While this film is fictional, director and screenwriter Maya Forbes loosely based the story and its characters on her life growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the late 1970s. After the end credits roll, a picture of Forbes' real-life parents appears, upon whom the movie is based.
Maya Forbes' sister, China Forbes, performs the song "The Northern Line" over the end credits, a song for which she also composed and wrote the lyrics.
The film takes place in 1978.
Mark Ruffalo's character tells his family, when the van is about to leave, that he wishes he wasn't dressed like a big green bug (green Polo Shirt and matching shorts). For years, Ruffalo played the Incredible Hulk, who is notoriously big and green.