08/08/2024
The part about Fred🐶😂
Did you know these fun facts about the Pontiac Trans Am and Smokey and the Bandit?
🎶 Hal Needham (the director) asked Jerry Reed to write the theme song for the film. Just a couple of hours later, Reed played "East Bound and Down" for Needham. Thinking he didn’t like it, Reed offered to re-write it. Needham’s response? "If you change one note, I'll kill you!" The song became one of Reed's biggest hits.
🎬 Jackie Gleason’s café scene with Burt Reynolds wasn’t in the original story; it was Gleason's idea. Most of Sheriff Buford T. Justice's lines were improvised. He also suggested adding the Junior Justice character, saying, "I can't be in the car alone."
🚓 Buford T. Justice was a real Florida Highway Patrolman known to Burt Reynolds' father, who was once Chief of Police of Jupiter, Florida.
🍿 Smokey and the Bandit was the second-highest-grossing movie of 1977, right after Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope.
🎥 When Hal Needham originally wrote the screenplay, Jerry Reed was supposed to play the Bandit. But when Burt Reynolds heard about the film, he wanted the role, and Reed was re-cast as the Snowman.
🚗 The movie made the Pontiac Trans Am a superstar. Sales jumped from 68,745 in 1977 to 93,341 in 1978. And just one year later, that number swelled to 117,108 units sold. #
🐶 Burt Reynolds personally chose Fred, Snowman's pet basset hound, because he refused to obey commands.
🎤 In the film, Jerry Reed sings "Bandit you're reckless and you live much too hard." He then quips "I oughta be in Nashville," a nod to his fame as a country music star.
📺 Sally Field says there was no script for this movie; it was all improvised.
🚀 The film is responsible for a boom in CB radio sales, turning it into a popular pastime for drivers.
