Did You Know? — Fun Facts about NCIS - NCISfanatic™ Fans of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles

NCIS – Did you know…

From: hangforawhile.com

• that an astronomer has the name of Gibbs, so there are comets with the name of our favorite character in our solar system ( like P/2007 T4 (Gibbs) )

• that Sean Murray (Timothy McGee) is Don Bellisario's stepson, and that Troian Bellisario (Sara McGee) is his daughter so they are actually related. Also Charles "Chip" Stirling is played by his son, Michael Bellisario (so it's a real family affair). Other relatives work on the show in production roles.

that the name Leroy and Jethro are from Don Bellisario's father and grandfather.

that NCIS is set in Washington DC area but is really filmed in Santa Clarita, CA. And that the Washington Navy Yard is a considerable distance from the beautiful famous buildings in DC: the set decorators chose to put the false, but pretty view to be the one that people see from the squadroom 'window' instead of the Navy Yard's real view which is much less spectacular.

in 5×16 Recoil (when Ziva is on the phone searching for Devon) the building seen through the window is the real NCIS building.

Pauley Perrette (Abby Sciuto) appeared in CSI: Las Vegas, as did Sasha Alexander and Rudolf Martin, and Lauren Holly (Jenny Shepard) in CSI: Miami, (obviously as different characters).

Donald Bellisario was in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Gunnery Sgt. The Marine Corps ethos and knowledge of how the Marines work is from real life experience.

that Zac Efron appeared in Deception (3.13).

Mark Harmon, Pauley Perrette, David McCallum, and Michael Weatherly all appeared as their NCIS characters in the final episodes of JAG to begin the show's spinoff to NCIS.

That the hand tools that Mark Harmon uses on the set of NCIS, are mostly his own. Those are the tools that he uses in his own personal workshop, the publicists would have us believe. However, the boats are bought as kits and it is hard to imagine that Harmon had to bring his own tools when the props department is so well set up….

• The first time Mark met David McCallum on the set of NCIS he called him Illya as David is very well known for playing the role of Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. David's response was, according to an interview that Mark did for an Australian newspaper, "Good God, that was 40 years ago!"

• Mark Harmon has been known to wear shirts which have been sent to him by his fans, so that he has authentically old Marine Corps and NIS/NCIS shirts to lounge about in at 'home'.

On the set of NCIS, Mark uses a 1972 Airstream trailer that he restored himself as a 'Dressing Room'. The trailer has avocado green benchtops (our hearts would have been broken if he had chosen grapefruit pink). (and on a late night chat show, he said that the trailer was fixed up by carpenters…he might have meant the ones who work on the show…and when asked whether they did it for free, Mark laughed ironically and said that they definitely charged him for the work).
• Sasha Alexander (Kate) stopped acting on "NCIS" because she didn't realize the amount of physical work related with the show–or, as Bellisario put it, she had never been in a hit show before, so she never realised that you have to keep working day after day, year after year, and, with Bellisario in control, 16 hours per day. Where do babies fit into that schedule? So she left. Spectacularly. Permanently. Whattawaytago! Kapow!

Pauley Perrette was born in New Orleans and her character Abby in NCIS is also born in New Orleans. And she has a Masters in criminology and sociology (but criminology is NOT the same as forensic science, folks).

Pauley's natural hair color is blonde and it's curly. Very different from her character Abby's stick straight, black locks.

• Lauren Holly's favorite episode of NCIS so far is season four episode "Brothers in Arms."

• Lauren was starring in "Chicago Hope" along with Mark Harmon. A few years later, Lauren joined the cast of "NCIS," another show with Mark Harmon in the leading role.

• During training for his role as an NCIS special agent, Sean Murray visited a federal law enforcement training center in Georgia, taking driving courses and practicing on the shooting range.

Michael has been let loose with a camera, provided by the TV show Extra, and humorously filmed the set of the season 3 season finale of NCIS and his co-workers. Michael Weatherly proves himself to be a rather strange man who, perhaps, has not quite grown up…or an actor who can ham it up for his fans, using his DiNozzo persona. He then takes umbrage when reporters ask him whether DiNozzo is just an extension of Weatherly. Weatherly refutes this by pointing out that Weatherly is a dad with responsibilities, but DiNozzo is a playboy.

• Michael is listed as one of "T.V's Sexiest Men" for his role on NCIS. But Harmon was listed as the sexiest man alive back in the 1980s. (Still is the sexiest man alive in my book)

• DiNozzo's wealthy father cut him off from his inheritance when he was 12 years old. Michael Weatherly's father cut him off from his inheritance when he decided to pursue acting.

• Weatherly's family made their money from importing Swiss Army knives. So Bellisario used that as the reason for DiNozzo's family fortune. Supposedly. This could be all untrue. Who knows? Who cares? It sounds like it could be true and, for a TVshow wiki, that is good enough to add to our pleasure.

The title of McGee's novel "Deep Six" is the name of an actual novel written by Clive Cussler. Deep Six refers to six fathoms deep. Being "deep sixed" is being dumped in the sea.

The sound heard at the beginning and end of each act, when the scene goes to black and white is Donald P. Bellisario making that noise into a microphone. He wanted a unique way of bookending each act and took a microphone and went into a studio and made that sound into the microphone. The use of the black and white stills or black and white clips are purposely intended to add a cinematic feel to the look of the show. It works.

In the opening credits, the aircraft carrier going under the bridge is a clip from the opening credits of The Presidio (1988), starring Mark Harmon as a San Francisco police inspector investigating a murder on the Presidio army base in San Francisco.

• The season 4 extras on the DVD have Harmon and Weatherly commenting that the writers like to pick up on personal traits or issues of the actors and make use of them in the script. The fact that the people writing the scripts get to know the people who play the characters can get 'used' (with the implication that it can feel uncomfortable, or confrontational, although they did not seem upset about it).

When asked which other character they would like to play, only Harmon and Weatherly said they would not play any other character than the one they already play. The in a recent short interrogation on CBS website, Mark said that it was the first show he had worked on where nobody wanted to play anybody else's part.

When asked to recount their first paid acting job, Harmon declared that his was to be in a gorilla suit making gorilla sounds. McCallum got all nostalgic and remembered his father taking him from Scotland to London in 1948 or so, when he was only 12, to play one of the Princes in the Tower on a BBC radio play. Lauren Holly's reaction was to breathe, with awe "The BBC!" (which is a nice compliment to the British Broadcasting Corporation and their radio output, in particular: if only we could get the radio version of NCIS…radio can be much more outrageous than TV can get away with…Ducky would be unstoppable).

Pauley Perrette was in a band called Lo-ball: a song from her album (Can't Get Me Down) features on Legally Blonde.

Cote de Pablo has a special coach to help her with all the languages she has to speak

The pilot for this series aired as a two-part episode of "JAG" (1995) in the spring of 2003. Two major changes were made for the series. A gimmick in which Ducky is shown talking to corpses – from the corpse's point of view – was dropped, and a character named Viv Blackadder (played by Robyn Lively) was replaced by the character Kate played by Sasha Alexander. Viv got things badly wrong, so, with hindsight, she just would not have survived with Gibbs.

DiNozzo is a fan of the shows "Airwolf" (1984) and "Magnum, P.I." (1980), both also created by Donald P. Bellisario.

One of the computer monitors used on the set is a 1600SW Flat Panel monitor built by Silicon Graphics in 1999 (hence the SGI abbreviation logo).

• There is a picture of Donald P. Bellisario hanging on the "NCIS Most Wanted Wall" as a criminal and also in McGee's publisher's office as a successful author.

• In one episode, Michael Weatherly's character notes that a particular woman is attractive but "she's no Jessica Alba". Michael Weatherly was engaged for a time to Jessica Alba and starred opposite her on "Dark Angel" (2000).

• The boat that Gibbs is building is an Amigo Kit from Glen-L.

Harmon is very unlike Gibbs in his attitude to people. He organises charity events to aid disabled kids. Cote de Pablo cites an example of Harmon chatting to bystanders when they have done location filming. Entertainment shows have noted that Harmon 'rules' the actors' team and lays down rules such as be on time and do not jump the food queue: everyone in the crew is part of the same 'family' and all should get equal treatment (if not equal pay). 'Star' status doesn't merit non-team behaviour. (hmmm, that sounds a bit Gibbs-ish…or maybe Gibbs' egalitarianism is a bit Harmon-ish?)

That in Season 2, Episode 8, Hearts Break, when Kate's phone rings it's a polyphonic version of the NCIS Theme song.

In Twilight, the snake is wrapped around a stand-in's legs, not Sasha Alexander's, but Michael Weatherly really did grab the snake.

In Twilight, when Tony rolls down the hill, it is a stunt double.

• Pauley Parrette is in a band called "Stop making friends"

• Apparently Pauley Parrette is married to one of the camera men on NCIS

• Sasha Alexander married one of Sophia Loren's sons, Eduardo Ponti, on August 11, 2007.They have a daughter, Sophia Lucia, born on May 12, 2006

Alexander is meant to be starring in an upcoming film later this year and early next year so she will be moving back to the States to film and also show her daughter where her mother (Sasha Alexander) grew up.

Sean Murray likes a band called Venetian Snares, and apparently McGee does too. In one NCIS episode (Don't remember which one) you can see a poster of Venetian Snares at McGees desk. I'll write down the episode when I find it. [Episode 4, Season 7; Good Cop, Bad Cop shows very clearly a VENETIAN SNARES sign on McGee's cube wall (pic included in episode details from minute 2:03)]

Abby's '' Caf-Pow!" is really Hawiian Punch. However, on Sept 22 when the cast was on 'The Early Show' Pauley stated that for the first six seasons her caf-pow was Hawaiian Punch but because she quit eating and drinking refined sugars it is now unsweetened cranberry juice.