Quotes and Trivia

Napoleon Dynamite

Kip: "Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both I'm training to become a cage fighter."

Deb: "What are you drawing?"

Napoleon: "A liger."

Deb: "What's a liger?"

Napoleon : "It's pretty much a my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed, bred for it's skills in magic."

Pedro: "I don't understand. He said you're not allowed to smash piñatas that look like real people. But we do it in Mexico all the time."

Randy: "Napoleon! Gimmie some of your tots!"

Napoleon: "No! Go find your own!"

Randy: "Come on, gimmie some of you tots!"

Napoleon: "No! I'm fricken' starved! I didn't get to eat anything today!"

Napoleon Dynamite

		For Napoleon's dance routine, director Jared Hess had Jon Heder (Napoleon) improvise and dance to three different songs. The director then took the "best" moves from each song and put them in one routine, using one song.
		It was the last scene scheduled and they ran out of film while shooting it. The sequence was edited together from less than 10 minutes of him dancing.
		Jon Heder credits Tina Marorino (Deb) with helping to choreograph it. He also states that some of the dance moves were "borrowed" from Michael Jackson, Backstreet Boys, John Travolta, "Soul Train" (1971), as well as some of his own moves.

Napoleon Dynamite

Having the food plates spell out names in the opening credits was Aaron Ruell (Kip's) idea. The rest of the sequence was designed and executed by Pablo Ferro. Every dish shown was eaten by a character later in the movie. They were the work of three people who present them. Jon Gries (Uncle Rico) was asked to do many scenes in which he was eating steak. He is a vegetarian, so, he would chew the steak and later spit it out. In fact, there is one scene, where you can see him spitting the chewed meat into his hand. The scene of the farmer shooting the cow in front of the school bus full of children is a true anecdote from the director Jared Hess' childhood. The scene where Uncle Rico hits Napoleon in the face took four, very painful, takes. The entire movie was shot in only 22 days.

Napoleon Dynamite

Jon Heder helped to make the boondoggle key chains between scenes.
The movie features one of the longest credited cast lists in movie history. All 181 student extras' names are listed in the closing credits.
Aaron Ruell, who plays Kip, had braces put on his teeth for this role. Two dentists are thanked in the credits.
Two houses were used for the filming of Napoleon's house. One for outside shots, and one for indoor shots.
The movie was edited in producer Jeremy Coon's apartment using a $6,00 Macintosh with Final Cut Pro.
Jon Heder was paid only $1,000 to play Napoleon Dynamite. The movie grossed over $40,000,000 in the United States.
Jon Heder actually drew all of the "drawings" in the movie except the unicorn, his favorite was the liger. It is a real animal, created when a male lion mates with a female tiger.