The Blues Brothers/Trivia

All-Star Cast: Bit parts for the likes of Ray Charles, John Candy, Aretha Franklin, Carrie Fisher, James Brown, Cab Calloway, and Henry Gibson, plus cameos by Steven Spielberg, Frank Oz, Chaka Khan and Twiggy. Paul Reubens also appears, pre-"Pee-Wee Herman" fame, Joe Walsh has a small cameo as a prisoner at the end of the film, and one of the dancers outside Ray's Music Emporium was James Avery, who would later play Uncle Phil in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in his first screen appearance.
Backed By the Vatican: While not so during the production of the movie, in recent years they have admitted to finding it a good, religious movie.
The Character Died with Him: John Belushi as Jake Blues and Cab Calloway as Curtis. Possibly John Candy as Burton Mercer, too, although that one isn't confirmed. Fittingly, the sequel is dedicated to these three actors.
Creator Cameo: Director John Landis as Trooper La Fong.
Creator Killer: The failure of Blues Brothers 2000 effectively ended the directorial career of John Landis.
Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Played with, as the film is quite vague about whether Ray Charles' character is blind.
Dueling Movies: Came out the same day as Can't Stop The Music, the movie starring The Village People. If you don't know which one won that fight, you probably shouldn't be surfing the Internet unsupervised.
Fake American: Canadian-born Dan Aykroyd does a spot-on Chicago accent.
Old Shame: John Landis, who was more or less forced to make the sequel, was so unhappy with it when it was released that he dove right into his next film, Susan's Plan, to "cleanse his palate."
Word of God: The novel, which is based on the original screenplay (which bears only a slight resemblance to the final version), expands on some points, such as what Elwood was doing between Jake getting locked up and the beginning of the film (he worked in a aerosol can factory as a maintenance guy, which is how he got that glue can. In a deleted scene, in fact, he is shown working at the factory on the assembly line, before going to his boss's office to tell him that he's quitting to become a preacher).

The mall chase scene took place at Dixie Square Mall, a shopping mall in the Chicago suburb of Harvey that had already gone out of business in 1979 due to excessively high crime. The filmmakers set up fake storefronts within half of the mall (for instance, the Toys "R" Us seen in the film was actually a Walgreens). After filming finished, the building was left abandoned for thirty years before finally being demolished in 2012.

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