According to the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation, it all started with two Americans. George Fitch and William Maloney saw a push cart derby race while in Jamaica that reminded them

of the winter sport. Fitch and Maloney realized that a big part of bobsledding is the ability of the athletes to sprint at the start, which made a light bulb

go off.

With support from the president of the Jamaica Olympic Association, Fitch and Maloney started the recruiting process. They started with track runners, but understandably had trouble getting top

athletes to switch sports. They then turned to the Jamaica Defense Force, where Colonel Ken Barnes helped organize a recruitment meeting with around 40 candidates.

At the meeting, Fitch showed footage of bobsleds crashing. The next day, only half of the group returned for trials. The team selected included three members of the army (Captain

Dudley Stokes, Lieutenant Devon Harris, Private Michael White) and one civilian, Samuel Clayton. Frederick Powell and Caswell Allen joined later, but Stokes’ brother, Chris, later replaced Allen.

The story of the underdog team from Jamaica became an international news event before the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary, and the members of the team became celebrities of the

sport. They unfortunately did not overcome the odds, and with a scary 85MPH crash out of 270-degree circular turn, their dreams of taking home at Calgary were crushed.

About a year prior, producer Dawn Steel was casting a film called “Blue Maaga,” which was supposed to be a more dramatic version of the Jamaican bobsled team’s story. According

to Entertainment Weekly, that is the script that Leon, Malik Yoba, Doug E. Doug, and Rawle D. Lewis got first.

“Dawn Steel called me on Christmas Eve of 1991 saying, ‘Hey they’re not going to make the movie, but I’m going to get this movie made’,” said Malik

Yoba (Yul Brenner). 

About 8 months later, Yoba says that a new director (Jon Turteltaub) was on board and they wanted him to come back for another screen test.

“I was sent the [Blue Maaga] script and I was quite frankly bored by it,” said Doug E. Doug (Sanka). “My family’s from Jamaica and it’s quite an

extraordinary story, but a dramatic take on it just didn’t work for me.” 

The project fell through, but like Yoba, Doug later got a call about the changes. “Apparently they decided to revisit the idea of a comedy and I was sent the

script, read it and then I met with the late, great Dawn Steel and Jon Turteltaub," he said. "I tried to push my heritage. Like most auditions, I didn’t know

if any of that was working. Then I got a call to do a screen test at some undisclosed location. It was really like a hush, hush project.”

Rawle Lewis (Junior) was an intern helping to cast the film. While going over lines with actors like he liked (including Cuba Gooding Jr. and Jeffrey Wright), he says that

he would "give them more " because he wanted them to get the parts, and that's when the Disney execs started to notice him. After a table read, he was

asked to go to a screen test but didn’t realize that it was for him.

As things started to come together with the cast, director Jon Turteltaub says that he made sure they knew they were playing real people and that the script was very

loosely based on their lives. “We would never get away today with the changes we made to the true story," he told Entertainment Weekly. 

“But at the time we just

kept refining the true story to make it into a better movie. And shape the character and the tone of it so that it played well as a movie. The

feeling is the same. The tone is the same. The ambition is the same. The absurdity was the same. And the main key events were the same.”

Turteltaub says that the controversial past of the team’s coach (played by John Candy) was “a complete fabrication” and a way of “building some depth into that movie character.” The

real life team had to go to Austria to qualify for Calgary, but Turteltaubs says there was no believable way to write that and other details into film.

"I wasn’t really playing an actual person," said Leon (Derice Bannock). "It’s inspired by the story, but the names are different, characters and additional things are different. I’ve met all

the bobsledders, but the thing is, the movie is based on that story."

A point of contention for Disney while making the film was whether or not they would use Jamaican accents. “I remember almost being fired by Jeffrey Katzenberg because he couldn’t

understand the Jamaican accents,” Turteltaub said. “He told me that unless I got the guys to speak English like Sebastian the crab from Little Mermaid, I’ll basically never work

at Disney ever again.”

The accents are a big part of why people love “Cool Runnings.” 

“The note that I got – I’ll never forget this – was that they wanted to liken me to

a black Aladdin,” Leon told Entertainment Weekly. “And I said, ‘Aladdin is not Jamaican!’ I think we did our absolute best to bridge the gap between what Disney ultimately

wanted and get as much a hint of real Jamaican as possible.”

The Jamaican phrase "Cool Runnings" was written into the script, but it didn't become the name of the film until after production wrapped. Turteltaub, Disney, and Dawn Steel are credited

with making that decision.

The cast and filmmakers knew after the test screenings that they had caught lightning in a bottle and that the film was probably going to do well. "Our first test

screening went so shockingly well with people screaming and shouting back at the screen, and cheering, and standing up and the depth and the quantity of laughter, we knew we

had touched a chord," Turteltaub said.

The New York Times called the film “slick, funny and warmhearted.” The Washington Post agreed, calling it a “wholesome, engaging, frequently hilarious, ultimately inspirational film.”

2018 marks the 25th anniversary of "Cool Runnings" and it is still regarded as one of the best non-animated Disney films of all time, appearing near the top of every

list of the most inspirational sports movies ever made. 

"I think that the movie’s just really hopeful, and it’s really funny," said Malik Yoba. "And it’s an evergreen. Each

generation can enjoy it with a fresh perspective."

If there's someone in your life who hasn't seen "Cool Runnings," then you are not doing your job as a friend or older relative. Accents and historical accuracy aside, it

is a great movie and arguably the greatest Olympic film of all time.