The original name is a clever mashup. The name Gojira is actually a combination of two different Japanese words: gorira, which means gorilla, and kujira, which translates to whale, perfectly describing the monster’s massive size and aquatic origins.
The iconic roar was made with a leather glove. To create that terrifying, metallic screech in 1954, composer Akira Ifukube coated a coarse leather glove in pine tar and rubbed it down the strings of a double bass, then slowed the recording down.
The original movie was a serious atomic allegory. While later films got goofy, the 1954 classic was a somber, terrifying reflection on the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with Godzilla representing the unstoppable horror of the hydrogen bomb.
The first suit was an absolute nightmare to wear. Actor Haruo Nakajima practically suffocated inside the original rubber suit, which weighed an astonishing 220 pounds and was so incredibly hot that he would frequently pass out or sweat off multiple pounds during a single take.
He was almost a giant octopus. Before the studio settled on the iconic dinosaur-like design we know today, early concepts actually pitched Godzilla as a massive, mutated octopus that would terrorize the Japanese coastline.
The monster actually fought Charles Barkley. In a truly bizarre 1992 Nike television commercial, the King of the Monsters went head-to-head with NBA legend Charles Barkley in a giant game of basketball through the streets of Tokyo.
He officially holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2004, to celebrate his fiftieth birthday, the giant radioactive lizard was finally given a prestigious star on Hollywood Boulevard, proving his massive impact on American cinema.
The 1998 American reboot was widely hated. Director Roland Emmerich tried to bring the monster to America in 1998, but the resulting giant iguana design was so universally mocked that the Japanese studio later officially renamed that specific monster Zilla because it lacked the god element.