50 Surprising Facts About Mean Girls

Let's clear something up. Mean Girls is more than just a teen comedy. It is a modern legend bestowed upon us by the genius that is Tina Fey. This movie defined a generation, helped us pass calculus (when all else failed, we definitely scratched in "limit does not exist"), taught us how to abuse three-way phone calls, made October 3rd a monumental day...and gave us Glenn Coco. 

It's ten years later, and we can basically quote the whole movie by heart. In celebration of the anniversary and for the ultimate hump day treat (non-alcoholic, of course), here is a list of the 50 things you might not know about Mean Girls.

1. Shane Oman, the guy Regina hooks up with in the gym thing upstairs, plays Mike on Homeland.

2. Rachel McAdams wore a wig in the movie.

3. Gretchen Weiners (played by Lacey Chabert) was the voice of Eliza Thornberry on The Wild Thornberrys.

4. Mean Girls is loosely based on the self-help book "Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence" by Rosalind Wiseman.

5. Mean Girls was made into a Nintendo DS puzzle game based on the movie

6. Glen Coco is a real-life friend of Tina Fey

7. Janis Ian was named after a real musician who was the first-ever musical guest on SNL.

8. Cady was named after Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the 19th century feminist.

9. The original title of the film was "Homeschooled," in reference to Cady's previous lack of exposure to public school and its treacherous sociology.

10. Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) now stars as Virginia Johnson on Masters of Sex.

11. James Franco was originally considered for the role of Aaron Samuels.

12. Lohan lived up to her reputation for on-set absences by contracting pink eye, making her unavailable on the first day of shooting. Scenes with Surendra and Bennett had to be filmed using her stand-in.

13. Lindsay Lohan was almost cast as Regina and Rachel McAdams was almost cast as Cady.

14. Mariah Carey's song "Obsessed" is based on one of Regina's lines in the movie, when she asks "Why are you so obsessed with me?"

15. Rachel McAdams is eight years older than Lindsay Lohan and only seven years younger than Amy Poehler.

16. The movie was set in Evanston, Illinois, but the entirety was filmed in Canada.

17. Regina means "queen" in Romanian, Italian and Latin.

18. The MPAA wanted to give Mean Girls an R rating, so scenes from the movie had to be edited to get the PG-13 rating.

19. Jonathan Bennett's (who plays Aaron Samuels) twitter bio says, "I get it...my hair looks sexy pushed back."

20. Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Lindsay Lohan have their own video of the Kevin G rap. Watch it below. 

21. Kevin Gnapoor was originally written as Kevin Ngor (a Korean mathlete).

22. After the Halloween party, when Cady walks into Damian and Janis' house, Damian gets scared and tosses all of the popcorn out of his bowl. In the next shot of Damian his bowl is full again.

23. The character of Aaron Samuels was based on Jimmy Fallon

24. Tim Meadows, the actor who plays Mr. Duvall,  broke his arm before shooting, so they wrote in his carpal tunnel.

25. Lizzy Caplan, who plays Janice Ian, dated Matthew Perry--i.e., Chandler from Friends--from 2006 to 2013.

26. Mrs. Norbury was named after Tina Fey's high school German teacher.

27. The skirts in "Jingle Bell Rock" were actually made of plastic.

28. Mark Waters, the director of Mean Girls, also directed Freaky Friday.

29. October 3rd is National Mean Girls Day.

30. The Walker Brothers Pancake House is real. The gift cards to the pancake house feature the restaurant’s real logo.

31. Even President Obama's dog Bo loves the movie. (The White House tweeted a pic of him with a ball and the caption "Bo, stop trying to make fetch happen.")

32. Damian is named after Tina Fey's friend Damian Holbrook, whom she met as a teenager in a summer theater workshop.

33. Jennifer Lawrence is a fan of the film. While accepting a People's Choice Award in 2013, she said, "I wish this were like Mean Girls and I could break this up and throw it at all of you!"

34. Ashley Tisdale auditioned to play Karen Smith.

35. There's a celebrity children gossip site named after the Burn Book. There's a book too.

36. Daniel Franzese, who plays Damian, recently came out in an open letter to the character he played.

37. Principal Duvall's line, "I did not leave the South Side for this!" is actually a quote from another movie, Lean on Me.

38. Glenn Coco was played by David Reale, but he was uncredited in the movie.

39. Kevin Gnapoor's number on his business card is 847-555-2148. 847 is the real area code of the North Shore.

40. There was a Mean Girls 2. It went straight to DVD and featured only one of the original cast members (Tim Meadows).

41. There might be a Mean Girls musical.

42. The director Mark Waters told Rachel McAdams to listen to Courtney Love really loud to get into character.

43. Ky Pham, who plays Trang Pak, didn't know the movie was a feature film until she saw previews for it on TV.

44. Rajiv Surendra who played Kevin Gnapoor is now a calligrapher in New York.

45. Neil Flynn, who plays Cady's dad, stars on the TV show The Middle.

46. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Ana Gasteyer, and Tim Meadows were all on Saturday Night Live.

47. Jonathan Bennett (Aaron Samuels) is an instructor at Flywheel in Los Angeles.

48. A song by Samantha Ronson is in the film, who Lindsay Lohan later went on to date.

49. It took castings in four cities to find the right actor for Damien's role.

50. Cady's mom gets tenure at Northwestern, which is Ana Gasteyer's alma mater in real life.