Vanessa Williams was originally considered for Lisa McDowell; her first album came out that year and she was staggeringly beautiful.
The most desired woman is the lightest-skinned woman in the movie, an eternal problem; casting Williams would make that scream louder.
Shari Headley sounds like she is from New York, and her sweetness makes her falling for a janitor believable.
Sidney Poitier was originally sought for King Jaffe Joffer and turned it down, doing Shoot to Kill instead; he would have pushed the movie up a level, though James Earl Jones is regal.
Paul Gleason was asked to reprise Clarence Beeks from Trading Places in the Duke brothers scene but was filming Die Hard.

Recasting Couch

No recast; Shari Headley kept

In the discussion (5)

Approx. transcript time · 01:21:49Read transcript

The movie is well cast, but Robin Givens and Angela Bassett are floated as alternatives to Shari Headley.
Bassett was 28 during filming, raising whether a white casting agent in 1987 would know to find her; she had done a lot of TV.
Either one in 1988 is claimed to make a better movie.
The objection: Robin Givens must be saved for Boomerang.
The exchange ends with "I buy Sherry Headley in this" and agreement; the proposer only wanted to have the conversation.

Half-Assed Internet Research

Wendy's location for McDowell's; Murphy and Landis pay; Landis-Murphy feud; Twilight Zone accident; Armond White review; Buchwald lawsuit; CBS pilot; Zamunda origin; Return of the Jedi homage

In the discussion (14)

Approx. transcript time · 01:22:57Read transcript

McDowell's was a Wendy's on Queens Boulevard that was about to close.
Murphy got $8 million plus 15% of film rentals, with weekly spending on a motorhome, trainer, valet and living allowance; Landis got $600,000 and 10% of gross.
Landis and Murphy feuded: Landis called the Coming to America-era star arrogant with an entourage, yet wonderful in the movie; Eddie's response was that Landis treated him like a kid and that he hired Landis when his career hung by a thread.
Murphy's appraisal of Landis's career is judged correct; a shot swooping into the dancing scene prompted a lookup of who directed it.
The Twilight Zone accident: a helicopter crash killed Vic Morrow and child actors, Landis was blamed and tried, and it reshaped rules for child actors.
Landis later directed Beverly Hills Cop 3, and Murphy crushed him in a 1999 Playboy interview.
Armond White called the movie a betrayal full of ethnic self-loathing; Murphy responded with a paid advertisement in the paper.
Armond White went down with the ship when Eddie was in the toilet; he meant that review, but he also liked Pluto Nash and killed Moonlight.
Agreeing, the reply adds that White then found value in the worst Eddie Murphy movies, perhaps after the ad, and is a real crapshoot. — Wesley Morris
Art Buchwald's 1982 treatment about a rich visitor to America was optioned by Paramount with Landis and Murphy attached, abandoned in 1985, then remade; Buchwald won the breach-of-contract case and was paid off on appeal with undisclosed terms.
A round-number guess for the Buchwald payout is about $5 million. — Bill Simmons
A CBS sitcom pilot with Tommy Davidson as the prince was not picked up.
Zamunda came from a Richard Pryor routine.
The king's line "I shall deal with him myself" is identified as a Return of the Jedi homage. — Van Lathan

Picking Nits

No bodyguards; cash supply; McDonald's lawsuit; unexamined class tension

In the discussion (8)

Approx. transcript time · 01:37:01Read transcript

The King of Zamunda wouldn't send his son to New York without bodyguards; outsmarting two bodyguards would have been a great wrinkle.
Where did they keep getting cash, given the money clips and stolen suitcases, before bank cards?
McDonald's would have sued McDowell's out of business quickly.
Not a nit but a larger concern, implicit in Ebert's complaint and explicit in Armond White's: class and caste within Black life go unexamined, with Darryl xenophobic toward Akeem.
The movie glosses over the problem: poverty is the joke, as with the landlord and tenant, and no jokes are aimed at higher-class people.
A reply calls it a symptom of the times; movies were made for poor audiences who felt in on the joke, and the rich get jokes too, like Akeem not knowing how to use a mop.
The social-climbing fathers are the closest thing to villains, while Darryl is the official bad guy and is rich.
A dinner or repast scene with the Black Awareness Week community would have eased the class discrepancy.

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Waldorf plus an apartment; the jeans hand job; Arsenio's thin film career; Hakeem Olajuwon's name change; the St. John's game result; Wakanda and Zamunda; the graffiti train

In the discussion (7)

Approx. transcript time · 01:45:04Read transcript

Why not stay at the Waldorf and also get an apartment?
The logistics of the hand job through tight 80s jeans are debated.
Why didn't Arsenio do more movies? Chunky A and being seen as a talk-show host and Eddie's buddy pigeonholed him.
Did Hakeem Olajuwon add the H because of Prince Akeem?
The St. John's game was St. John's 66, Marist 59, with Marist's Rik Smits (ASR "Rick Smith") in foul trouble.
Did Zamunda rip off Wakanda, given Black Panther's 1960s debut? Realizing the kingdom on screen still counts.
Was the heavily graffitied train painted for the movie? It should have been an Apex Mountain pick, which is rejected.