Trigger had a big impact on my taste in cars with the Trans Ams of the late 70s being my favorite. MN12 Thunderbirds had the same appeal to me, for similar reasons. Smokey and the Bandit is a 1977 American road action comedy film starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams and Mike Henry. Of course, it's difficult to asses whether these small decals did something to change buyer perception about the Trans Am, but it's an interesting part of the Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am's history. In its place was the nonsensical scum bum. The voice over actor? Well, the Corvettes success is clearly due to Corvette Summer, @Jim I remember that movie! The movie is responsible for something, by 1979 Pontiac was selling 100,000 plus Trans Ams, not the whole Firebird line, JUST Trans Ams, Pontiac sold more T/As in 1979 than any of the cheaper Firebirds combined, Smokey and the Bandit had to have a hand in that. Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Jerry Reed) drives the truck while his good buddy Bo "Bandit" Darville (Reynolds) serves as the "blocker," a fast car used to divert police attention away from payload. It airs on cable tv all the time. If they werent burning candles to an image of a cowboy hatted Burt Reynolds at Pontiac headquarters. I only got one of them LOL. News . The other range car was a Chevette for people that wanted to learn on a manual transmission. Two units were 1974 models, as evidenced by standard silver Kenworth emblems on the truck grille, and one unit was a 1973 model, as evidenced by the gold-painted Kenworth emblem on the truck's grille, signifying Kenworth's 50 years in business. As Fred Flintstone was modeled off Ralph Kramden, the Jackie Gleason character from the 1950s television showThe Honeymooners, the tone and intonation of the dubbing was highly convincing. I always think scumbum because when I watched it as a kid in the early 90s, it was usually on TBS. [4] Just two days before production was to begin, Universal sent a "hatchet man" to Atlanta to inform Needham that the budget was being trimmed by $1 million. During their run, they are pursued by Texas county sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason). Nuts about any form of classic motorsport and muscle cars, Ciprian's currently working on a time machine that would take him back to the 1960s for a long vacation alongside Dan Gurney and Jim Hall. I did help a friend rebuild a late 60s 400 to replace the anemic 301 in his 79, Trans Am. I think you may be confusing the movie Honky-Tonk Freeway with the filming done during I-75 construction near Sarasota. Lets take a look at some more cars found in the movie. . An effort to recreate a jump from Smokey and the Bandit doesn't go perfectly when the car takes a rough course off the ramp. In 1978, Pontiac delivered 93,351 Trans Ams and 93,944 regular Firebirds for a grand total of 187,295 cars. As Frog leaves, we are introduced to Sheriff Buford T. Justice, played by Jackie Gleason. He contacted Pontiac and an agreement was made that four 1977 Trans Ams and two Pontiac LeMans four-door sedans would be provided for the movie. When I was a kid, there was an old record from the 50s around the house that was a collection of radio and tv bloopers. One was a radio ad for a movie that went something like: . Five-string banjo player Bobby Thompson is prominent toward the end of "East Bound and Down". The cop cars with the hood scoops were ex-DeKalb County (Georgia) cruisers. a custom mandrel bent dual exhaust, and the Mondello bottom end plate to stabilize the windowed mains. Reynolds is referenced by name in several early episodes of the series. I've heard . Smokey and the Bandit II is a 1980 American action comedy film directed by Hal Needham, and starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, . Only one survived, and it's priceless. His expletive is obscured when a passing big rig sounds its horn. I never understood why dragging a truckload of beer from Colorado to Georgia was such a big deal. The little packy there had Coors and even though it was horribly expensive, we thought it was the elixer of the Gods. Set with his . Gleasons Justice is the stereotypical Southern sheriff, as seen in this clip. The hood scoop on these cars says "6.6 LITRE", which, in 1977, would have denoted an Oldsmobile 403-equipped car or a non-W-72, 180 hp version of the 400 Pontiac engine. I certainly hope the guy hired to drive that 74 Ford Torino wagon was paid well for his work. During a Q&A session on Saturday, filmed by ComicBook.com, a fan asked how many Trans Ams they burned through during production. Of course, we could argue that Needham could have used the engine note of a Pontiac GTO from the golden muscle car, but the 1955 Custom recordings were probably readily available, and he just didn't need the hassle. In response, Needham told Reed that he liked the song so much that if Reed changed even a word or a note, Needham would "choke him". S&TB was filmed primarily off Route 400 in Georgia. Its amazing, you should watch it. For a little visual variety of sorts, and possibly an indicator of what car was about to be wrecked, the producers did branch out to use the 1975-era Plymouth Fury as another police car. S&B is one of my all-time favorite movies and Im not apologizing. Smokey & The Bandit was the first of three movies in that franchise. Actor Henry Corden, who voiced Fred Flintstone after original performer Alan Reed died the same year the film was released, was used to replace a considerable amount of Sheriff Justice's dialogue. The decals were changed to 1977-style units, as evidenced by the engine size callouts on the hood scoop being in liters rather than cubic inches, as had been the case in 1976. Sheriff Justices son, Junior. When Smokey and the Bandit first aired on American network television in the early 1980s, censors were faced with the challenge of toning down the raw language of the original film. This gives rise to various continuity errors with Justice's patrol car, which during some chase sequences is shown with a black rear fender, which then reverts to the car's bronze color again in later scenes. It cornered amazingly well for such a large car, but the posi rear end emitted ominous sounds so I passed on it (I was in college and didnt have any place to do major repairs). Jason, Using the words nuance, subtlety, complexity and intellect to describe this movie, is, as they say, trs amusant! I remember borrowing my brothers red 1976 T/A to take a girl to the theater to see Smokey and the Bandit. For this purpose, they overdubbed dialogue deemed offensive, which was common practice. Its W.W. Pontiac gave Needham a total of four cars, three to use in the movie, and one as a promotional vehicle to drive around and advertise Smokey and the Bandit following its release. As luck and script writing would have it, Frog has left her groom at the altar. . A 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville, seen toward the end of the movie. Filmmakers destroyed 230 cars in the filming of 'Furious 7.' Smokey And The Bandit: A Car-chase Classic. The 1978 Trans Am is an exact duplicate of the "Smokey and the Bandit" movie car, finished in black and gold with a screaming chicken on the hood. Well, they simply considered that the Trans Am didn't sound intimidating enough. Get ready to tear up the highway with the Bandit (Burt Reynolds), a fun-loving, fast-talking trucker who takes on his craziest haul yet - delivering 400 case. Despite growing up next to Cape, most of relatives are from the Mid-South. Some of the more recent DVD releases of it redid all of the engine sounds and it sounds much more mellow than the original(not happy about that). No more needs to be said. Ive since read on the internet that it wasnt illegal so much as a practical thing with it being shipped in refrigerated trucks. Not all the police cars had hood scoops. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cODPt3T0cHE, We got a cage strong enough to hold you I dont know if Ive ever seen the unedited version though, so I never realized the orignal phrase was sum bitch, I always assumed it was worse. ARRGH! The 1977 model wasn't out yet when filming began, so General Motors provided 1976 cars with front clips from the soon-to-be-released 1977 update. So many classic quotes in this movie. That girl from the McCoys video probably looks like Paula Deen now. While Sheriff Justice doesnt deal well with the pressures of high speed pursuit, as seen above, his Pontiac LeMans (CC here) withstands the most abuse of any car in this entire movie. The Trans Am was a high-performance package for the Firebird, Pontiac's take on the Chevrolet Camaro. As I did Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. I started cruising through EBay and the next thing I knew I won the auction for a clean 400/4 speed/T-Top 78 Trans Am. Except that shes not sagging. And theres this nugget from the director of the coming new Shazam movie; I first watched Smokey on quiet swing shifts from the drivers seat of a 1977 Pontiac Le Mans patrol car, parked by thr back fence of the drive-in theater at the far end of town. I will confess that by the time this movie was out, I was a Mopar guy. We stopped in that same Safeway later on the way back home from southern Cal, and they had a huge display of cases of Coors out on the floor near the checkstands. I own all three films on a dvd called the Smokey and The Bandit Pursuit Pack. I developed a pretty good bootheel accent during my time in New Madrid. I remember reading somewhere that one of the cars was equipped with a 455 for some of the higher speed scenes. In 1991, it was arranged for orchestra by Crafton Beck and recorded by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra for their album Down on the Farm. Car movies are notorious for being tough on the very vehicles that give them their allure. Gleason probably wanted too much money to provide the dubbing, which is a shame because it ruins the TV version. The Kenworth even achieves a trifecta of sorts, as it gave the first dent to Sheriff Justices LeMans. I grew up in Illinois, within eyeshot of the banks of the MIssissippi River, and ten miles from Cape Girardeau, Missouri. A blackguard? Great write up. Duarte or maybe ir was Arcadia , it was white with a red & blue pinstripe , we dropped $400 (an ungodly sum back then) on a re paint and pin striping but could _not_ sell that wretched POC , it took us two years IIRC . This phrase achieved a level of popularity with children and the 2007 Hot Wheels release of the 1970s Firebird Trans Am has "scum bum" emblazoned on its tail. Additionally, he can give you several reasons why theres still no replacement for displacement. The dubbed version isnt as bad as the Remastered Blu-ray. Let me get the popcorn for this one. So these kind of represented a rebellion attitude to the government mandated diesel econo hatches everyone thought we were going to be forced to drive in the 80sinterestingly 1979 was also the best year for the Corvette too. The trip to Texarkana is uneventful; soon after leaving for the return trip to Georgia, The Bandit encounters Frog, played by Sally Field. The Burdettes' car is a 1974 Cadillac Eldorado convertible painted in a "Candy Red" color scheme and is seen briefly at the beginning of the movie and in the final scene as the Bandit, the Snowman, Fred the dog, and Frog use it to make their escape. I recall reading somewhere that the Trans Am that did the bridge jump had a tweaked Chevy 350 in it with a stick, and of course that it was WO after the jump. Nah, they survived by coming up with bras with very thin cups. Now, having only three Trans Ams to wreck for a movie is minimalist, to say the least. So lets explore this car (and truck) heavy flick, all while giving those who have not seen it a glimpse into a movie whose complexity and intellect remains unparalleled within the history of cinema. 5. However, the scene where they drive through the Shell gas station was filmed in Ojai, California, on the corner of Ojai Avenue and El Paseo Road. Some weren't that lucky and were discontinued altogether. Want proof? From what I have read the artist did the poster rendering from some blown up stills that he was shown from the movie, and none of them for some mysterious reason included the Trans Am, the truck, Reynolds, Gleason, Sally Field, crashing police cars, but no T/A. The directorial debut of stuntman Hal Needham, the film follows Bo "Bandit" Darville (Reynolds) and Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Reed), two bootleggers attempting to illegally transport 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta. Great fun! I know, Ive owned a 75 for 23 years. Jana, another oddity was that I could go to Carbondale and be asked where down south I was from. This was the lull between Gas Crisis I and II, 1976-78, and Boomers were wanting stylish cars. The scene where Sheriff Justice's car has the door knocked off by a passing semi-truck was shot on Georgia State Route 75, 3 miles (4.8km) north of Helen. With Reynolds agreement to do the movie, and his insistence upon casting Gleason as Sheriff Justice, the movie became a larger venture. Free shipping for many products! That came out in 1981. The production team wrecked three for the four cars it received from Pontiac. Ironically I never really cared all that much for Coors, I dont think it has much flavor, but it was well received when we got to Kentucky. Thanks for this, Jason. That said, an uncomplimentary accent does exist. The story replaced the Coors beer with Mobil 1 products. They quickly escape in one of Big Enos's 13 Cadillacs as police flood the racetrack. According to an interview with Susie McIver Ewing on The RetroZest Podcast, she was picked to play the role of Hot Pants Hilliard after the dailies footage (shot in the Atlanta area) of the original actress playing the role was inadvertently destroyed on its way from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Likely this isnt any rare engine venting package, but I could be wrong. [10], Principal photography of the film began on August 30, 1976. Please to note I didnt say _I_ didnt like them as I was in my 20s then (early 1970s) so I hustled my self and my Russian girlfriend right on down to the cinema every time Burt Reynolds had a new flick , I personally loved his movies even the chick flicks like The Man Who Loved Women , I just had to hear earfuls from everyone else about how awful he / those movies were.. We even bought one of those Pontiac Police Specials on auction from. [4] Reynolds said in 2015 that he most enjoyed this film, and had the most fun making it, of his career.[26]. The worldwide gross is estimated at over $300 million. Most reports of his death still didnt have that right! Somehow this store had a regular supply. The three original films introduced two generations of the Pontiac Trans Am and the Dodge Stealth in the television movies. Called Smoke is the Bandit and playing on Stewart's nickname, the commercials featured him as the Bandit opposite commentators Darrell Waltrip as the Snowman and Jeff Hammond as Buford T. Justice. However, as our heroes were successful in delivering their truckload of Coors, the writers effectively poised themselves for a sequel. Mines never gone away, especially now that I spend every thee month in Memphis. Reynolds and Needham owned the Skoal Bandit team at the time, so getting these other drivers to appear probably would not taken much more than a six pack of beer and a hug from co-star Loni Anderson . Sonny Shroyer (Enos) was the motorcycle cop who was given the 1-finger salute by Sally Field. Reynolds actively pushed for her casting after Universal initially resisted, claiming Field was not attractive enough. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Another one is, Theres no way youre from my loins.. If you watched any of these clips, you heard a goodly number of phrases that still cannot be used on television in the United States. Two of the most high-octane films of 2015, Mad Max: Fury Road and Furious 7, each burned through hundreds (Furious 7 alone destroyed a reported 230 cars), but theyre far from the first to do so. I remember that it had a bunch of trim badges on the center of the dashboard. Yet when I think of a 70s T/A, thats the one I and Im sure millions of other folks think of. Frederick Amon smuggled it from Colorado to North Carolina and sold it for four times the retail price.[19]. 3-Smokey and the Bandit 3-A crime against humanity, not even LSD can make it watchable since you spend the whole night fighting imaginary flying cobras with Jackie Gleasons head on them. Below is probably another DeKalb County cop car. The Trans Am used in the movie was a 1976 model with the front end of a 1977 car. [31] Smokey and the Bandit was released in the United Kingdom on August 28 and was a success there, garnering positive reviews. All I know is, at the time, if you lived in the east, Coors was some really special beer not unlike microbrews are now. You might think that seeing their cars routinely destroyed on movie screens across the country would give the manufacturer pause, but that is not the case at all. Jackie Gleasons Buford T. Justice character is a supposedly an amalgamation of a few characters, including the real Buford T. Justicethere is obviously the Dodge safety sheriff from the 1970s ads, Burt Reynolds father was chief of police of Jupiter Florida, and a friend of his fathers, a Florida Highway Patrol officer was actually the REAL Buford T. Justice. It was something regarding distribution limits. Conversely, I could go to Paducah and be asked where up north I was from. With four miles left, Bandit, discouraged by the unexpected mounting attention, is ready to give up, but Snowman, who initially thought they would fail, takes the lead and smashes through the roadblock at the fairgrounds' main entrance. It was the second-highest-grossing movie of 1977 after Star Wars. The three movie cars were destroyed during various stunts, so the promo car is the only surviving Trans Am connected to this film. If you notice there are several different angled skid marks on the road in the scene where the Bandit picks up Frog, you can see that they did a couple of takes of the T/A skidding to a stop and taking off again. The movies are rated PG with a run time of 282 minutes and released to video by Universal Studios. I dont know if I ever saw one in real life at the time, although I was pretty young then. radio to help him out. The film was followed by two sequels: Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983). Did I mention how much I enjoy reading all the back stories and niggly details I can only get here ? AWESOME! A guy we knew drove his half-ton pickup from western WA to his reserve 2-week stint in his home state in California. It made no sense to me as it was fifty miles north and fifty miles south. That parking lot was full of Trans Ams! The Bandit's car was a second-generation Trans Am and the prize for completing the run was a new truck rather than $80,000. I thought at the time that it was a newer version of White Lightning (also with Burt Reynolds) and that Smokey would be forgotten just as soon. The change was somewhat strange as most automakers were using cubic-inch numerals to advertise engines. From living there for my first two decades, I noticed the accent didnt get going good until around Sikeston (not Saxton as it would seem) and it progressed as you went deeper into the Bootheel. Needham stated that by the end of production, there really wasnt much left of any of the three. Revisit this scene featuring "East Bound and. There was a problem. Cape was far enough north that it was watered down and there was so much cross-pollination with the Illinois side you really didnt discern much difference. The roller coaster in the movie was the Greyhound. As I am finishing this article while Big Truck Week is winding down, here is a Kenworth with a 1973 Dodge Polara patrol car. Not that Id kick either front end style out of the garage for dripping oil, as long as they dont have the 403 in them anyway. Somewhere along the line, the company acquired a new president who told Reynolds: Im the new president, and I dont like your movies. One of our favorite movies. "Buford T. Justice" was the name of a real Florida Highway Patrolman known to Reynolds' father, who was once Police Chief of Riviera Beach, Florida. I imagine that they borrowed some of the character from Sheriff JW Pepper from the 1973 and 1974 James Bond movies, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. Burt Reynolds' 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am Sold for $240,000. Here is the LeMans; Gleason literally drives the wheels off: As an aside, heres a curious bit of trivia. I was in the Air Force during this era, stationed in California. A dastardly scoundrel? It had an AM transmitter and you would tune in the sound on your AM car radio, or on my case, on a transistor radio. Gator , Stroker Ace , lots of them . Some people have ripped this film as being thin on plot; others have called it a documentary about life south of the Mason-Dixon Line. It consists of any of the various Louisiana-style hot sauces on Texas toast-style bread alongside the fourth most famous product of Pittsburg, Texas (behind Pilgrim's Pride, Cavender's, and Carroll Shelby)Pittsburg Hot Links. how many cars were destroyed in smokey and the bandit 2. Hal Needham did pass away as someone earlier said. This small modification was made to remind viewers of Trans Am models from 1969, which had in excess of 300 horsepower. Oh, and a hooker girlfriend that looked like Annie Potts. Alan Reed was the original voice of Fred Flintstone; Henry Corden only took over after Reeds death in 1977. As a kid that T/A, the General Lee, and KITT were largely responsible for defining my taste in cars and that carries through to today. . The 1977 Firebird Trans Am once owned by Burt Reynolds was sold at auction Saturday for $495,000 at a sale held by Barrett-Jackson. Gleason has a treasure trove of hilarious lines and it was this movie that started my love affair of cars back in the early 1980s. Since mentioning the Kenworth, it must be noted it was a redecorator of the highest fashion. She is a runaway bride, sitting on the side of the road in her 1973 Chevrolet Impala coupe. Heres how it works. That song often pops into my head at the start of long drives. Burt Reynolds may be 79, but he shows no signs of slowing down. In a rare public appearance, Burt Reynolds revealed how many cars they wrecked making Smokey and Just like the exaggeration sales went up 700%. Bandit attracts more police attention across Dixie as Snowman barrels on toward Atlanta with the contraband beer, but they are helped en route by many colorful characters via CB radio. "Smokey and the Bandit Pursuit Pack" is formatted as a box set that in presented in full color in widescreen. Regular film-goers might not pay much attention to the car's engine sound, but gearheads will quickly notice that something is off. By the end of June, it had played in major Southern markets, including Charlotte, Atlanta, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Memphis, Dallas, and Oklahoma City, grossing $11.9 million. On top of Burt Reynold's top-notch acting, Smokey and the Bandit is also famous for the Pontiac Trans Am that the actor drove throughout the film. And Coors itself limited its distribution to west of the Mississippi. This movie just showed how much an urban legend the supposed unobtainability had become. For Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), Needham asked for and received 10 Trans Ams and 55 Bonnevilles with no trouble. Coors wasnt pasteurized. (it did taste a lot better than Bud as I recall). Reed also penned and performed the song for the opening credits, entitled "The Legend", which tells of some of the Bandit's escapades before the events of the film, and the ballad "The Bandit", which is in several versions in the movie and on the soundtrack. Thats all true. He paid $550,000 for it, likely a record for any Pontiac Firebird. Justice. Behind Sheriff Justices Pontiac, there is a nice looking 1965 or 1966 Ford Mustang fastback and a Toyota pickup.