tech Nines song "overtime"

[tom]

The McDowell's restaurant was actually a Wendy's on Queens Boulevard that was scheduled to be closed for renovation. The production had approval from McDonald's corporate headquarters, which apparently didn't pass the word down to their local outlets. On the day the McDowell's sign went up, the manager of the McDonald's one half mile up the road arrived with his lawyer and took photographs, telling the set dressing crew they were going to be sued for everything they were worth. The restaurant remained in business until early 2013. The building has since been demolished.

[stephanie]

Following the film's success, CBS produced a pilot for a weekly sitcom spinoff. The pilot starred Tommy Davidson as Prince Tariq, and Paul Bates as Oha. The pilot went unsold, but was televised on July 4, 1989, as an episode of CBS Summer Playhouse (1987).

[carl]

(At around one hour and eleven minutes) Maurice (Louie Anderson) has a little monologue at McDowell's that would later be referenced in the 2005 song "Gold Digger" from Kanye West where the lyrics say, "He got that ambition, baby, look in his eyes. This week he mopping floors, next week it's the fries."

[ken]

The IND Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station in Brooklyn was used for the scenes at Sutphin Boulevard.

[liam]

Cuba Gooding, Jr., an Oscar winner, and Vondie Curtis-Hall, an Emmy and SAG Award nominee, made their first on-screen appearances in this film.

[dustin]

(At around eight minutes) When Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy) goes to sit with the King and Queen at the breakfast table, the King is surprised to find that Akeem has grown a mustache. In Beverly Hills Cop (1984), when Axel (also played by Murphy) visits Jenny Summers at the art gallery where she works, she is just as surprised to find out that he has grown a mustache.

[ethel]

Lisa's pink wedding gown was not a deliberate aesthetic choice. Since the wedding attendants were primarily people of color in dark hues, producers were concerned a pure white dress would skew the picture. Ivory and yellow were scrapped because they were unflattering on Shari Headley, blue was deemed 'too somber,' and the costume department did not feel Lisa would wear red to her wedding.

[jeffrey]

LOGO GIMMICK: After the stars circle around the Paramount mountain and "Paramount" and "A Gulf+Western Company" appear, the sky becomes sunnier (pink to yellow) and the camera zooms in over the mountain summit. We then see a valley terrain, and the opening credits begin.