Gleason was given free rein to ad-lib dialogue and make suggestions. radio to help him out. I loved the fact that Jackie Gleasons brown Lemans had a blue vinyl interior and it even had the luxury cushion steering wheel! 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. This was the lull between Gas Crisis I and II, 1976-78, and Boomers were wanting stylish cars. The cars were originally ordered by a car rental agency in Phoenix, who refused to accept the . Back then if Ida wanted an ex Police Car its be a CHP salvage Dodge or Plymouth ~ BIG roomy and _comfy_ , handled well and went like stink . Sure Smokey helped, but was not the sole reason T/A and F body sales went up. In the U.K., the heavily dubbed version was shown for several years, particularly by the BBC. Gleason was a genius, but this was not one of his better outings I prefer the Hustler and Gigot. Round and dumpy, just like the Colonnade LeMans! The value of their stock rose a startling 70 percent after the films release, and to show their appreciation to Reynolds, the president said they would give the actor a new car each and every year. Anyway, on the trip east, we stopped at a grocery in Topeka, Kansas and bought 16-18 cases of Coors, all that we had room for in the car. Out of four Trans Ams used for the filming of Smokey And The Bandit, three were completely totaled in the process. Car movies are notorious for being tough on the very vehicles that give them their allure. The man does get around. It took four evenings to see almost all of the movie in bits and pieces. The differences between the two are major. They called out equipment like Radial Tuned Suspension, Calibrated Speedometer, and Power Disc Brakes. Maybe even the dual exhausts and the 400-4 merited badges. Required fields are marked *. His father was also the inspiration for the word "sumbitch" used in the film, a variation of the phrase "son-of-a-bitch" that, according to Reynolds, he uttered quite often. Smokey and the Bandit was all realistic and non fictional, and it still was a big hit that brought a lot of money to Hal Needham and the actors, to pay Pontiac back. I have worked a long time to eradicate the one I had but it still crops up periodically from exposure, like you experienced. Burt Reynolds plays truck driver Bo Bandit Darville. Naturally, it fetched the highest price with a . According to director Hal Needham in the DVD documentary, Pontiac gave them three Trans-Ams and two LeMans (Sheriff Justice's patrol car) for the film. By the film's ending, the final surviving Trans Am and LeMans were both barely running and the other cars had become parts donors to keep them running. Below is probably another DeKalb County cop car. Jackie Gleason ad libbed a lot of his lines too. Another one is, Theres no way youre from my loins.. Its W.W. I have at least 4 really good car buddies that will from time to time love popping this movie in to watch. You will receive a verification email shortly. However, the scene and the obscured expletive were played for comedy value and written as such, with the passing truck being the gag of the scene more than a way to avoid the censors. Check out the entire video below. Pontiac should have made a radio that played that song automatically simply by pushing a button, or maybe made it the horn sound. 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. [23] It then opened in just the South of the United States over the Memorial Day weekend and grossed $2,689,851 in 386 theaters. 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. 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). a custom mandrel bent dual exhaust, and the Mondello bottom end plate to stabilize the windowed mains. Learn how your comment data is processed. Actually, there were 2 future Dukes stars in the movie: Ben Jones (Cooter) was in an early scene helping Big Enos find Bandit. Smokey and the Bandit star Burt Reynolds passed away in 2018 . Starring Bob Hope, that comedic star of the screen, and the lovely Jane Russell boy what a pair! I never forgot that one. I remember that it had a bunch of trim badges on the center of the dashboard. Unfortunately he passed away a few months ago or that would have been a great question to ask. Whaddya expect outta a guy what drives a conversion van? "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. The story replaced the Coors beer with Mobil 1 products. (first posted 2/28/2014) The fourth highest grossing film in the United States in 1977 was the Academy Award nominatedSmokey & The Bandit. Weve got a long way to go and a short time to get there A guy we knew drove his half-ton pickup from western WA to his reserve 2-week stint in his home state in California. ARRGH! Additionally, he can give you several reasons why theres still no replacement for displacement. The LeMans police car did nothing for me because there was a colonnade LeMans sedan in the garage at home. It made no sense to me as it was fifty miles north and fifty miles south. Got Greyhound cutout decals on the rear side windows. As a former Club Wagon pilot, I happen to like his Econoline. Launched on the big screen in 1977, Smokey and the Bandit revolves around two bootleggers as they attempt to illegally transport 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta. It became Reed's signature song and is on multiple albums, including Country Legends and his live album Jerry Reed "Live!" For Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), Needham asked for and received 10 Trans Ams and 55 Bonnevilles with no trouble. 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. 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. Gas was a buck a gallon at the time so fuel economy wasnt a major issue. American Brands: AMC, Jeep and All Others, Tractors, Lawn Mowers, Off-Road Equipment, CC Outtake: The CC House, and With a New Recent Exotic Addition, CC TV Outtake: This Used Car Commercial Didn't Make It On The Air, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cODPt3T0cHE. The three movie cars were destroyed during various stunts, so the promo car is the only surviving Trans Am connected to this film. A group of Trans Am owners and fans of the movie take part in an annual road trip from Texarkana to Jonesboro, recreating the route taken by the characters in the film. Im probably in the minority as usual, but I prefer the Black and Gold 50th Anne. This is obvious, because there is no fuel tank on the underside of the trailer to power the refrigeration unit, and the unit is never heard running. All I know is, at the time, if you lived in the east, Coors was some really special beer not unlike microbrews are now. 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". The theme music "East Bound and Down" was sung and co-written by Reed (credited under his birth name, Jerry Hubbard) and Dick Feller. In my area, nearly every one listed is an ex cop car. Its weird how it works. 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. Just after re-entering Georgia, Snowman is rescued by Bandit after being stopped by a Georgia State Patrol motorcycle trooper, and state and local police intensely pursue Bandit with roadblocks and a helicopter to track his movement. Despite growing up next to Cape, most of relatives are from the Mid-South. At one point in the movie, the Bandit wrecks a police car. February 27, 2023 . Probably the most famous TV edit of all time is I have had it with these monkey-fightin snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!. When Im driving the Bandit Trans Am while playing one of my many Forza Motorsport games I always put that song on. The original film had correct sounds that were usually recorded live as the action took place. My favorite would have been an ex-WSP 1970 Plymouth they were all Fury IIIs, white on blue with factory air and 440s under the hood; but none ever turned up when I was buying. While the Snowman drives the truck carrying the beer, the Bandit drives a Pontiac Trans Am to distract law enforcement (called blocking) and keep the attention off the Snowman. Thats all true. 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. and used hard. . "Smokey and the Bandit" stars Burt Reynolds, Sally . AWESOME! [5] Reynolds revealed in his autobiography that Needham had written the first draft script on legal pads. How many smokey and the bandit movies are there? Oh, and a hooker girlfriend that looked like Annie Potts. There was a problem. The little packy there had Coors and even though it was horribly expensive, we thought it was the elixer of the Gods. The movies are rated PG with a run time of 282 minutes and released to video by Universal Studios. While I have read undocumented accounts of there being more than three Trans Ams, Needham stated three is all that were used. I was just tweaking Jason. 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. Heres how it works. Depends upon what he converted it from. In Smokey and the Bandit, there were eight 1977 Trans-Am cars and approximately the same number of police cars (but some said ten). . The film's editors, Walter Hannemann and Angelo Ross, were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. Coors wasnt pasteurized. . 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. The Pontiac Trans Am seems like a natural choice for Smokey and the Bandit, but the car was only a few inches close to not being used in the movie. WildI watched this for the first time in years after watching the latest Archer.the whole thing is an homage to S&B. As luck and script writing would have it, Frog has left her groom at the altar. Many hardcore fans of Burt Reynolds' most iconic movie, 1977's "Smokey and The Bandit," know that none of those cool black Pontiac Trans Ams with gold trim survived the stunts in the film. Nothing annoys him more than car electronics, and he just hates it when performance cars lack a third pedal. If you watched the second clip above, this truck should look familiar. 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. The rub? 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. [5], Universal Studios bankrolled Smokey and the Bandit for $5.3 million, figuring it was a good risk. Ive always wanted some sort of de-commission/ex unmarked cop car, something from the 70s preferably. [30] Upon meeting Reynolds, Billy Bob Thornton told him that the South considers the film to be less cinema and more documentary. With the Smokey and the Bandit actor gone, and the impact the actor had on the Trans Am community, having one of the few connections to him destroyed is too much. Have the movie, cheesy as hell, but does have appearances by several NASCAR drivers of the day, including Dale Earnhardt (Senior, not Jr) Kyle Petty, Harry Gant, and one of my favorites of the era, Tim Richmond. The 1977 features rectangular quad headlamps instead of only two round lights, a unique slanted and V-shaped nose, and a center-mounted hood scoop. [9] Though the film Moonrunners (1975) is the precursor to the television series The Dukes of Hazzard (19791985), from the same creator and with many identical settings and concepts, the popularity of Smokey and the Bandit and similar films helped get the Dukes series on the air. The movie had an even bigger impact on the Trans Am. Only one survived, and it's priceless. What were the police cars in Smokey and the Bandit? Somewhere along the line, the company acquired a new president who told Reynolds: Im the new president, and I dont like your movies. With that in mind, Ill go with what Ive heard from my Georgia friends, to wit Sheriff Justices diablo sandwich is the Macon version, which is made with fried eggs and red hots. 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. That is why there are not any left. But that doesnt make for an interesting movie premise. Wouldnt the accent give you away? I have since moved on from them, mainly because in stock form, they were not particularly great cars (though good enough for the times). Yet when I think of a 70s T/A, thats the one I and Im sure millions of other folks think of. A dastardly scoundrel? One of our favorite movies. The next movie, Smokey and the Bandit II, featured the same cast and an updated version of the Trans Am.The second version of the Smokey and the Bandit car was a 1980 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that had a similar paint job, the updated front end, and gold "Turbine" style wheels.The 1980 models featured a turbocharged 4.9L Pontiac V8, but that still wasn't enough power for the stunt personnel.