I Am the Iconic Line Kid from the Arnold Schwarzenegger Comedy: A Candid Conversation.

The Austrian Oak is best known as an Hollywood heavyweight. But, in the midst of his cinematic dominance in the eighties and nineties, he also delivered several surprisingly great comedies. A prime example is Kindergarten Cop, which marks its three-and-a-half decade milestone this winter.

The Story and The Famous Scene

In the classic film, Schwarzenegger embodies a hardened detective who goes undercover as a elementary educator to track down a criminal. During the movie, the procedural element functions as a loose framework for the star to film humorous scenes with children. Arguably the most famous involves a child named Joseph, who spontaneously announces and states the former bodybuilder, “Males have a penis, girls have a vagina.” The Terminator deadpans, “Thank you for that information.”

The young actor was brought to life by youth performer Miko Hughes. His career featured a recurring role on Full House as the bully to the famous sisters and the character of the youngster who comes back in the film version of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. He continues to act today, with multiple films listed on his IMDb. Furthermore, he engages with fans at popular culture events. Not long ago shared his recollections from the production over three decades on.

Memories from the Set

Q: To begin, how old were you when you filmed Kindergarten Cop?

Miko Hughes: I believe I was four. I was the youngest of all the kids on set.

Wow, I have no memory from being four. Do you have any memories from that time?

Yeah, to a degree. They're brief images. They're like visual recollections.

Do you recall how you were cast in Kindergarten Cop?

My family, especially my mother would accompany me to auditions. Often it was like a cattle call. There'd be dozens of children and we'd all simply wait around, go into the room, be in there less than five minutes, deliver a quick line they wanted and that was it. My parents would feed me the lines and then, when I became literate, that was some of the first material I was reading.

Do you have any recollection of meeting Arnold? What was your feeling about him?

He was incredibly nice. He was fun. He was nice, which I suppose makes sense. It would be strange if he was unpleasant to all the kids in the classroom, that probably wouldn't make for a good work environment. He was fun to be around.

“It'd be weird if he was mean to all the kids in the classroom.”

I understood he was a big action star because my family informed me, but I had never really seen his movies. I felt the importance — it was exciting — but he didn't really intimidate me. He was just fun and I just wanted to play with him when he wasn't busy. He was occupied, of course, but he'd kind of play with us here and there, and we would hang off of his arms. He'd flex and we'd be dangling there. He was really, really generous. He gifted all the students in the classroom a yellow cassette player, which at the time was the hottest tech. That was the must-have gadget, that iconic bright yellow cassette player. I played the Power Rangers soundtrack and the Ninja Turtles soundtrack for a long time on that thing. It wore out in time. I also have a real silver whistle. He had the teacher's whistle, and the kids all received one too as well.

Do you remember your time filming as being enjoyable?

You know, it's interesting, that movie was this cultural thing. It was such a big movie, and it was a wonderful time, and you would think, looking back now, I would want my memories to be of working with Arnold, working with [director] Ivan Reitman, visiting Astoria, the production design, but my memories are of being a selective diner at lunch. For example, they got everyone pizza, but I avoided pizza. All I would eat was the meat from the top. Then, the first-generation Game Boy was brand new. That was the big craze, and I was quite skilled. I was the youngest and some of the other children would ask for my help to get past hard parts on games because I knew how, and I was really proud of that. So, it's all childhood recollections.

The Infamous Moment

OK, that specific dialogue, do you remember the context? Did you know what you were saying?

At the time, I wasn't fully aware of what the word provocative meant, but I realized it got a reaction and it made adults laugh. I knew it was kind of something I shouldn't normally say, but I was given an exception in this case because it was comedic.

“She really wrestled with it.”

How it came about, according to family lore, was they were still developing characters. Certain bits of dialogue were established early on, but once they had the whole cast on the set, it wasn't necessarily improv, but they developed it during shooting and, presumably it's either the director or producers came to my mom and said, "We have an idea. We want Miko to have this line. Are you okay with this?" My mom paused. She said, "Let me think about it, I need time" and took some time. It was a tough call for her. She said she had doubts, but she felt it would likely become one of the iconic quotes from the movie and history proved her correct.