It’s a classic.
The 2006 film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby starred Will Ferrell alongside other great actors in John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Leslie Bibb, Jane Lynch and Amy Adams, and it also featured a cameo from Dale Earnhardt Jr., who seemed to enjoy appearing in the film and the movie in general.
While it was obviously a comedy that very much poked fun at the sport and its fans, during an appearance on the ALL THE SMOKE podcast, Ferrell talked about how they were able to thread the needle, so to speak, in terms of making it funny and appealing to people who weren’t NASCAR fans or didn’t know anything about the sport, while also doing the same thing to people who were huge NASCAR fans.
He explained that NASCAR itself was happy to let them have free reign, though there one condition was that the “driving looks realistic,” though it sounds like, at first, they thought the movie was going to be about Talladega Speedway specifically, which they were apprehensive about for obvious reasons (if you know, you know):
“In terms of NASCAR, they couldn’t have been cooler… they were like, ‘Okay, we’re into it. Just make sure the driving looks realistic.’ We’re like, ‘Done, we want that.’ And they were afraid about the title ‘Talladega nights ‘ at first.
They didn’t want it, because they thought the movie was gonna be about Talladega Motor Speedway, which is the only racetrack in NASCAR that has its own jail. And people, when they go, they party. They party hard.
And they were afraid it was about the culture of how crazy it gets there, we’re like, oh no, we didn’t even know all that. Thank you for letting us know. We were like, we just love that title, and they were like, go do your thing, and gave us amazing access.”
But it ended up being a huge success, though there were and still are criticisms about how it was generally bad for NASCAR’s image, though I disagree, and Ferrell explained that it was a rare feat from a comedy standpoint to be able to pull off what they did with this movie:
“But I think the combination of our comedy, our silliness, with how real… but that movie is so interesting, because NASCAR fans are like, I’ve never been apart a movie where two sides of the comedy spectrum… you had people who said, how do you get away with making that movie?
It’s so funny what you did, you’re making fun of NASCAR. And then NASCAR fans were like, thank you for being true to the sport. So we somehow threaded that needle and both audiences loved it.”
I think the fact that NASCAR fans know how to make fun of themselves, and I think that’s a big part of why it worked so well:
@fireracingmemes Talladega Night is a classic 🔥 #NASCAR #racing #nascarmemes #racingmemes #beer ♬ original sound – FireRacingMemes
The comments section on this post did not disappoint, either:
“‘Make sure the driving looks real’ proceeds to win a race in REVERSE.”
“‘Talladega Nights’ was a documentary.”
“Also Talladega Speedway doesn’t have lights so there are no night races.”
“Dale Earnhardt Jr. getting his signature was hilarious.”
“It’s because most NASCAR fans don’t take Hollywood too seriously. Plus we were happy to have a movie about NASCAR in general.”
“NASCAR fans aren’t sensitive about the sport for the most part. A lot of us joke about it ourselves so the vast majority of the fans loved it.”
“If you’ve spent a week on the Talladega campgrounds before the race, you know what he’s talking about.”
“I live in Talladega I remember how packed the movie theater was when this came out.’
“You made fun of them nicely. Not like nowadays where everything is done with anger and meanness.”
“It was one of the greatest advertisements for NASCAR ever.”
“NASCAR fans have always loved this movie and so does everyone else.”
“This release the same year ‘Cars’ did. Both NASCAR-related movies. These movies captured the 2000s, NASCAR was everywhere in the 2000s. It was on TV, it was at Walmart, your local gas station. They hit the mark at the right time.”
“NASCAR had a damn Ricky Bobby trailer at the races that year.”
They all make great points, and apparently, a sequel was in the works. Director and co-writer of the racing comedy, Adam McKay, recently revealed that there was almost a Talladega Nights 2. In celebration of the film’s 20 year anniversary (crazy its already been two decades since Ricky Bobby was on the big screen), McKay shared with Business Insider that they worked out a storyline for a sequel which would find Ricky Bobby in Formula 1:
“We did have an idea for ‘Talladega Nights 2.’ It was that Ricky Bobby was going to hook up with an F1 team, and he was going to race in Denmark or the Netherlands and feel like he’s in a communist country because they have nationalized healthcare. So, along with struggling with how fast those F1 cars go, he would have clashed with far-left-leaning Europe compared to America.”
It’s never too late…
The full podcast is available below.
