Aluminum Christmas Trees: It actually is possible in the United States for a person to have only one legal name (although it usually requires getting a legal name change), so the idea of someone being legally named just "McLovin" isn't entirely far-fetched.note Notable examples include the rapper Ye (born Kanye West), the magician Teller of Penn & Teller (born Raymond Teller), and the professional wrestlers Chyna (born Joan Laurer) and Warrior (born James Hellwig)—both of whom adopted their former ring names ("Chyna" and "The Ultimate Warrior") as their legal names to get around WWE trademarks. Hell, there's even an example among the cast, as Aviva Baumann is billed simply as Aviva in the credits.
Seth's a would-be rapist. Or an extremely repressed homosexual. The second one is actually really popular.
Did the liquor store cashier really believe Fogell was 21 and his ID was real, or did she just not care about selling alcohol to a teenager? At first the credulous acceptance of Fogell's fake ID seems like Adults Are Useless, but after the revelation that the officers knew all along that Fogell was underage, the possibility that the clerk, too, realized the truth but chose to look the other way becomes likelier.
Are Officers Slater and Michaels always as reckless on the job as they are shown in the film? Or was their onscreen behavior just them attempting to impress Fogell?
By the same token, are Slater and Michaels really that incompetent when trying to interview the clerk about the robbery? Or were they just trying to Troll her?
The film has a varied and pretty awesome soundtrack, though highlights include "Too Hot to Stop" by The Bar-Kays during the opening credits, "Roda" during Seth's grade school flashback, Curtis Mayfield's "PS I Love You" at the end of the film and "Funk McLovin" by Bootsy Collins during the credits.
Not to be ignored are "Bustin Out" by Rick James, played as Seth and Evan meet up with Fogell; "Here I Come" by the Roots, played when Seth arrives at the party, and "Pork and Beef" by The Coup (Don't trust the police, no justice, no peace...)
Also, "Ace Of Spades" by Motörhead when Seth and Evan are trying to escape the crazy adult party.
Van Halen's "Panama" while doing burn-outs in a stolen cop car.
Base-Breaking Character: Seth. Some dislike him for his extreme rudeness and rather questionable antics, while others find him outright hilarious and see him as a good Star-Making Role for Jonah Hill.
Seth and his dick drawings, which is never spoken of or mentioned again and is arguably one of the funniest scenes in the movie.
Also Seth's fantasies about buying alcohol, which include pulling an eighty-dollar bill out of his sleeve and a full-scale shootout in which he gets his throat slashed with a broken bottle and graphically bleeds to death.
The unrated version expands a throwaway moment of Seth trying on tight jeans at a store in the theatrical version to a full, two-minute scene of Seth and Evan discussing the jeans' positives and (mostly) negatives.
Given how much of an obnoxious jerk Jesse was being throughout the film, Officer Slater knocking the guy out cold with his baton after the latter spits on him is very satisfying to watch.
You just watched a funny, entertaining movie about a guy trying to rape a girl into being his girlfriend...
The scene in which Slater and Michaels casually turn off their radio as their police colleagues scream desperately for backup. The implication is that those officers probably all died, waiting for help that never arrived because Slater and Michaels were angry and interrupted their conversation with Fogell. This puts Slater and Michaels over the edge from reckless, irresponsible, and incompetent to downright villainous sociopathy.
Seth refers to Fogell's fake ID photo as looking like a future child molester. This seems a lot less funny with Jared Fogle being done for child porn.
Many people were thrown off by a comedy revolving around a character trying to date rape a girl, which only becomes harder to watch after Jonah Hill (who plays him) was accused of emotional abuse and sexual assault in 2023.
At one point, Seth states that the plan has been "fucked since Jump Street." Funny, considering whereJonah Hill would later end up.
Seth sarcastically laments that The Coen Brothers don't make the kind of porn he likes. The Coens would later cast Jonah Hill in Hail, Caesar!.
In 2019 a bartender in Hawaii actually did accept a copy of the McLovin ID purchased online, with the culprit only getting caught by the cops later. Upon learning about the incident, Seth Rogen simply wrote on Twitter "My work is done".
Ho Yay: Seth and Evan's friendship is a big theme of the movie, but the intimate scenes they share in the third act border on romantic. Not only is Seth super jealous of Evan and Fogell living together in college, but Seth and Evan have a drunk sleepover in which they repeatedly tell each other "I love you," announcing that they're not afraid to say it. The mall scene has Evan awkwardly commenting on how Seth's butt looks in tight pants, and the final scene of the movie has Seth and Evan longingly look at each other as Seth leaves the mall with Jules, with "P.S. I Love You" playing in the background.
Jerkass Woobie: Seth is definitely an unpleasant guy, but he clearly loves Evan and a lot of his behavior towards others comes from deep insecurity. Over the course of about 24 hours, Seth is threatened by people bigger than him, his pants are stained with menstrual blood, and he gets hit by multiple cars.
Love to Hate: Slater and Michaels are hedonistic and borderline sociopathic cops who, at one point, abandon their colleagues in a crisis simply for getting in the way of their conversation. Nevertheless, they are some of the most memorable aspects of the film due to their hilarious wackiness and hijinks. Their genuine friendship with Fogell also helps.
"Fucking calm down, Greg. It's soccer" has become a popular response to people on the internet treating trivial (often fandom-related) matters as Serious Business, with "soccer" being replaced with the topic at hand.
One-Scene Wonder: The amputee kid who mocks Seth's lack of physical conditioning as he laps him during gym class.
Ron the Death Eater: Evan often gets lumped with Seth by detractors because of the plan to get the girls drunk enough that they'd be willing to have sex with them despite the fact he was clearly conflicted about the idea and later on decides to just tell Becca how he feels instead. Then when he actually has the chance to sleep with her while she's completely wasted, he decides not to do it.
Unintentional Period Piece: The film burlesqued the much-ballyhooed loose morals of 2000s-era teenagers (contrast this with the fact in the 2010s many would actually claim that millennials were becoming relatively prudish). It is also a prime example of the era's odd fascination for 70s-era aesthetics. The characters also all use advanced flip phones that were popular just before the release of Apple's iPhone, call each other rather than send text messages, and one scene has Evan fall victim to the spotty cell phone reception that was still a minor problem during the decade. The humorous portrayal of the inept, power-drunk cops is also firmly entrenched in the 2000s.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Seth's meant to be a jerk, but we're still supposed to empathize with him. This is hard to do for some viewers though given he spends the vast majority of the film acting like a horribly obnoxious bully, not to mention his plans for the night make him come off as a potential rapist.
Woolseyism: In the Latin American Spanish dub of the film, during the soccer field scene, instead of saying "Fucking calm down, Greg, it's soccer", Evan tells him "no es la Copa Mundial" ("this isn't the World Cup") since soccer is far more popular in Latin America than it is in the United States.
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