Roger Corman would shoot scenes with two cameras rolling at once while placed at different angles. He rarely shot re-takes and spent little time on lighting scenes.
Charles B. Griffith not only wrote most of the screenplay, he also stars uncredited as several characters; among them: the screaming dental patient that runs out of Dr. Farb's office, the burglar that breaks into the flower shop, and even the voice of Audrey Jr.
Charles B. Griffith put several of his relatives in the film; Myrtle Vail - "grandmother" Myrt - for example, is actually his grandmother, and the hobo that Dr. Farb tortures in his office is Griffith's father. He also placed several of his relatives in crowd scenes. The bums in the background of the street shots on Skid Row are real transients, however, and were filmed in the actual skid row area of Los Angeles.
Charles B. Griffith stood off-screen providing the voice of Audrey Junior as a reference for the actors. The voice of the plant was supposed to be dubbed in by another actor in post-production, but Griffith's vocalization of the plant got laughs - and director Roger Corman was notoriously cheap - so his voice remained in the final print of the film.
Dick Miller was originally offered the role of Seymour Krelboin but he declined it in favor of the flower-eating Mr. Fouch instead.
Although the film is legendary for having been shot in only two days, Jonathan Haze recalled in "The Little Shop of Horrors Book" that he was called back several weeks later for re-shoots.
Mr. Mushnik says that he is going to stay at the store overnight to take care of "that meshugganah plant." Meshugganah is a Yiddish word meaning "crazy."
The film was originally released on a double feature with Mario Bava's La maschera del demonio and later on a double bill with Last Woman on Earth.
The manager of Producer's Studio informed Roger Corman that a large office set had been constructed for a production that was about to wrap. Corman arranged to use the standing set, redressed, as the main set of this film.
The name of the character 'Siddie Shiva' is a pun from the phrase 'sitting Shiva', a Jewish funerary ritual, as well as a direct reference to her unlucky and constantly expiring relatives.
The shooting schedule for this film was two days and one night.
Was remade as a successful stage musical that was later adapted into a film (Little Shop of Horrors).
When asked where Seymour got the plant, he replies that the seeds were obtained by a Japanese gardener who found the bulb in a "plantation next to a cranberry farm." This joke is lost on modern audiences. In 1959, it was announced that cranberry crops were tainted with traces of the herbicide aminotriazole, and as a result, cranberry sales plummeted.