First film
- Actor-Shared Background: Like his character, Michael O'Keefe comes from a large Irish-Catholic family and worked as a caddie while he was in high school.
- California Doubling: The film is supposedly set in the Midwest, but it was filmed in Florida. Rolling Hills Golf Club was chosen for Bushwood specifically because it was the only course the creators could find in Florida that didn't have palm trees.
- Completely Different Title:
- In Denmark, the film was released as "Røven Fuld af Penge", which means, translated to nearest English equivalent, "An Assload of Cash".
- In Sweden, the film was released as "Tom i bollen", literally meaning "Empty in the Ball" (having nothing inside one's head – being brainless).
- In Japan, the film was released as "Boruzu Boruzu", or "Balls Balls".
- Bulgaria: Servants and Masters
- Brazil: Swindlers' Club
- Canada: In Miami, You Have to Do It!
- Croatia: Crazy Game of Golf
- France: Crazy Golf!
- Italy: Golf Ball
- Mexico and Peru: The Crazy Golfers
- Poland: Golfers
- Romania: Golf Club
- Spain: The Crazy Club
- Turkey: The Great Uproar
- Corpsing: In the DVD extras, Chevy Chase tells a story about Rodney Dangerfield getting increasingly distraught on set. When Chase talked to him between takes, Dangerfield said he was afraid he was ruining the film because he couldn't make anyone laugh and crew were walking away during his scenes. Chase had to explain that the whole damn crew was doing their best to not laugh and ruin every single take Dangerfield did.
- Creator Backlash:
- Audience and critical appreciation of the film deepened over the decades since its release, but Harold Ramis' appreciation of his troubled directorial debut never did. "All I see are compromises and things we could have done better", he said in the late 2000s.
- Scott Colomby (Tony) was not happy that his character was gradually reduced from the second male lead to a minor role as a result of the creators adding more scenes with Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield during filming.
- The Danza:
- Dennis McCormick as Dennis Noonan.
- Jackie Mason's character in the second film is named Jack Hartounian. Which, oddly enough, is a combination of Mason's first name (or a shortened version thereof) and the surname of his character from The Jerk.
- Descended Creator: Brian Doyle-Murray as Lou Loomis.
- Dueling Works: The film had a bit of a rivalry with The Blues Brothers, as both films were spearheaded by creatives who worked on Animal Housenote and were released in summer 1980. While both films are highly regarded today, Blues Brothers had a better critical reception and box office performance.
- Dyeing for Your Art: Violet Ramis, who's a brunette in real life, had her hair dyed blonde to match the rest of the siblings.
- Executive Meddling: Jon Peters kept demanding that various ideas that he'd had been thrown into the film, but Harold Ramis was able to carry out his instructions in such a way that they didn't affect the quality of the end product, or even flat-out refuse when he felt Peters's suggestions were seriously crossing the line. On the second film, however, Peters and partner Peter Guber was screwing around with things (including firing original director Alan Metter before shooting started) right from the start, which ended up accounting for the poor quality of the end product.
- Fake Irish: Sarah Holcomb as Maggie O'Hooligan. And it shows.
- The Foreign Subtitle:
- Germany: Caddyshack: Madness Without a Handicap
- Harpo Does Something Funny:
- The "Cinderella story" scene was only in the script as: "Carl hits flowers with a grass whip." Director Harold Ramis told him to just pretend he was a kid, acting out his sports fantasy.
- Bill Murray's scenes had no script written for them at all. He was on set for a total of six days and whenever he got started up, they just let the camera roll on him and see where it went.
- Rodney Dangerfield was initially very nervous when shooting started, especially with it being his first major studio film, and when the filming for the Pro Shop scene began (the first scene he shot for), he was so shook that he couldn't even walk in front of the cameras. Harold Ramis took him aside and told him "Here's some details I'd like you to point out, don't worry about the script, just do what you do". As a result, most of his dialogue that you hear during that scene is improvised, and it helped relax him more during the rest of filming.
- Hostility on the Set:
- Cindy Morgan was constantly thrown off by Chevy Chase's continuous improvising during their scenes and the two came to blows.
- Ted Knight did not get along with Chase and Rodney Dangerfield due to their style of comedy and constant improvisation and was dismissive of the teens playing the caddies due to their on-set shenanigans.
- However, it was miraculously subverted with Chase and Bill Murray. The studio executives demanded that a scene between the two be added, but the crew was terrified of shooting it because the two infamously almost got into a brawl backstage on Saturday Night Live. Amazingly, the two were completely professional about it and used the time working on the scene to work out their differences, so filming the scene went smoothly.
- Mid-Development Genre Shift: The film started out as a coming of age comedy about caddies working at a country club to a wacky screwball comedy that Harold Ramis described as a modern-day Marx Brothers film.
- Missing Trailer Scene: The theatrical and TV trailers show some extra shots and deleted scenes. These include:
- Danny almost gets hit by a throwing knife while he is in the kitchen;
- Danny juggling with golf balls;
- A couple of extra shots of gopher including a scene where he dances in one of his tunnels;
- Ty and Lacey talking while walking across the golf course;
- An alternate version of the scene where Smails gets hit with a golf ball in the groin;
- Another scene between Ty and Lacey on some boat (some stills and lobby cards also show a part where Ty talks on the phone while Lacey whispers in his ear in the same deleted scene).
- A scene in which Mrs. Noonan reprimands Danny for not attending Sunday Mass.
- One-Book Author: Serves as this for most of the cast members:
- John F. Barmon Jr. (Spaulding Smails) who now works as a realtor.
- Dr. Dow (AKA Tsung-I Dow) who played Mr. Wang, considering that he was not an actor.
- Elle magazine editor-in-chief Robbie Myers, who along with two half-sisters were extras.
- Debi Frank who played Kathleen Noonan became this.
- Playing Against Type: The grubby, eccentric Carl Speckler is a far cry from Bill Murray's Deadpan Snarker roles and more of a John Belushi-type role.
- Production Posse: The film was created by most of the team behind Animal House. The goal was to do the same thing all over again. The togas are a nod to that film.
- Real-Life Relative: Bill Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray.
- Minerva Scelza, granddaughter of transportion captain Hank Scelza, plays Joey D'Annunzio.
- Harold Ramis' daughter Violet plays one of Danny's youngest siblings.
- The two kids who play Pat and Kathleen Noonan are siblings off-camera.
- Referenced by...:
- An episode of Back at the Barnyard is titled "Cowdyshack", and the title card resembles the film's poster.
- The Foo Fighters video "Love Dies Young" ends with a poo-like object causing panic in a swimming pool, and the cleaning boy eating it.
- In HFIL the morally compromised malefactors are only allowed to watch bad sequels, and Cell is seen returning Caddyshack II to the ogres. Their copy of Caddyshack II was the only thing that survived the fire that destroyed the ogres' home.
- Throw It In!:
- A good deal of Bill Murray's dialog was improvised on the set, including his now-classic sportscaster monologue.
"It's in the hole! It's in the hole!"- The oil massage scene with Chevy Chase was also completely improvised. When Lacy exclaims "You're crazy!" that was Cindy Morgan's genuine reaction to Chase dousing her with oil.
- Murray improvised the scene with Peter Berkrot in which Carl holds a pitchfork to Angie's throat. According to Bekrot, he was genuinely nervous during that scene because the pitchfork was real.
- Troubled Production: It may now be considered a comedy classic, but it sure had a hell of a time getting there:
- The film was originally supposed to be a simple coming-of-age story about kids working at a golf course, with Danny (Michael O'Keefe) and Tony (Scott Colomby) as the main characters. It slowly morphed into a showcase featuring comedy veterans like Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray (whose parts were originally supposed to be much smaller), and Ted Knight. Much of the dialogue was improvised on the spot, and production was extremely disorganized. Harold Ramis remarked in an interview that they they intended to make a coming-of-age story but instead made a Marx Brothers film with Dangerfield in the Groucho role, Chase in the Chico role, Murray in the Harpo Role and O'Keefe in the Zeppo role.
- On the first day of shooting, Hurricane Dave came through, and production had to wait to begin filming until the storm passed and the flooding cleared. The Florida weather proved intense for the cast/crew, who were often unwilling to film, and there were frequent no-shows on set. Sound recording was also frequently ruined by planes flying over the golf course.
- Cindy Morgan was uncomfortable with doing nude scenes, and while Harold Ramis was willing to change the script, producer Jon Peters told Morgan that her career would be over if she refused. Peters then invited photographers from Playboy to the set to photograph her, which angered her greatly, and she, with Ramis' support, again refused to do the scene until the photographers were sent home. In a 2010 interview, Morgan stated that she voluntarily put her career on hold as a result of the experience.
- In addition, few co-stars got along. Chevy Chase and Cindy Morgan got into a scuffle, and almost refused to do their scene. Ted Knight, usually an easy person to get along with, got completely fed up of the improvisation and on-set shenanigans, and didn't get on with either his young co-stars or Chase and Dangerfield. Bill Murray, who was only available for six days, also didn't get along with Chevy Chasenote , and when execs insisted on them having a scene together, everyone in the production feared what would happen, but fortunately the scene turned out beautifully. Also, the cast/crew partied hard every night, getting stoned out of their minds, wrecking the golf carts and ruining the golf course on a regular basis.
- After the filming ended and the rough-cut came in, it was too long, running at roughly four and a half hours long; over two of those hours had to be cut. This included key parts of the main plot, rendering the remaining footage a nonsensical, idiosyncratic mess, so more money had to be spent on a mechanical gopher to add extra comic relief and to actually tie the picture together; as its scenes were shot after principal photography had wrapped with higher quality film stock and on an indoor soundstage, there is a noticeable difference (even on the DVD release) between the picture quality of the gopher scenes and that of the rest of the film.
- The country club at which location filming took place were wary of the damage the explosions in the film's climax would cause to the golf course, so a hill had to be specially constructed and the country club executives invited to an off-site meeting while the explosions were set off without their knowledge. However, the explosions were so powerful that the hill was completely destroyed, and the pilot of a passing flight to Fort Lauderdale mistook them for a plane crash and radioed the airport accordingly.
- The film was not a critical success when it came out, and co-writer/producer Douglas Kenney, who verbally abused reporters while drunk at a press conference for the film, fell thirty feet from a clifftop viewpoint in Hawaii to his death a month later (there is some question as to whether his death was suicide or an accident; in the weeks leading up to his death, he had begun joking about his past suicide attempts, leading friends to urge him to seek professional help).
- To the end of his life, even though the film became better appreciated over time, Harold Ramis was dissatisfied with his directorial debut. "All I see are compromises and things we could have done better," he told GQ magazine in the late 2000s. His greatest complaint was that no one in the film other than Michael O'Keefe was able to swing their golf clubs properly.
- What Could Have Been:
- Harold Ramis has said that he was told that Rodney Dangerfield was interested in doing the second movie. Dangerfield actually was attached but was displeased with the script (as many turned out to be). With no suitable rewrites, he backed out.
- Also averted. The filmmakers seemed to be asking themselves this when they realized that Bill Murray and Chevy Chase didn't have a scene together. Thankfully, they made one up pretty quickly.
- Carl Spackler was originally a silent character in the script inspired by Harpo Marx. But after Murray was cast, Ramis encouraged Murray to speak and improvise.
- Ramis wanted to use Pink Floyd to write music for the film (and right after they had released The Wall, no less), but they politely declined.
- Don Rickles was originally considered for Al Czervik.
- In the script, the youngest sibling Joey D'Annunzio was originally written as a boy, however, after being told that transportation captain Hank Scelza's granddaughter Minerva was a tomboy, she was cast at his suggestion.
- Write What You Know:
- The movie was inspired by Brian Doyle-Murray's memories working as a caddy at a golf club. His brother Bill Murray and Harold Ramis also worked as caddies when they were teenagers.
- The scene involving a Baby Ruth candy bar being thrown into the swimming pool was based on a real-life incident at Doyle-Murray's high school.
- The scene in which Al Czervik hits Judge Smails in the genitals with a struck golf ball happened to Ramis on what he said was the second of his two rounds of golf, on a nine-hole public course.
- Write Who You Know:
- Danny was based on Brian Doyle-Murray's and Bill Murray's eldest brother Ed.
- Lou is based on Lou Janis, the caddy master at the Indian Hill Country Club of Winnetka, Illinois where the Murrays worked as kids. He was a compulsive gambler who let the caddies buy snacks with their pay.
- Maggie was based on all the teenage Irish girls who came to the US on work visas who worked at the same country club.
The sequel
- Box Office Bomb: The sequel, made on a budget of $20 million and only raking in $11.8 million.
- B-Team Sequel: The only ones involved with the sequel were Chevy Chase and Kenny Loggins. Harold Ramis was involved, though his script was heavily rewritten.
- Creator Backlash:
- Chevy Chase hated the film, even during production, so much so that after a take, he mentioned to the producer to call him when a laugh track had been added, and stormed off in disgust. He only took part because Warner Bros. had pressured him and the other actors of the first movie into making a sequel. None of the others bowed to the pressure though, and Warner Brothers attempted to sue Rodney Dangerfield for refusing to participate after citing a lack of confidence in the script. When asked about it on The Late Show with David Letterman, his response was an apathetic "Yeah, yeah I think I'm in that." Even looking at his role in the film, he seems disinterested in being there.
- Harold Ramis also hated the sequel; once again, he only participated after Warner Bros. continued to put pressure on him.
- Robert Stack stated (sarcastically) that performing in the film was the highlight of his illustrious career.
- Allan Arkush definitely feels this way about the film, if his Letterboxd review is any indication.
- Creator Killer: The end result all but caused Warner Bros.' parent company Warner Communications to dissolve into magazine company Time to form Time Warner by the end of the decade.
- Executive Meddling: The only reason a sequel exists, as the executives pushed ahead with production even after every original actor besides Chevy Chase walked out upon seeing the script.
- Role Reprise: Chevy Chase is the only returning actor from the first film.
- Sequel Gap: Came out eight years after the original.
- Troubled Production:
- After the original film's release, Rodney Dangerfield repeatedly advocated that a sequel be made, but Harold Ramis kept refusing the idea, not keen on reliving the first film's chaotic production. After a few years, Dangerfield and Ramis worked out a compromise whereby Ramis would co-write the script, but someone else would direct, and Dangerfield selected Alan Metter, who he had recently worked with on Back to School.
- While Ramis and co-writer Peter Torokvei were working on the script, Dangerfield soon came to blows with Jon Peters, who had fully taken over the producer's role (which he shared with the since-deceased Douglas Kenney on the first film) and demanded that the sequel be PG-rated in order to appeal to a wider audience. Dangerfield was angered by this, as it would preclude him from ad-libbing the edgier material that he had done in the first film (which was R-rated), and when Peters refused to back down he ended up quitting. Peters then fired Metter and replaced him with Allan Arkush, and Ramis and Torokvei, not wanting to do the film without Dangerfield, walked shortly after that.
- Filming eventually started with Jackie Mason in the lead role, and Chevy Chase as the only returning actor from the first film, something even he later admitted regretting, and only did because he was offered a comparatively huge amount for just a few days' worth of shooting. Filming wasn't as problematic as that of the first film, but Arkush insisted on staging scenes at a slow, deliberate pace — something he had similarly done on Heartbeeps — neutering what little comic timing the script (rewritten by around a half-dozen uncredited ghostwriters) still had.
- This time around the film was unable to overcome its behind-the-scenes issues, and the end result was critically mauled and made back less than half of its budget at the box-office, with Arkush never again helming a theatrically-released movie, and Ramis considering it arguably the lowest point of his entire career. Adding insult to injury, Bill Murray successfully sued the producers for royalties relating to the gopher character, which he originally created in the first film, but was never asked for permission to re-use in the sequel.
- What Could Have Been: Sam Kinison was originally cast, but backed out when his close friend Rodney Dangerfield backed out due to creative differences with the script. It is believed that Kinison was to portray Peter Blunt. The role eventually went to Randy Quaid.
