Liner notes:

  • Midnight Madness is based on an actual underground game run by a Leon-type character that co-writers/directors Michael Nankin and David Wechter read about in the Los Angeles Times. (The credits note: certain game techniques inspired by Don Luskin, Patrick Carlyle, Cherie Chung)
  • The movie was filmed in the summer of 1979 under the title The Great All-Nighter.
  • Since minors aren't allowed to work past 10 PM without special permits, the film's producers needed an actor who looked 15 but was legally an adult to play the part of Scott. Michael J. Fox had recently moved to Los Angeles from Canada, and had just turned 18. Midnight Madness was his first movie role.
  • According to David Wechter, it took 17 takes to get the shot in which Mrs. Grimhouse makes a phone call with her nose.
  • Paul Ruebens made his film debut here as the "Pinball Proprietor." The next year, Reubens began playing to sold-out audiences in a Los Angeles stage show featuring a character he'd created called Pee Wee Herman.
  • David Naughton had starred in a series of popular TV commercials for Dr. Pepper in the late 1970's. In 1979, he starred in the short-lived series Makin' It for which he sang the theme song. It became a Top 5 pop hit and sold over one million copies. His next role after Midnight Madness was as the star of An American Werewolf in London.
  • In the scene where Harold's team interrogates Scott in the van, Andy Tennant (who plays the character of Melio) was sick with the flu and had a temperature of over 103°. Tennant recovered and later directed such films as Fools Rush In, Ever After and Anna and the King.
  • Michael Nankin later wrote the feature films The Gate and Russkies, and directed such television series as Cover Me, Early Edition, Picket Fences and Life Goes On. David Wechter would go on to write and direct the movie Malibu Bikini Shop and was a co-writer of The Faculty.