Trivia: Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the grown up version of Jenny (from the town of Spectre), also plays the witch. She was at the time in a relationship with and eventually married director Tim Burton from 2001-2014.
Trivia: The banjo player in Spectre who is playing 'Dueling Banjos' is Billy Redden, who as a boy also portrayed Lonnie in 'Deliverance', playing the same song on a banjo (though it was a professional musician's hands who actually strummed the banjo).
Trivia: If you look at the line with all the shoes on it, third from the left is a pair of ruby slippers.
Trivia: In the beginning, when the story of the fish is being told, if you look to the left side of the screen at the lures, you'll see a skull reflected in one of them when Edward mentions the dead criminal.
Trivia: When Edward Bloom proposes in the field of daffodils, he wears a tie with a swirl design on it. The swirl is strongly reminiscent of an iconic shot from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1994), another Tim Burton film, when Jack Skellington's ridge is unfurling in front of a full moon.
Trivia: When Edward is at the circus for the very first time, the orchestra plays the same melody used for the song "The Pitch (Spectacular, Spectacular.)" in "Moulin Rouge" - also starring Ewan McGregor.
Trivia: The author of the novel, Daniel Wallace, plays an economics professor who's shown working an overhead projector.
Trivia: The Amos character was a combination of Italian director Federico Fellini and American adult film actor Ron Jeremy.
Trivia: Steven Spielberg was originally set to direct this film, and he wanted to cast Jack Nicholson as Edward Bloom. But due to his schedule, he was forced to drop the project. This is when Tim Burton signed on as director.
Chosen answer: Deregulation of the U. S. savings & loan industry in the early 1980's greatly reduced the restrictions on which federally-chartered S&Ls could invest their money. Since the depositors' money was insured by the federal government, the S&Ls had no incentives to minimize risk. This resulted in a major political scandal by the end of the decade, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars being lost through questionable investments, with taxpayers picking up the tab. Many of the most egregious violators were based in Sun Belt states, including Texas. The fashions do appear to be a bit out of date, however.