Top 10 Coraline Easter Eggs You Never Noticed
#10: Tomato Sauce Stain
In a brief scene towards the end of the film, Coraline is settling into bed and playing with her dad. He’s usually pretty disheveled, so you might not have spotted this detail the first time around, but eagle-eyed viewers will have noticed a big red splotch on his shirt. So, what’s that all about? Well, the family had just gone out to celebrate the completion of the Jones’ gardening catalogue. In the extended version of the scene, Coraline’s dear old dad mentions the pizza he just ate. Unless he also snuck himself one of Mrs. Jones’ mustard-salsa-ketchup wraps, the stain is presumably a souvenir from dinner.
#9: Door Key
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After moving into Pink Palace Apartments, Coraline goes exploring. Her parents are busy with work and it’s too dreary to play outside, so she wanders around the house. In the living room, she finds a strange little door that’s been wallpapered over. When she asks her mom to find the key to unlock it, Mrs. Jones searches around a drawer before coming up with a long, black key. Unbeknownst to Coraline, the end of the key is shaped like a button, an item which will be come very significant later in the movie - as buttons are the means by which the Other Mother traps the souls of wayward children.
#8: Bug Wallpaper
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After finding her way into the Other World, Coraline is totally enchanted. Everything seems too perfect! An exact double of her own home, only better. But of course, there’s a catch. And what a catch it is. It’s less than clear at first, but as the nature of the Other Mother is revealed, details about the house start to change too. In fact, even before Other Mother’s terrifying transformation, the pattern of the wallpaper is distinctly insectile, hinting at the hideous true form that’s hidden beneath her idealized maternal exterior.
#7: Framed Silhouettes
When Coraline enters the Other Mother’s world, there’s so much going on that it’s almost impossible to notice all the little details on first glance. One of these details are three silhouette portraits on a wall, showing a girl with messy hair, a girl with braids, and a little boy. This style of portraiture is usually reserved for family members – but there’s only the Other Mother and Father in the house, right? Later, Coraline discovers that the Other Parents are not alone in the house at all, and the spirits of three children are trapped inside the walls. The portraits foreshadowed them all along.
#6: Ranft Brothers Moving Van
In the opening shots of the movie, a big, green moving van approaches the Pink Palace. The graffiti on the back, “StopMo Rulz”, is of course a shout out to the stop-motion animation technique featured in the film. But the company name, “Ranft Brothers”, is less obvious. It’s actually a nod to animators Jerome and Joe Ranft, who the movers closely resemble, and who are voiced by Jerome. Sadly, Joe passed away in 2005, four years before Coraline’s release, making the allusion to the brothers a touching tribute.
#5: Lightning Hand
After offering Coraline a delicious looking Welcome Home cake, Other Mother suggests that they all go out to play in the rain and mud. When Coraline points out that it isn’t raining, there’s a sudden crack of lightning and it starts to pour down. It happens so fast you can’t see it unless you’re looking for it, but in the disappearing lightning is clearly a skeletal hand – much like the one that will follow Coraline into the real world later. This creepy hand is a hint as to the sinister power that the Other Mother wields, allowing her to shape the world around her.
#4: The Soundtrack
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While most people get caught up in the visual beauty of the movie, the soundtrack likewise deserves praise and attention. The Other Mother seems to enjoy it, too, as she hums the songs throughout. Except for the song by the Other Father - more on that later - there are no REAL words in any of the tracks . . . even though it sounds like there are. For example, in the scene where Coraline explores the Pink Palace, a woman seems to sing in a foreign language - with sounds that sometimes resemble French. But they’re in fact complete gibberish. By seeming real but not quite right, the “lyrics” give the film another disjointed, eerie layer.
#3: Mr. B's Medal
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The Pink Palace gives Coraline some fairly … eccentric neighbors. But maybe the strangest is Mr. Bobinsky - or Mr. B, for short. The energetic, spindle-legged Russian trains mice - or so he claims - and has blue-tinted skin. With all that already out in the open, it’s easy to dismiss the medal pinned on his dirty tank top as just another unique character feature. However, closer inspection of the medal shows that it was the type given to those who participated in the clean up after the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster in 1986. Maybe all that radiation explains the blue skin?
#2: Dollar Bill
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Falling under the blink and you miss it category, this was clearly animators having a little fun. After the Ranft brothers move the Jones’ into their new home, mover Joe patiently waits outside for a little tip. A hand distractedly extends through the door and taps a bill into his palm. When he looks down, he sees that it’s a measly one dollar. Sigh, indeed. Even though it looks like your typical American one-dollar bill, however, that’s not George Washington’s face staring back up at audiences, but the film’s director Henry Selick.
#1: Message in Song
While the final soundtrack for the film is for the most part all instrumental, this wasn’t always meant to be the case. Originally the band They Might Be Giants created several songs for the movie that ultimately didn’t make the cut. One song that did remain, however, is the jaunty tune the Other Father plays for Coraline. It’s so lively and upbeat, you almost don’t notice how sinister the lyrics are. As the piano plays, the Other Father sings about how “she’s a doll,” cute as “a button in the eyes of everyone” and their “eyes will be on Coraline.” It’s too bad that the eyes they have in mind are the soul-stealing kind.
