10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About 'Best in Show'

9. The Mayflower Dog Show at the center of the movie is supposed to take place in Philadelphia, but one aerial shot of the event is clearly of Pittsburgh’s Mellon Arena.

There’s also an inordinate amount of cop cars with flashing lights surrounding the arena in the shot – it’s not because dogs are a potential flight risk, it’s because the footage was borrowed from the Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick “Sudden Death.” Yes, the one where he fights a terrorist dressed as the Pittsburgh Penguins’ mascot.

8. Bob Balaban, who plays the head of the Mayflower Kennel Club, was the only actor to request a specific dog for his character. When Balaban’s Dr. Theodore Millbank III is introduced, the white Dandie Dinmont Terrier seated on his lap was exactly the type of dog Balaban wanted as a kid but was never allowed to have.

7.  Jane Lynch (who plays lesbian dog handler Christy Cummings) and Jim Piddock (who plays dog show commentator Trevor Beckwith) were the only two actors required to do homework about dog breeds.

Because they were both playing “experts,” they had to sound like they really knew a lot about dogs and did a tremendous amount of studying (so much so, that several people who saw early screenings of the film thought Piddock was an actual dog expert hired for the movie). The only actor expressly forbidden from learning anything at all about dogs? Fred Willard, who played clueless color commentator Buck Laughlin. 

6. Speaking of Fred, his Buck Laughlin was actually modeled after baseball legend Joe Garagiola, who was often – inexplicably – hired to co-host several Westminster Kennel Club dog show broadcasts and offered very little in the way of insight or expertise.

5. You can’t accuse Parker Posey of half-assing it. She and Michael Hitchcock play Meg and Hamilton Swan, a pair of uptight, braces-wearing yuppies who were actually the first characters conceived of for the movie (Guest had the idea for them several years earlier, when he scribbled “catalogue people” on a piece of paper). While Hitchcock wears fake, removable braces, Posey actually went to an orthodontist and got real ones put on, which she wore for the duration of the shoot.

4. While researching his role, John Michael Higgins (as the more flamboyant half of a gay couple alongside Michael McKean) went to see a few actual dog shows. While attending one, a handler – in a pinch, and mistaking him for a fellow dog-presenter – asked him to go out and present one of her dogs. He did, and won.

3. All of the Flecks’ Terrier tribute songs were written by Levy. He claims he wrote the lyrics for “God Loves a Terrier” in “about 18 seconds, on the back of a napkin" while on a plane ride. 

2. Due to budget constraints, Guest was unable to close down either the airport the Swans are seen leaving from (when their dog, Beatrice, snaps at the guy who tries to pet her) or the hotel where all the contestants stay – so all the filming had to be done on the fly. Ed Begley Jr., who plays the hotel manager, had to pretend to check characters in while actual hotel guests were checking in around them.