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Writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel based their script for EDtv
loosely on the 1994 French film Louis 19, le Roi des Ondes and
originally wanted to set the movie in Paramus, N.J.. Director Ron Howard
also initially saw the movie as being "a New York picture." According to
Howard, "Then we thought [of] Los Angeles. Both cities, we felt, were a
little too large to be sort of captivated by an event like [the TV series]
EDtv." The filmmakers finally chose San Francisco, because, as
Howard explained, the location "needed to be a big city, a media center, a
center of popular culture...San Francisco seemed to be a great place. It's
also wonderful to shoot there, looks great and very diverse. And those
hills! You can be funnier in San Francisco than other places because of
the hills."
Location photography took place in San Francisco, although the bulk of
EDtv's 14-week shooting schedule took place on sets in Los
Angeles.
Other notes from the production:
EDtv employed over 1,400 extras during the San Francisco
portions of the shoot.
The Zamboni scene was shot during two period intermissions at an actual
NHL hockey match between the Sharks and the Mighty Ducks. Matthew
McConaughey called his moments atop the Zamboni before the crowd of 17,483
fans "pretty surreal."
Business at North Beach Video, which served as the location for scenes
of Ed at work, increased about 20 percent in the weeks following the
film's release.
A careful viewing of EDtv reveals that in a few scenes members
of the Delta Tau Chi fraternity are shown watching Ed's show; the
fraternity is the fictional fraternity from Animal
House.
The Oval Office set used in EDtv was originally built for the
motion picture Dave.
The New York Post reported that Ron Howard blamed Universal's
marketing department for EDtv's disappointing showing at the box
office. The film came out around the same time as the much more successful
The Truman Show. While the two films are very different from each
other, Howard felt that Universal didn't do enough to erase the perception
that his film was simply another version of the Jim Carrey
flick.
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