David Tsubouchi, who appears here briefly as a Japanese porn dealer, later became a Minister in the Ontario provincial government. His appearance in this controversial film as a pornographer was exploited by the opposition.
David Cronenberg had to double James Woods for the scene in which Max Renn has a helmet put on his head because both were afraid to a point that he might be electrocuted by it.
The TV station "Civic TV" is patterned after City TV, a Toronto television station that showed soft-core porn as part of its late-night programming. One of Max Renn's partners is called "Moses," a reference to City TV founder Moses Znaimer.
Among the scenes that were scripted but deleted was one where Max Renn's TV rises up out of his bathtub while showing an image. The crew had researched how to do this - there had been talk of having the actor in the tub - and had come up with several solutions. One involved filling the tub with a clear fluid that was non-conductive, but that would have cost $25 a quart. The crew eventually decided to take a real TV and simply cover its insides with layers of waterproofing insulation. It worked - they dunked the TV into a swimming pool and found, to their astonishment, that TVs float due to the ultra-high vacuum inside the picture tube. The scene was axed just before it was to be filmed.
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