History YMMV / TheCannonballRun

** The blooper reel includes Creator/BurtReynolds' RatedMForManly habit of slapping people in the face when he's joshing around. Creator/DomDeLuise, his HeterosexualLifePartner in real life, laughs when he gets slapped, which looks a little like an abusive relationship to modern eyes.

* OvershadowedByControversy: Nowadays the film is more well-known for the horrible on-set car accident that resulted in skier Heidi von Beltz being left a quadriplegic, and the subsequent [[ScrewedByTheLawyers legal pounding]] she unfairly received which put her in dire financial straits for the rest of her life.

* SoOkayItsAverage: In the ''Series/TheGoodPlace'' universe, II is stated to be the most average, forgettable film to ever exist. The Website/{{IMDB}} score is at 4.8, so it's pretty damn close.

** In ''II'', The wires holding up Hymie after Arnold tosses him are really obvious.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: To the [[Film/JamesBond Bond]] theme, associated with the {{Expy}}-iest Seymour Goldfarb Jr. On the DVD Commentary, Hal Needham says they were one note away from getting sued.

** The bloopers reel includes Creator/BurtReynolds' RatedMForManly habit of slapping people in the face when he's joshing around. Creator/DomDeLuise, his HeterosexualLifePartner in real life, laughs when he gets slapped, which looks a little like an abusive relationship to modern eyes.

* BestKnownForTheFanservice:
** Creator/FarrahFawcett and Creator/AdrienneBarbeau's cleavage exposing exploits.
** Also, at no point in the film was Farrah Fawcett wearing a bra -- Not surprising, given 70s fashion liked the braless look.

** In ''Speed Zone'', Charlie (Creator/JohnCandy) tells Tiffany he's taking part in the Cannonball because winning the race is something you tell your grandchildren. John Candy died in 1994 when his oldest child was fourteen, meaning he wouldn't be able to tell his grandchildren anything. (As of 2022, his grandchildren have yet to be born.)

* ValuesDissonance: The bloopers reel includes Creator/BurtReynolds' RatedMForManly habit of slapping people in the face when he's joshing around. Creator/DomDeLuise, his HeterosexualLifePartner in real life, laughs when he gets slapped, which looks a little like an abusive relationship to modern eyes.

** In the first film, Voight claims that the Cannonball is their "Three Mile Island and Love Canal combined". Three Mile Island refers to a nuclear accident that resulted in a partial meltdown. No one was killed or injured and very little radiation was released. However, five years later, we had Chernobyl, which was the worst nuclear plant disaster ever.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:

** In ''Speed Zone'', Charlie (Creator/JohnCandy) tells Tiffany he's taking part in the Cannonball because winning the race is something you tell your grandchildren. John Candy died in 1994 when his oldest child was fourteen, meaning he wouldn't be able to tell his grandchildren anything. (As of 2020, his grandchildren have yet to be born.)

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Hong Kong actors Jackie Chan and Michael Hui supposedly played Japanese characters. But when they weren't speaking English, they actually spoke to each other (throughout the film) in Hong Kong-dialect Chinese. Not that early-80s audiences would have noticed or even cared.

* FridgeBrilliance:
** When J.J. and Victor are being taken to the hospital after the boat crash, J.J. asks the paramedic how far it is to the hospital and how long it will take to get there. The paramedic tells him they're about ten miles from the hospital, but it will only take four or five minutes to get there due to the ambulance's ability to get through traffic. This gives J.J. and Victor the idea to use one in the race. When they get pulled over during the race, the police officer tells them they were going a hundred and twenty. That's about how fast you would need to go to cover ten miles in four or five minutes.
** When Blake and Fenderbaum see J.J. and Victor at the starting line, they decide that the pair are their main competition and make plans to delay them. They may have a point. J.J. and Victor start the race after them and Blake and Fenderbaum are behind them just before performing their sabotage. The sabotage puts them ahead of J.J. and Victor, but the next time we see them, they're ''again'' behind J.J. and Victor.
** ''Cannonball Run II'' has been criticized for the race after the fight at the Pinto Ranch being compressed into a TravelMontage and the winner not being revealed until the last second. But due to being an ActionizedSequel, the plot became more about rescuing the Sheik from the mob than the race itself. The race was treated like a non-issue because it seemed like it in comparison.
** J.J. gives Victor a severe dressing down (literally, he rips off his Captain Chaos mask and cape) when the latter forgoes punching the time clock for saving someone's dog. His criticism is rather harsh and there were no doubt viewers thinking "Dude, it's just a race." But remember the opening scene of the sequel. The Sheik tells his father that there's no race that year. Apparently, that was the last known running of the Cannonball before the Sheik organized his own and J.J. thought he'd never get the opportunity to win it again.