Trivia

Martin Scorsese's film foundation helped fund the repair of the damaged Kesey footage by technicians from UCLA, who labored for over a year. Synching up the film to its separate snippets of audio track proved so daunting that director Alison Ellwood resorted to hiring a lip reader to determine what words people were mouthing.

Ken Kesey's original crew of self-proclaimed "Merry Pranksters" shot about 40 hours of 16-mm film in an unfinished project. Reportedly, Kesey several times showed all 40 hours - unedited - before he stored the film cans in Eugene, Oregon. They were rusting away until saved by the documentary directors, who first discovered they existed in 2004.

Ken Kesey is credited for coining the phrase "Do your own thing," and in this film, the Pranksters are shown to be 'inventing' the process of tie-dyeing.

Merry Prankster Neal Cassady was the real-life model for character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' novel.

The ventriloquist dummy owned and used by Ken Kesey (and which appears briefly in the film) was restored and refurbished by Alan Semok (aka "The Dummy Doctor") over a period of several months. The puppet, which was in very bad condition, also was missing it's original body and a new one was made in the pattern of the original. Following the restoration, Semok also served as puppeteer for the dummy in a brief segment of the film in which the dummy appears, speaking Kesey's words.