Goofs

When Esther and Tootie perform "Under the Bamboo Tree", Tootie's bedroom slippers are pink at the beginning of the number but change to blue in the "cake walk" finale.

As Esther comes down the stairs to the party in the parlor (with John Truett as one of the guests), she passes by the grandfather clock on the landing. In the shot just before coming to the landing, the pendulum is swinging. In the next shot, Esther is on the landing, and the pendulum is stopped.

In an early scene, feathers and down can be seen floating all over the set, left over from the upcoming winter scenes.

In the supper scene when they are trying to rush the meal so that Rose can take her long distance call in private, Katie the maid serves Mr. Smith his soup. The bowl looks completely empty through the whole scene until Katie comes to pick up the bowl. At that point, it is full of brightly-colored soup.

The piece of cake that Mr. Smith eats for Halloween dessert starts out flat and later grows into a wedge.

During the Trolley Song, the location of the fair was mentioned to be Huntington Park. The actual location of the World's Fair was Forest Park.

When one of the girls in Esther's group of friends going to the Fairgrounds says the site must look like a fairy land, one of the boys tells her the fair won't open for six months. This scene took place in the "Summer 1903" act of the film. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition opened in St. Louis in April of 1904. If the fair wouldn't open for six months, the excursion of Esther's friends to the fairgrounds should have been sometime in November of 1903.

The "Trolley Song" sequence shows an ornate double deck streetcar .St. Louis never used such cars.The car seems to have been copied from a Sandiego car very similar in appearance to the one in the movie,and of the same period.

In his opening scene, 'Mr. Alonzo Smith' (Leon Ames) states that the World's Fair will not open for another seven months. In a subsequent scene, 'Rose Smith' (Lucille Bremer) is finishing an invitation to their new neighbor, 'John Truitt' (Tom Drake), which is dated August 30, 1903. That Sunday was exactly eight months before the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, on Saturday, April 30, 1904.

It is often incorrectly claimed that an off screen male voice calls out "Hiya, Judy" (referring to actress Judy Garland instead of her character, Esther). The voice actually says "Hiya, Johnny". This refers to Tom Drake's character, John Truett, who has been trying to catch the trolley and apparently just made it. As soon as the line is delivered, Esther looks expectantly screen right, but John is not seen until the end of the trolley song sequence.

Early in the movie the father mentions the Baltimore Orioles. By mid-1903 (the approximate time at the beginning of this movie) while there was no major league team named the Baltimore Orioles there was a AAA team the Baltimore Orioles. In fact when the movie was filmed, the Baltimore Orioles still did not exist as a major league team (would join the American League in 1954, coincidentally moving from St. Louis where they were the St. Louis Browns).

There are no footprints in the snow in the winter scene, and there is not enough snow to have allowed the children to have made snowmen without leaving any trace of the snow being rolled into place.

In the scene where Esther and John are turning out the lights in the house, the exterior lights representing moonlight come up faster than the interior lights are extinguished.

When Esther and John are turning out the lights in the house, knobs on the chandelier show that it was electrical with bulbs removed, although they're supposed to be gas lights.

When Katie is about to serve the soup to Tootie there is a splash mark already in her bowl showing that she had already been served soup in a previous shot.

Although set at the turn of the century, and with very authentic sets and costumes, all of the women inexplicably have mid-'40s hairstyles.

The family sings "Meet Me In St. Louis" in 1903, but it wasn't published until 1904.

At one point in the movie, Tootie ( Margaret O'Brien) sings the title line of a popular hymn, "Brighten the Corner Where You Are"; this hymn was not published until 1913, ten years after Tootie sang it.

The lyrics of the song "Over the Banisters" sung by Esther and Truett is a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox not published until 1917, 14 years after the scene is dated.

When Rose accompanies Esther's singing on the piano, sometimes the position of her hands doesn't correlate with the sounds heard.

When Esther is comforting Tootie after Tootie's attack on the snow people, the shadow of the boom mike moves onto Tootie's back.

At the beginning of the film, when Grandpa is smoking a pipe in a fez in the kitchen, the reflection of a light can be seen in the window to his left.

Various scenes include views of mountains. However, St. Louis is in the middle of the prairie and does not have any mountain ranges nearby or visible.

A boom mic shadow is visible on the carriage when the family is leaving to go to the fair.

Though spelled 'Truett' in the film's credits, John's surname is misspelled as 'Truitt' in Rose's handwritten invitation to Lon's farewell party.

On Halloween night, Agnes and Tootie walk up to the children having the bonfire. When they ask who it is, Agnes incorrectly says, "It's me! Angus!"