Now I love John Goodman as much as the next guy, but Forrest Gump, he is not.  I can’t even imagine ANYONE other than Tom Hanks playing him!

Sadly we lost the author of the book earlier this week and I’m finding out all kinds of things that actually differed between the book and the movie! Such as……

1. He’s a little rougher around the edges than in the movie.  He has more of a sex life, for one thing . . . and he swears.  At one point he’s in a band with Jenny, and he smokes pot.

2. Given his size, Forrest isn’t a runner like he is in the movie.  And he never runs from bullies as a kid . . . he PUNCHES them.

3. Forrest actually meets Bubba at the University of Alabama, not in Vietnam.

4. But he flunks out after one year, and he and Bubba end up in the Army together.  It’s not Bubba who teaches Forrest about shrimpin’ . . . it’s a Vietnamese man he meets during the war.

5. Bubba does die in the war, and Forrest does end up giving his shrimp company to Bubba’s family, and some employees.

6. Forrest also has more jobs in the book . . . including astronaut, chess champion, and a professional wrestler called “The Dunce”.  He also plays the monster in a “Creature from the Black Lagoon” remake starring RAQUEL WELCH.

7. Forrest learns how to play chess from the chief of a cannibal tribe he spends time with after his mission to Mars with an orangutan named Sue.

8. By the end of the book, Forrest still has Sue by his side.  He’s working as a one-man band in Savannah, Georgia, where he reunites with Jenny and meets his son Forrest Jr.

9. But they don’t end up together.  Instead, Forrest and his ape settle in New Orleans, where he continues performing for change.

10. And Jenny doesn’t die . . . she marries another man.  In fact, she actually left Forrest while pregnant with Forrest Jr. because she saw him kissing another girl.

Interesting!!!!!  Here are some of our favorite quotes from the movie!