Keith Moon was alleged to have bribed a stagehand on the set of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour to allow him to pack ten times the amount of allowed gunpowder into his drum kit. Pete Townshend, whose head took the full force of the blast, says his later hearing problems stemmed from the explosion.

Also appearing on that episode of the Smothers Brothers were Mickey Rooney and Bette Davis. Rumor long had it that Bette passed out into Mickey's arms when Keith's drums exploded, but Tommy Smothers has since denied it.

Tommy Smothers wanted The Who to perform "My Generation" on his show after seeing them perform the song at the Monterey Pop Festival, which is shown near the end of the movie.

The footage of The Who performing "Young Man Blues" was found by director Jeff Stein in a garbage bin outside their ex-managers' office.

Ringo Starr, close friend (and, at the time, drinking buddy) of Keith Moon, volunteered to narrate the movie's trailer and interview Keith for the film. His son Zak Starkey would, twenty years later, take over Keith's seat as The Who's drummer.

Woodstock (1970) editor Thelma Schoonmaker aided Jeff Stein in searching through out-takes from that film for footage of The Who. She would later become best known as editor for movies directed by her fellow Woodstock editor, Martin Scorsese.

Stein's biggest disappointment was his inability to find footage of The Who's fabled fights. No film was ever discovered of Pete Townshend hitting Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman with his guitar after Hoffman interrupted The Who's set at Woodstock or Roger Daltrey knocking Pete out during the filming of a 1973 Quadrophenia rehearsal.

The gold records John Entwistle shoots with a machine gun are actual ones awarded for Roger Daltrey's solo albums.

The many guitars and posters seen on the stairs in John Entwistle's home were auctioned at Sotheby's after his death in 2002 for over £1 million.

Keith Moon saw the assembled movie one week before his death in 1978. Jeff Stein said that the only edit made afterwards was to a line at the end of a Russell Harty interview clip. After Pete greeted a question about a decade of The Who with the line "Who decayed?" he turned to Keith and said, "apparently not all of them survived."

The footage of The Who performing "A Quick One While He's Away" was shot as part of a 1968 Rolling Stones television special. The special was shelved for almost thirty years, allegedly because The Rolling Stones felt their performance had been upstaged by The Who's.

Shepperton Studios, where "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" were shot, was, at the time, partly owned by The Who. During the time they were invested there, the studio's biggest hit was Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). The Who's lasers, seen at the end of "Won't Get Fooled Again," were borrowed for Alien to lay a light grid over the alien's egg nest.

Billy Idol, Chrissie Hynde and her band The Pretenders and some members of The Sex Pistols were in the audience for the filming of the "Won't Get Fooled Again" finale.

by Brian Cady

Sources:
The Who: Maximum R&B by Richard Barnes
Anyway Anyhow Anywhere: The Complete Chronicle of The Who 1958-1978 by Matt Kent and Andrew Neill
Telephone interview with Jeff Stein