Mars Attacks! is certainly one of director Tim Burton’s most bizarre movies, which is really saying something. Let’s revisit the quirky sci-fi film with these 10 behind-the-scenes facts!
9Howard Stern says the movie ripped him off
When Mars Attacks! was released in 1996, shock jock Howard Stern noticed something familiar about it. Namely, that its climax was very reminiscent to a radio skit he had aired in the ’80s. In the movie, the Martians are dispatched when the music of Slim Whitman is loudly played on speakers, causing their heads to burst. This concerned Stern, who wondered if the idea came from his 1982 sketch called “Slim Whitman vs. The Midget Aliens From Mars,” which had a very similar premise.
Stern later invited Burton onto his radio show as a guest, asking him directly about the similarities. Noting he loves the filmmaker too much to do so, Stern says he’d never sue Burton, but didn’t feel that this was a coincidence. Burton agreed that the similarities were strange, going so far as to joke that Stern should have sued him.
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