Trivia - Bye Bye Birdie

Opened 4/14/60 at the Martin Beck Theatre. 607 performances. 

• Dick Van Dyke and Paul Lynde, both veterans of the 1960 Broadway hit, were displeased with the film version. Van Dyke especially felt it had become too much of a vehicle for Ann-Margret.
• The title tune which opens and closes the film was written for the screen version, and was not from the Tony-winning Broadway musical.
• Ann-Margret's skirt-flipping/hair-tossing rendition of the song was filmed six months after principal photography was completed, at a cost of $60,000.
• The sheet music of Birdie's next hit song, "Mumbo Jumbo Gooey Gumbo", which Albert picks up from the piano in his first scene, is the same music as the title tune, "Bye Bye Birdie."
• The song that made Van Dyke's career, "Put on a Happy Face" was unsuccessful in early showings of the musical and almost cut from the production.
• Albert's music company is called "ALMAELOU." This is an amalgam of his name, his mother's name, and his late father's name.
• Hanna-Barbera cartoon merchandise is prominently displayed throughout the film: 1) - In "The Telephone Hour" musical number, the character "Alice" has a Yogi Bear record prominently displayed among her records. 2) - In Kim's bedroom, she has dolls of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble on top of her radio, on a chair is a plush toy of Huckleberry Hound, and on yet another chair is a plush toy of Yogi Bear. 3) - Randolph is wearing Huckleberry Hound pajamas during the "Kids" musical number.
• In the movie "Lou" is Albert's deceased father, in the stage version, "Lou" was Albert's deceased dog. The dog got hit by a beer truck.
• In the movie, Van Dyke's character wants to be a chemist. In the stage play he wants to be a simple English teacher. None of the Russian Ballet shows up in either the stage version or the 1995 movie.
• The sequence of events in the 1963 version and the stage/1995 version are completely different. Songs are added or removed. The characters singing the songs are changed... the 1995 Jason Alexander vehicle is much more true to the original play.
• Paul Lynde got to perform the song about Ed Sullivan on "Toast of the Town" (1948).

Source: Internet Movie DataBase