7. Wanting to give Clarissa an “off-the-wall” pet, Kriegman got the idea for Elvis the alligator from an ex-girlfriend “who had a wading pool in her off-campus apartment that had tadpoles and turtles and all sorts of stuff in it,” he told Mental Floss. “She was brilliant—she also had a miniature alpine gondola hanging across it. And I was like, ‘Wow, that is just so weird.’ And that’s where the idea for Elvis came from.”
8. In the pilot episode, another actor played the part of Sam, Clarissa’s best friend, before Sam O’Neal took over the role.
“I was there for a few minutes, possibly had read a scene, and then Mitchell asked me to leave the room,” O’Neal recalled of his audition process in Slimed!. “Before I stepped out, though, he asked me to mess up my hair. I was a nutcase when I was in school and a little bit of a class clown, so I always used to rub my heavy-duty cowlicks, which made my hair stand on end. When I left the room and messed up my hair, I came back in and Mitchell said, ‘Yeah, you’ve got the job.'”
9. As for why Sam always entered Clarissa’s room via a ladder in her window, Kriegman offered a very simple explanation in his chat with Mental Floss.
“Do you really want him to have to ring the doorbell, and say, ‘Hi, Mrs. Darling, OK if I go visit Clarissa?'” he reasoned. “It’s just way slow to do that….It’s never commented on, and he just does it at all hours of the night and day. I really wanted to do something unique. It was in keeping with a kids-first point of view.”