In the early ‘90s, when Salman Khan and Aamir Khan were both “rising stars and heartthrobs, girls were chasing them everywhere.” This inspired director Rajkumar Santoshi, who had signed both actors even before finalizing a story, to come up with a plot – what if they are in a film where they were the ones chasing girls? “Dono ke apne apne andaz hain aur dono apne apne style mein chase kar rahe hain,” he thought – and thus began the journey of Andaz Apna Apna.

Rajkumar Santoshi and Dilip Shukla wrote the film in snippets format, with each snippet being an episode in itself. The film, with its situational, slapstick and language humour, has since become a cult comedy. As it completes 30 years, we take a look at the making of the film.

Rajkumar Santoshi had organized over 100 trials of the incomplete film. At the time, Aamir had said in an interview, “Mujhe lagta hai audience iss film ko bahut pasand karegi kyunki jab bhi iss film ka trial hota hai toh log hanshans ke pagal ho jate hain. Rajkumar Santoshi ne bahut hi achhi comedy banayi hai. Usmein situational comedy hai, slapstick comedy hai, language comedy hai.’”

Santoshi also recalled in an interview that when he showed the rushes to Saroj Khan, she fell off the sofa laughing.

Santoshi and Tushar Bhatia, the music director of the film, were both huge fans of OP Nayyar and wanted to create OP Nayyar-style music for the youth of the ’90s. They decided to keep the music vintage, which led to songs like Elo Ji Sanam Hum Aa Gaye and Ye Raat Aur Ye Doori. They decided to shoot the songs in the styles of Shammi Kapoor and Dev Anand.

On his birthday earlier this year, Aamir was asked about the film’s sequel. He responed, “Rajkumar Santoshi is working on the script for Andaz Apna Apna 2. Zyada excitement bhi hum log nahi dikha sakte kyunki usne kaam abhi shuru kiya hai. I am glad that he started thinking about it because it will be a great film for all of us to do and for the audience to watch.”

1. When Amar (Aamir’s character) is cutting the ribbon of the lockup as he’s the first one to enter it, Papa Kehte Hain from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak plays in background

2. When someone asks Prem (Salman’s character), “Have you seen Sholay?”, he says he’s seen it 10 times. Amar says that Prem’s father has written it, which is a fact. Salim Khan co-wrote Sholay with Javed Akhtar.

3. In one scene, Salman hums Dekha Hai Pehli Baar from his own film Saajan (1991)

4. When Amar and Prem are doing the coin toss, Amar says, “Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar aur jo haara woh hai bandar” and the JJWS music plays in background

5. Aamir’s character calls Juhi Chawla J-J-J-J-Juhi, mimicking the K-K-K-K-Kiran dialogue from Darr, in which Juhi played Kiran

6. Mehmood’s character owns a film studio called Wah Wah Productions. This is a reference to Mehmood’s earlier film Pyaar Kiye Jaa (1966), in which he also owns a Wah Wah Productions

7. Gogo refers to himself as Mogambo ka bhateeja – the villain in Mr India Source: IMDB

- Initially there was another villain in the film – Zorambo, Mogambo’s younger brother, and to be played by Amrish Puri. Santoshi recalled in an interview that the character was supposed to be the opposite of Mogambo. “Amrish ji was playing Mogambo’s younger brother Zorambo. His dialogue was, ‘Mera bhai choti choti baaton mein khush ho jaata tha, main khush nahi hota. Nobody can make me happy.’ Zorambo’s costume was white, a stark contrast to Mogambo’s black attire.” However, the character was dropped from the film as it was getting lengthy.

- Aamir’s character was inspired by the Archie comic’s character Reggie. Archie was supposed to be Salman Khan’s character.

- Originally, Tinnu Anand was supposed to play Gogo. However, he was abroad during the shoot and couldn’t return on time. Nearly 70% of the filming had already been completed when Shakti Kapoor came on board.