I have seen this movie so many times on A&E like 2 years ago and was wondering if Ron Howard got the idia from a Billy Joel song title. Because Billy Joel wrote song in the early 80s called Allen Town. The first virse goes And we living here in Allen Town and they closing all the factorys down. Sounds flamiler to you?
shareNo, it was loosely based on a real occurrence.
In 1982, Honda Motor Co. opened up a manufacturing plant in Marysville, Ohio to produce Accords for sale in the US. It was the first Japanese carmaker to open up an American plant.
Read the following for more info:
http://www.just-auto.com/factsheet.aspx?ID=205
The Billy Joel song "Allentown" is actually about Allentown Pennsylvania. It was once a vital and booming city, but when the bottom dropped out of the steel and coal inustries, it dried up like so many other coal and steel cities.
Western PA (where Gung Ho is supposed to take place) is an area hit especially hard by the death of the metal industry.
Billy used the title "Allentown" because it was a very "American"-sounding name. There are, or were, no factories in Allentown at the time the song was written. He was actually thinking of Allentown's neighbor town Bethlehem when he wrote that song. Allentown just happened to sing a lot better - and I agree with him.
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