Kingdom Hearts/Trivia

The series in general:

 * Fan Nickname: Apparently Luxord's is George Michael for the (unintentional?) resemblance.
 * Flip-Flop of God: Though some of this is also the fault of Word of Dante, there's been conflicting reasons for why Sora and Roxas are able to dual-wield Keyblades. The current official explanation is that
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Ye gods, this. One of the games' most acclaimed features, in fact.
 * Christopher Lee is DiZ.
 * Leonard Nimoy and Mark Hamill are Xehanort and Eraqus in "Birth By Sleep".
 * In Re: Chain of Memories, Kairi and Namine, who are essentially two halves of the same whole, are voiced by Alyson Stoner and Meghan Jette Martin respectively. Those two also played archenemies in a rather popular movie. Make of that what you will.
 * Sora sees dead people.
 * Kairi had to be saved for the sake of the world in another series.
 * Vicious gathers up his old associates Jiraiya/Edward Porter Alexander, Master Asia/Trent Kort, Alexander Anderson/Uryu Ishida, Gendo Ikari/Weiss and Xellos/Tuxedo Mask and recruits Jin, Raiden, George Ushiromiya/Matt McGinnis, Alucard/Travis Touchdown, Char Aznable/Blooregard Q. Kazoo, Asuka Langley Soryu/Milliarde, Neku Sakuraba/Dick Grayson and Isabella for the purpose of regaining humanity.
 * Vivi here is Pikachu
 * Sora and the Phantom Thief Terra
 * Xemnas and Luxord are Father Anderson and Alucard
 * Vexen was Father Anderson in the first Hellsing anime.
 * Xemnas wishes he was a bird.
 * Bobobo was at one time Ansem's treacherous apprentice.
 * He was also a Yandere boyfriend to an upper class woman.
 * This isn't the first time Saix has gone berserk.
 * Depending on whether you play the Japanese or English version, either Xemnas or Saix ran a bar.
 * No Export for You: Kingdom Hearts owns this trope (unfortunately). Neither Americans nor Europeans got their hands on Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix or Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix+, making everyone mad and further mucking up the narrative.
 * It looked like the latest installment to the series, coded will go the same way until it was announced in E3 2010 that the game will be remade for the DS and released to Western audiences.
 * Which was quickly countered by Birth By Sleep: Final Mix, with Nomura being evasive when asked of a release outside of Japan.
 * The Other Darrin: Quite a few. A bad example being Mandy Moore replaced by the absolutely wooden Mena Suvari. A good example would be Lance Bass being replaced by George Newbern (who made it clear that the line is "Descend, Heartless Angel", not "Sin Harvest" as Bass' rushed delivery had many believing.)
 * Corey Burton is The Other Darrin to a few of characters, most notably DiZ. He played MCP and Sark in II, although the original actor did want to come back but had schedule conflicts.
 * Geoffrey Rush, Captain Barbossa's actor in the movies, wasn't able to initially reprise his role in the second game. He did reprise the role for the Australian dub.
 * Providing a good example for why this trope is used, Kathryn Beaumont is the one voice actor from Walt's era who reprises her roles (Alice and Wendy). About fifty years later, they naturally don't sound at all convincing.
 * Schedule Slip: Yoko Shimomura apparently has habitual problems producing her music on time. This got a whole lot worse during production for the handheld trilogy (coded, 358/2 Days, and Birth by Sleep), during which she was also composing for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, leading to Tsuyoshi Sekito and Takeharu Ishimoto composing a good deal of Birth By Sleep's music.
 * What Could Have Been:
 * The final battle with Xemnas in KH2 was supposed be quite different, with Xemnas melding into a giant Transformer-esque creature after absorbing power from Kingdom Hearts and, upon defeat, transform into this distorted version. This idea was nixed and replaced with the dragon-fortress/armored Xemnas and black-and-white coat Xemnas battles.
 * Variants of Behemoths and Wyverns (from the first game) were included in the 1000 Heartless Battle in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * In KH2, Sora was intended to have a double-bladed Keyblade. How this would affect gameplay is unclear.
 * The Pridelands were originally going to be featured in the first game, but the engine couldn't handle the quadrupedal movement, so Simba was included as a summon instead. After changing the game engine, the world managed to make it into Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Deep Jungle was set to return in Chain of Memories, but was cut due to copyright complications. Tarzan has not appeared in any KH game since.
 * 358/2 Days had a Pinnochio world which was Dummied Out. It would have included Gepetto, Foulfellow and Gideon, and Human!Pinocchio, and would have a What Measure Is a Non-Human?-centered plot and a focus on circus scenes. It was cut due to space limitations.
 * A Jungle Book world was Dummied Out of Birth By Sleep, with Louie's Throne Room remaining as part of the game code.
 * The outside walls of Hollow Bastion were originally going to be playable in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * An odd example is a scene from the Beta trailer of the first game, which has Riku at the top of Big Ben. What's odd is that, despite never appearing in the finished game, it is still referenced in later games as canon.
 * Both Hades and Megara were set to appear in 358/2 Days.
 * Pleakley was meant to appear in the Lilo and Stitch world in Birth By Sleep.
 * Laguna Loire was going to be the head of the Mirage Arena, but was cut because he was already appearing in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
 * |Buzz and Woody were designed as a Final Mix summon for Kingdom Hearts II, but were Dummied Out.
 * Both Leon's and Cloud's pasts were going to be touched upon in Birth By Sleep, but as the world already had several members of Organization XIII appearing, it was decided that the world would have been too overloaded with characters.
 * Marluxia was originally envisioned as a woman, but was changed to a man because of the Unfortunate Implications of having two women attempt to overthrow a mostly male organization and falling flat.
 * Luxord's Lethal Joke Weapon was originally going to be the more character-appropriate dollar bills.
 * Axel was supposed to be killed by Roxas at the end of the prologue in Kingdom Hearts II, but was such a fan-favorite that he was brought back for the rest of the game and given a.
 * The members of Organization XIII who died in Chain of Memories (Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, Larxene, and Marluxia) were going to be bosses in the Olympus Coliseum in KH2, but were cut. The Data-Battles of Final Mix are a remnant of this.

Trivia tropes:

 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Leon is voiced by Angel! And Yuffie is Kim Possible! And Hercules is Sam Gamgee!
 * No Export for You: Final Mix, particularly bad because it actually added some pretty vital plot information that set up the sequel.
 * Talking to Himself: In the Japanese version, Donald Duck and Genie are voiced by the same seiyuu.
 * What Could Have Been:
 * Goofy and Donald were originally supposed to battle in their classic costumes, according to trailers, but these were replaced with Nomura's designs.
 * The game was originally supposed to be Mickey-themed, but there was a disagreement on whether Mickey or Donald should be the protagonist.
 * Further in development, Sora was half lion and had more of a chain-saw blade then a keyblade.
 * Have a picture.
 * Chernabog was to have been the original Big Bad, the embodiment of all darkness, taking inspiration from American Gods with the final battle being a gradual climb up the slopes of Bald Mountain to fight him. He was turned into a surprise boss from console limitations and Executive Meddling.
 * There was planned to be one more Ansem!Riku battle at the End of the World. It was very nearly completed but Dummied Out in the final release.
 * The original scenario involved Sora saving the Princesses of Heart with the assistance of their respective princes.
 * Kairi's role in Hollow Bastion in the first game was going to be larger, possibly being playable but not-combat oriented. This was changed to briefly controlling Sora as a Shadow Heartless.
 * Rikku was originally supposed to have been with Leon, but the production team decided it'd be too confusing with Riku and Rikku, so she was replaced with Yuffie, who also got the outfit Rikku would have worn.
 * Vincent Valentine was planned to feature in the first game, but was replaced by Cloud, a more recognizable and iconic character.
 * A younger version of Irvine Kinneas was also supposed to be in Destiny Islands, but was replaced with Wakka (also more recognizable, although perhaps because of Kingdom Hearts).

Miscellaneous trivia:

 * "Destati" is apparently considered cursed by the production team due to odd incidents--the worst being the entire building losing power--occurring whenever the vocal track was inserted into a piece of background music.