Chucky's full name, Charles Lee Ray, is derived from the names of notorious killers Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray.
The first draft of the script was completed in the summer of 1985 and referenced Chucky as Buddy who came to life after mixing blood with Andy and killed those against Andy(for example, the babysitter and teacher) manifesting Andy's loneliness and isolation from an overworked mother and absent father. In addition to being a more psychologically driven horror film.
The original working title for the film was "batteries not included" before it became known Steven Spielberg was also making a film with the same title. It was then changed to "blood buddy" before setting on Child's Play.
Original writer Don Mancini stated in an interview that his original script toyed with the audience a bit longer, making them wonder if young Andy was the killer rather than Chucky. This idea was used by Kevin Tenney in Pinocchio's Revenge.
All of Brad Dourif's voiceover work for Chucky was recorded in advance so they could match up Chucky's mouth with the words. Because of this, Dourif rarely ever appeared on set during the "doll" scenes. Instead, recordings of his voice would be played back for Alex Vincent to go by. Also, Brad would act out the scenes with the actors before they filmed the scenes.
The My Buddy doll line has never recovered from the first Child's Play movie.
The film was released on November 9th, 1988. Which is the same date as the opening scene.
Original workprint of the movie was over 2 hours long. Other sources mentioned that original cut was two and a half, or near 3 hours long. Some of the scenes that were deleted or cut down are: 1. Original opening in which Mike is dressed in woman's clothing in order to catch Charles Lee Ray (if you watch normal opening scene closely, you can see that Mike throws the dress on the ground when he chases Ray down the street). 2. Andy showing Chucky his room. 3. Andy falling into a ditch in front of Eddie Caputo's hideout as it explodes. 4. Chucky's witchdoctor friend John/Dr. Death performing a ritual dressed in voodoo priest clothes. 5. Andy befriending a young girl during his time in mental hospital; later on, Chucky tricks the same girl to help him out to find Andy. 6. More footage of Chucky stalking Andy at mental hospital. The DVD commentary also mentions alternate ending in which Mike is the one that kills Chucky by decapitating him with baseball bat. The deleted scenes of Child's Play have never surfaced in any form online. Director Tom Holland says the scenes were in his script, he shot them, but was deleted as he cut movie.
John Lithgow, Gary Oldman and Andrew Divoff were rumored to be considered to play Charles Lee Ray and voice Chucky.
Composer Joe Renzetti and singer/songwriter Simon Stokes recorded an ending credits theme song about Chucky the Doll that wasn't used in the final finished film because studio executives thought it made Chucky seem less scary. The song can be heard in one of the trailers for the film.
Despite their long-running collaborative effort to bring Chucky to life, voice actor Brad Dourif and special effects wizard Kevin Yagher never met in person until they were both guests at a horror convention in May 2018.
Don Mancini has hyperbolically estimated that around 50% of the finished film retains the concepts of his original script. New elements introduced by other writers included the voodoo mythology angle, and the character of Eddie Caputo.
The toy shop used in the opening scene was actually a Chinese restaurant that closed down in Chicago, on the corner of Wabash and Van Buren. Chris Sarandon even says the name of the street corner when calling for backup.
Don Mancini explained that Chucky draws heavily from the My Buddy dolls: "In my original script, he was originally called Buddy, and we couldn't use it because of the 'My Buddy' doll. The director went out and got a 'My Buddy' doll, a Raggedy Ann, a Raggedy Andy and one of those life-size baby infants. What I told [designer] Kevin Yagher was, I wanted something similar to a My Buddy doll. I described "Buddy" in my original script, now "Chucky", as wearing red-buttoned overalls, red sneakers, striped sweater, with red hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Kevin went off and sketched many designs of Chucky, until the final was picked. Yagher then built the first doll from those sketches and my details."
Previously, this was the only film in the series to feature or mention Eddie Caputo. This has been changed due to the release of Curse Of Chucky.
There are many similarities to the film Fright Night (1985) in this movie. Both movies have a child or teen whose mother is either divorced or widowed. In both movies the male protagonist sees something supernatural, but can't get anyone else to take them seriously. The hero confronts the villain in his turf. The hero gets help from adult supervision who does not believe them at first but then later learns the truth.
Tom Holland was influenced by the Hillside Stranglers to make Charles Lee Ray have a partner.
The story takes place in three days.
One abandoned concept was that one sign of Chucky turning more human was that the doll would grow stubble like Charles had when he was human.
The Good Guys animated sequence that Andy watches on TV was produced by the animation company Ruby-Spears.
The only film in the franchise where Chucky is seen as human in live action. In Curse, Chucky is only seen as human via flashback.
According to an interview with Brad Dourif, who voices Chucky in all films, his daughter, Fiona, who was 7 years old at the time, came into his recording room during a session. He was recording his scream of agony during the scene Chucky gets set on fire in the fireplace. No one, not even him, knew that his daughter was in the room with him until she got scared by his screaming then started crying.
According to director Tom Holland, the shot of Maggie falling to her death was achieved by having a stunt woman do the main shot followed by a concrete filled dummy when she hits the car which had charges underneath the windows to shatter them.
