Trivia for
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Producers pitched the movie idea to studios as: "Six words: Will Ferrell as a NASCAR driver."
  
  
• In the mini-documentary about Jean Girard, you can hear Gregory, Jean's husband, refer to the German Shepherds he is training as "Brigitta", "Marta", and "Rolfe the Nazi boyfriend". These are names of characters from The Sound of Music.
  
  
• The car that Reese Bobby drives over the course of the entire film is a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu.
  
  
• The pace car used in the final race after the crash is a blue Ford Mustang GT with white, over-the-top Indy racing stripes.
  
  
• The first 400,000 PlayStation 3 systems included a Blu-ray copy of the movie, a month before the DVD release.
  
  
• Wonder Bread, Old Spice, and Perrier were not charged for their product placement in the movie. Old Spice and Wonder Bread promoted the movie through back-end deals while Perrier was not required to take any action despite its presence in the movie. In addition, Ferrell showed up to many public appearances in his Wonder Bread uniform at no additional charge to the company.
  
  
• NASCAR officials objected to the original title of Talladega Nights, so the working title was then changed to the name of the production company, High, Wide, and Handsome. Loud and Proud also was considered. Following a brief phase in which the movie did not have a title, the film eventually reverted to its original title.
  
  
• Will Ferrell offered a role to Steve Carell, but Carell couldn't accept due to scheduling conflicts.
  
  
• In the movie, Jamie McMurray drives the #42 car and Ricky Bobby drives the #26. Following the 2004 season, Jamie McMurray left the #42 team to take over the #97 - which was then changed to the #26. The old spice car which is driven by Cal Naughton Jr is actually driven by Tony Stewart in the Nascar Busch Series.
  
  
• Jean Girard is said to have dominated the Formula One circuit, followed by a clip of the sport. The black F1 car which is supposed to be Jean is Gianmaria Bruni's Minardi Cosworth PS04B (now Scuderia Toro Rosso) and a backmarker, while the blue car following closely is the Mild Seven Renault F1 R24 of Jarno Trulli coming around to lap him at the 2004 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring. Ironically, Minardi has never had a podium finish in its history.
  
  
• Ricky Bobby drives the No. 26 car. When he drives at Rockingham Test Track, Lucius tells Larry Dennit, Jr. that Ricky's speed is 26 mph.
  
  
• The young woman who plays the artist during the brunch scene at the French driver's house is actually the artist of that painting. She was commissioned to do the painting and was then asked if she would play the artist in the film.
  
  
• The second NASCAR-based film that John C. Reilly has been in. The other was 1990s Days of Thunder (1990), with Tom Cruise.
  
  
• Ricky Bobby's driver's license is shown to have been issued on July 16, which is Will Ferrell's birthday. The license also states that Ricky was born on July 16, 1971.
  
  
• Gary Cole and Jane Lynch portray Will Ferrell's parents, despite being only 11 and 7 years older, respectively.
  
  
• The car driven by Reese Bobby is an homage to Curtis Turner's 1967 Daytona 500 car designed by Smokey Yunick. This car was a 7/8 scale model of a regular Chevelle that enable Turner to have an advantage on the field. The car was banned by NASCAR thus starting Smokey's tenuous relationship with NASCAR.
  
  
• Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) and his husband Gregory (Andy Richter) both voiced lemurs (King Julien and Mort, respectively) in Madagascar (2005) and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008).
  
  
• When Ricky gets out of the hospital and sees that Jean Girard has replaced him as the lead driver the song that can be heard is "Marie Douceur, Marie Colère", or "Paint it Black", sang in French by Marie Laforêt.
  
  
• Jean Girad points out that the French gave the world the philosophy of Existentialism. Later he is seen reading L'Etranger (The Stranger), a famous 1942 novel, written by Existentialist writer Albert Camus, that included many Existentialist ideas in it, in his car while racing.
  
  
• When Ricky meets Reese Bobby for the first time as an adult Reese is drinking Laughing Clown Malt Liquor which is the sponsor of Ricky's car when he first becomes a driver.
  
  
• There is about half a second of footage that reveals 12"-18" radio controlled cars were used on a large set to film some of the footage. Most probably the night time footage.
  
  
• Some of the big car crash stunts were done for real, using explosive jacks that were later erased using computer graphics. The pipe and plate footing for the gag are shown falling away from the car(s) in un-processed scenes.
  
  
• The audio commentary on the DVD version is just one long improvisation of largely false and silly observations.
  
  

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