Fun Facts About Caddyshack
Harold Ramis Film with Chevy Chase Remains a Top Sports Comedy
At the elitist Bushwood Country Club, the caddies, newly rich, and non-conformists must work and play alongside the arrogant snobs who seem to hold all the power. The story revolves around Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe) an impoverished caddy trying to smooth-talk his way into a college scholarship sponsored by the club.
Danny works as the regular caddy for Ty Webb (Chevy Chase) a Zen golfer who inherited a huge bank account, but lives a slacker lifestyle. Rodney Dangerfield comes on strong as Al Czervik, a loud and crude New Yorker who challenges Judge Smails (Ted Knight), a pompous fool, to a big-money game of golf to prove whether the snobs or the slobs will take over the club.
Production of Caddyshack
- Although Caddyshack boasts an ensemble cast of Chase, Dangerfield, Knight, O’Keefe, Bill Murray, and Brian Doyle-Murray, a scene-stealing mechanical gopher sometimes gets the biggest laughs.
- Original songs by Kenny Loggins will forever be associated with the film, and especially with the goofy gopher scenes in the credits.
- One of cinema’s funniest gross-out comedy scenes comes when deranged assistant groundskeeper Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) find a suspicious object – actually a Baby Ruth candy bar – after scrubbing the drained country club swimming pool.
- Bursting with comedic talent in front of and behind the camera, Caddyshack is directed by first-time helmer Harold Ramis, and written by Brian Doyle-Murray, Ramis, and Douglas Kenney. The film reunites two of the writers from 1978’s National Lampoon’s Animal House (Ramis and Kenney) and former Saturday Night Live alumni Chase and the Murray brothers. Sarah Holcomb who portrays Maggie O’Hooligan (Danny’s love interest) also appears in National Lampoon’s Animal House as an underage girl who goes out with Tom Hulce’s character.
- Chase and Bill Murray have only one scene together, a mostly improvised segment in which Ty practices golf at night and plays the ball through Carl’s ramshackle home on the grounds of the golf course.
- Filmed in Florida at a posh resort club and golf club in Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale, and on Lake Boca Raton, Caddyshack features real locations, real sunshine, and real sweat on the actors.
- Caddyshack was recently ranked by the American Film Institute (AFI) as the seventh best sports movie ever made, just below The Hustler (1961) and above Breaking Away (1979).
Caddyshack on DVD
The 2007 DVD release includes “The 19th Hole Retrospective Documentary,” a clever compilation of interviews, anecdotes, and scenes from the movie. Interview subjects include Ramis, who lovingly looks back on his first-time directing effort, Chase, who complains that the mechanical gopher got too much screen time and money, and Cindy Morgan, who talks about her small, but memorable part as Lacey Underall, the over-sexed niece of Judge Smails who entices Ty and Danny during her brief visit from New York.
- Caddyshack (2007)
- Director: Harold Ramis
- Run Time: 98 minutes
- Rating: R (for nudity, language, and sexual references)
- DVD Bonus Features: Production Notes; Theatrical Trailer; “Caddyshack – The 19th Hole Retrospective Documentary.”
For more information about classic comedy films, read Airplane on DVD.
