History YMMV / OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest

* HilariousInHindsight: Creator/DannyDeVito and Creator/ChristopherLloyd pretty much swapped their character personalities from the film (childlike CloudCuckoolander and angry {{Jerkass}}, respectively) for their roles in ''Series/{{Taxi}}''.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Nurse Ratched may not be a very nice person, but she's just trying to do her job as well as she knows how. [=McMurphy=] is really a DecoyProtagonist while the movie was really about Chief Bromden finding the courage to escape from the mental institution.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7alU4al3UQ tribal instrumental]] during the final scene.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Aside from [=McMurphy=], Billy is the most popular of the inmates thanks to being a [[{{Moe}} cute]], {{Adorkable}} NiceGuy who is also the film’s biggest [[TheWoobie Woobie]]

* FoeYay: Nurse Ratched and [=McMurphy=]. Even their dialogue is full of innuendo (particularly on [=McMurphy's=] end).

* UncannyValley: Louise Fletcher plays Nurse Ratched with such cold, dead, unfeeling eyes it’s bound to get under your skin.

** Both Nicholson and [=DeVito=] would find themselves up against the Creator/MichaelKeaton version of [[Franchise/Batman the world's greatest detective]], Nicholson as [[Film/Batman1989 the Joker]] and then [=DeVito=] as [[Film/BatmanReturns the Penguin]].

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Aside from [=McMurphy=], Billy is the most popular of the inmates thanks to being a [[Moe cute]], {{Adorkable}} NiceGuy who is also the film’s biggest [[TheWoobie Woobie]]

--->'''Chief''': That's a lie. I know he’s still alive. That ain’t the reason I want to touch him.I want to touch him because he’s a man.That’s a lie too. There’s other men around. I could touch them. I want to touch him because I’m one of these queers!But that’s a lie too. That’s one fear hiding behind another. If I was one of these queers I’d want to do other things with him. I just want to touch him because he’s who he is.

* EstrogenBrigade: Movie!Billy Bibbit has quite the female fandom, probably due to his {{Moe}} status but being played by a young, cute Brad Dourif doesn't hurt.

* GeniusBonus: Harding is hinted to be gay and doesn't seem to have any apparent mental illness. However, back at the time the book was written and published, homosexuality was in the DSM as a mental illness and was not removed from the DSM until the 1970s. Therefore, Harding could have been [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy hospitalized to try to "cure" his homosexuality]] [[FridgeBrilliance but this was not stated outright]] [[MoralGuardians to keep the novel from being labelled as "obscene."]]

** [=McMurphy=] himself, who is diagnosed in the play with a pathological need to flout authority and be the center of attention... Which seems about right.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7alU4al3UQ tribal instrumental]] during the final scene.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: [=McMurphy=] is really a DecoyProtagonist while the movie was really about Chief Bromden finding the courage to escape from the mental institution.

* CatharsisFactor: '''Admit it'''. You were cheering for Mac when he was [[spoiler:strangling Nurse Ratched]].

** Many people find the book to be misogynist, what with and the idea that matriarchy is akin to castration, and the implication that no woman could/should dominate a "real man." Prostitution and [=McMurphy=]'s statutory rape charge are treated pretty casually.

* AwardSnub: Not that it went home empty-handed. But many still believe Creator/BradDouriff was robbed for his role as Billy Bibbit.

** In the film, much of Sefelt and Fredrickson's interactions-such as their inseparability, how Fredrickson is always touching the older man, them dancing together at the party, and them passing out with their beds pushed together afterwards- can be seen as this

** In the film, much of Sefelt and Fredrickson's interactions-such as their inseparability, how Fredrickson is alway touching the older man, them dancing together at the party, and them passing out with their beds pushed together afterwards- can be seen as this

** [=McMurphy=] is really a DecoyProtagonist while the movie was really about Chief Bromden finding the courage to escape from the mental institution.
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7alU4al3UQ tribal instrumental]] during the final scene.
* EstrogenBrigade: Movie!Billy Bibbit has quite the female fandom, probably due to his {{Moe}} status but being played by a young, cute Brad Dourif doesn't hurt.
* FoeYay: Nurse Ratched and [=McMurphy=]. Even their dialogue is full of innuendo (particularly on [=McMurphy's=] end).
* GeniusBonus: As discussed above at AmbiguouslyGay, Harding is hinted to be gay and doesn't seem to have any apparent mental illness. However, back at the time the book was written and published, homosexuality was in the DSM as a mental illness and was not removed from the DSM until the 1970s. Therefore, Harding could have been [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy hospitalized to try to "cure" his homosexuality]] [[FridgeBrilliance but this was not stated outright]] [[MoralGuardians to keep the novel from being labelled as "obscene."]]
* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: The film was very popular in Sweden when it came out.
* HarsherInHindsight: [=McMurphy's=] original crime was statutory rape. A few years later, Creator/JackNicholson's house was where the whole Creator/RomanPolanski fiasco started.
* HilariousInHindsight:
** Big Nurse Ratched's name has taken on a funny quality now that "ratchet" has become teen slang used to describe anything with the quality of the ghetto about it.
** Creator/DannyDeVito and Creator/ChristopherLloyd pretty much swapped their character personalities from the film (childlike CloudCuckoolander and angry {{Jerkass}}, respectively) for their roles in ''Series/{{Taxi}}''.

** In the film, there's Billy/[=McMurphy=]. [=McMurphy=] even says to Candy something like, "I just want you to do this one thing for me. He's cute, isn't he?"
*** And then there are the orderlies. According to Bromden, they love to give patients showers. They always check the patient's temperature at the same time they shower the patient, and they go down to Miss Ratched beforehand to get a rectal thermometer and a bottle of Vaseline. She admonishes them to use the minimum amount of Vaseline necessary, but they take the whole bottle inside with them, and they turn up the water pressure till the noise [[RapeAsDrama makes it impossible to hear anything that's going on inside]]...
* MoralEventHorizon:
** Nurse Ratched might just be a mean and misguided nurse trying to do her job, right up until the point where she [[spoiler:threatens to tell Billy's mother about his "bad behavior", knowing full well the trauma that would cause him, which leads to his suicide.]]
** In the book, she has been on the wrong end of the moral event horizon for many years, as she is seen to submit her charges to torture for crossing her (the scene with the germophobe after the fishing trip, the forced anal administration of medication to a patient merely because he questioned what the pills were for), the electroshock 'therapy', and she has also lobotomized patients as punishment for behavior she dislikes. Nurse Ratched is utterly ''monstrous'' in the book.
*** Of course, given the book's expert use of UnreliableNarrator, it's hard to tell if she really is that bad or if it's the Chief projecting onto her. Remember, he also thinks that the orderlies are evil robots.
* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/BradDourif, Creator/ChristopherLloyd and Creator/DannyDeVito make early appearances.

* GeniusBonus: As discussed above at AmbiguouslyGay, Harding is hinted to be gay and doesn't seem to have any apparent mental illness. However, back at the time the book was written and published, homosexuality was in the DSM as a mental illness and was not removed from the DSM until the 1970s. Therefore, Harding could have been [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy hospitalized to try to "cure" his homosexuality]] [[FridgeBrilliance but this was not stated outright]] [[MoralGuardians to keep the novel from being labeled as "obscene."]]

* HarsherInHindsight: [=McMurphy's=] original crime was statutory rape. A few years later, Jack Nicholson's house was where the whole Creator/RomanPolanski fiasco started.

* EstrogenBrigade: Movie!Billy Bibbit has quite the female fandom, probably due to his [[Moe]] status but being played by a young, cute Brad Dourif doesn't hurt.

* EstrogenBrigade: Billy Bibbit (played by a young Brad Dourif) has quite the female fandom.

** Creator/DannyDeVito and Creator/ChristopherLloyd pretty much swapped their character personalities from the film (childlike CloudCuckoolander nd angry {{Jerkass}}, respectively) for their roles in ''Series/{{Taxi}}''.

** Creator/DannyDeVito and Creator/ChristopherLloyd pretty much swapped their character personalities from this film (childlike CloudCuckoolander and angry {{Jerkass}}, respectively) for their roles in ''Series/{{Taxi}}''.