History Film / ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld

* TooDumbToLive: Fitzgerald tells Ding and Benjy, who have ''no flying experience at all'', to take the controls of his plane so he can make more drinks for himself. Less than a minute later, he's knocked out and remains so for the rest of the film. WhatAnIdiot.

* WimpFight: Most of them, particularly the one between Russell and Hawthorne, where they take turns running away from each other, and hurt themselves almost every time they throw an attack.
* [[XMarksTheSpot "W" Marks The Spot]]: In lieu of an 'X'

'''Hawthorne''': Against it? I should be positively astounded to hear of anything that could be said '''for''' it. Why, the whole bloody place is the most unspeakable matriarchy in the whole history of civilization! Look at yourself, and the way your wife and her strumpet of a mother push you through the hoop! As far as I can see, American men have been totally emasculated. They're like slaves! They die like flies from coronary thrombosis, while their women sit under hairdryers, eating chocolates and arranging for every second Tuesday to be some sort of Mother's Day! And this positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms. In all my time in this wretched, godforsaken country, the one thing that has appalled me most of all is this preposterous preoccupation with bosoms. Don't you realize they have become the dominant theme in American culture: in literature, advertising and all fields of entertainment and everything. I'll wager you anything you like: if American women stopped wearing brassieres, your whole national economy would collapse overnight.

* TheStoic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO5gKgjzsFw That chick Sylvester dances with]] is probably as close to live dancing robot as it is humanly possible. Made particularly funny since her deadpan expression is coupled with frenetic '60s go-go dancing.

* StealingFromThieves: This trope plays into Captain Culpeper's motivation: steal the money out from under a bunch of marauding treasure-seeking idiots, then cross the border into Mexico to live out retirement in comfort. Simple, right? [[HilarityEnsues Not in this movie]].

-->"I'd like to think that sometime, maybe 10 or 20 years from now, there will be something that I could laugh at, anything." Cue [[ItMakesSenseInContext a round of deafening laugh]] from everybody, including Culpeper, when Mrs. Marcus slips on a banana peel and gets taken away.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Hawthorne delivers one to the entire [[EagleLand country]], mainly with critical emphasis towards American men for allowing women to emasculate them and having a [[AllMenArePerverts "preoccupation with bosoms"]]. He thinks they're America, the Boorish.

** Meyer gets another one later when he congratulates Pike for finding the big W and says Pike should receive an extra share of the money.

* PieInTheFace: Slyvester Marcus falls from a tree, and slides the length of a long (and loaded) picnic buffet table, ending with a faceplant on a cake.

** After Ray and Irwin sort oiut Meyer's car after he suffers a blowout, he tells them they did a good job and gives them some extra money so they can have a drink on him. Moments later, he has an OhCrap when Pike catches up to him.

* NiceHat: It's the 50s, so most of the men (and Mrs. Marcus) wear one. Culp's is deliberately run over by Creator/JerryLewis, setting the tone for how the story's going to unfold for him.

* AlmostDeadGuy: The whole misadventure is set off when notorious criminal "Smiler" Grogan kicks the bucket (literally) after sending his car flying off a cliff, but not before telling a group of witnesses to the accident about $350,000 he buried in a distant state park. True to this trope, he groans into unconsciousness...then scares everyone by bolting up yelling "Say it don't make no difference, Aunt Belle!" before fading out again.

* GrievousBottleyHarm: Milquetoast gas station owners Ray and Irving knock out a raving Lennie Pike with a bottle...they're not so lucky the next time when he comes to even madder.

* HesDeadJim: The film begins with ex-convict Smiler Grogan careening down a desert highway and flying off a cliff. A number of fellow motorists run down to aid him, but he's clearly dying. As he gasps his last breaths, he tells them the location of a large sum of stolen money he's buried, then fades out...and sits up deliriously shouting at Melville Crump "Tell me it don't make no difference, Aunt Belle!". He's reassured and dies...kicking a bucket downhill. Lennie Pike declares "That guy's ''dead''. You better believe it!"

* HospitalEpilogue: In the wild climax, all of the male main characters suffer serious injuries. The last scene occurs in a hospital, where the men are heavily bandaged. They are visited by their female relatives, who are angry about the males' greediness.

-->'''Lennie Pike''': Sure, but if we find the money, we still have to report the taxes. Otherwise its like stealing from the government!... Everybody has to pay taxes. Even businessmen, who lie and cheat and steal every day, even they have to pay taxes!

* RampJump: It begins with Smiler careening along a mountain highway in a '57 Ford and then just...sailing out there. Didn't land well.

* GambitRoulette: The banana peel.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Otto Meyer is initially dismissive of Lennie Pike stopping him when they first meet, but is immediately interested(and literally licks his lips) when he hears about the $350,000 buried at Santa Rosita.

* EverybodyOwnsAFord: Chrysler sponsored the film to showcase its 1963 lineup. Almost all the heroes drive Chryslers. One of Ethel Merman's lines was written with a Cadillac in mind ("''We're'' the ones in the Imperial and ''we're'' running last?"), but was changed because Chrysler sponsored the film and not GM. It has a much more snobbish airs with a Cadillac.

* DayHurtsDarkAdjustedEyes: Benjy and Dingy need a pilot and find Tyler Fitzgerald sleeping off a drunk. The room has the blinds drawn and when he gets up he thinks he's blind and staggers to the window. When he opens the blinds, the blinding daylight sends him flying backward, screaming in pain.

* CrossCut: A variant: The two fighters wind up punching each other's fists.

* AmericaWonWorldWarII: Fresno entrepreneur J. Russell Finch invokes this while arguing with British Army officer Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne. It proves to be something of a BerserkButton for the latter.f

* AmericaWonWorldWarII: Fresno entrepreneur J. Russell Finch invokes this while arguing with British Army officer Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne. It proves to be something of a BerserkButton for the latter.
-->'''Finch:''' As far as I'm concerned, the whole British race is practically finished. If it hadn't been for Lend-Lease, if we hadn't kept your whole country afloat by giving you billions that you never even said "Thank you" for, the whole phony outfit would've sunk under the Atlantic years ago... What are you stopping for?\\
'''Hawthorne:''' GetOut of this machine.

-->'''Culpepper:''' [[spoiler:''(to everyone else in the ICU)'' My wife is divorcing me, my mother-in-law is suing me for damages, my daughter is applying to the courts to have her name changed, my pension has been revoked, and the only reason that you ten idiots will very ''likely'' get off ''lightly'', is because the judge will have ''me'' up there to throw the book at!]]

* HugeSchoolgirl: Culpepper's daughter Billie Sue is described as being six-foot-five. It was apparently the reason she and her boyfriend Oscar broke up, and why she's inconsolable when she's on the phone.

* LawmanGoneBad: A prime example is Captain Culpepper. At first, he intends to confiscate the stolen money and presumably return it to its rightful owners, but after being buried under an ever-increasing mountain of bad news from his home life and regarding his police pension (or lack thereof), he devises ASimplePlan to get the dough for himself and skip on down to Mexico for his "retirement".

* NeverMyFault: Even though all the main characters are to blame for everything that went wrong prior to the climax, after all the men wind up in the hospital all the blame is put on Culpepper alone for his part in taking the money for himself. See WhatTheHellHero below for details.
* NiceHat: Pike, Benjy, Russell, Mrs. Marcus, Meyer, Col. Hawthorne, the cab drivers, and Culpeper each have one.

* OhNoNotAgain: Captain Culpepper, in frustration,flings his hat out the window of his office instead of onto the hatrack he was aiming for, forcing a deputy to have to run outside and get it; while running out, he turns to the secretary and says "He did it again."

* SideBet: Culpepper and Chief Aloysius make one early on regarding the direction the chase will take. Later it's implied that the rest of the department have been picking out favorites to win among the treasure hunters.

* WhatTheHellHero: In this case, it's rather "What the Hell, FallenHero?": When all the men end up hospitalized after losing the money, Culpepper -- who didn't even plan to take the money for himself until much later -- is alone held responsible for the whole thing.

* YouGetMeCoffee: At one point Culpepper's assistant says this to his secretary, Schwartz... leading to a DistractedByTheSexy moment as he and the other cops admire the nubile young woman's [[SexyWalk egress]].

When aging criminal "Smiler" Grogan (Creator/JimmyDurante) sails his car off a cliff in the Mojave Desert, he gives a FinalSpeech to the various strangers who gather around him, informing them as to [[TreasureMap where to find $350,000 in cash]],[[note]]Approximately $2.932 million in 2020 money[[/note]] hidden loot from an old robbery. He then kicks the bucket-- figuratively and [[VisualPun literally]]. After a spirited "negotiation" session regarding the allocation of said money breaks down, the witnesses decide to race each other to Santa Rosita State Park, where the loot is "buried under a big 'W'"... each now hoping to find it and keep it all for him/herself.

* GrievousBottleyHarm: Milquetoast gas station owners Ray and Irving knock out a raving Lennie Pike with a bottle... they're not so lucky the next time when he comes to even madder.

* ChekhovsGun: The Ray & Irwin's Garage truck. When we first see Ray and Irwin, they refuse to let Finch hire it, forcing him, Mrs Marcus and Emmeline to rely on Hawthorne to get them further. After Pike destroys the garage, the steals the truck and uses it to get back on the chase. He then picks up Mrs Marcus and Emmeline in it, and then, eventually, Sylvester, Finch and Hawthorne after their cars get destroyed.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: After their death-defying stunt on the fire ladder, all the men end up in traction, lucky to be alive.

Before long, all these characters are in deep trouble. The Crumps get locked in a hardware-store basement, and set it on fire trying to escape. Benjy and Dingy have to fly and land a plane after its inebriated pilot (Jim Backus) passes out in midair. Pike demolishes a gas station after Meyer tricks two attendants into attempting to tie him up. Meyer accidentally drives into a river. Mrs. Marcus starts multiple fights.

* WhatTheHellHero: In this case, it's rather "What the Hell, FallenHero?" when all the men end up in traction after losing the money and Culpepper, who didn't even plan to find the money himself until much later, is alone held responsible for the whole thing.

* NeverMyFault: Even though all the main characters are to blame for everything that went wrong prior to the climax, after all the men end up in traction, all the blame is put on Culpepper alone for his part in taking the money for himself. See WhatTheHellHero below for details.

They are subsequently joined in their treasure hunt by vacationing [[FunnyForeigner English Army officer]] Algernon Hawthorne (Creator/TerryThomas), wily ConMan Otto Meyer (Creator/PhilSilvers), Russell's hot-tempered, {{Beatnik}} brother-in-law Sylvester (Dick Shawn), and eventually a pair of Santa Rosita cab drivers (Creator/PeterFalk and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson).

* Milquetoast edible-seaweed salesman J. Russell Finch, his voice-of-reason wife Emmeline, and her [[EvilMatriarch shrewish mother]], Mrs. Marcus (Creator/MiltonBerle, Dorothy Provine and Creator/EthelMerman);

* Second-honeymooning dentist Melville Crump and his wife Monica (Creator/SidCaesar and Edie Adams)
* Vegas-bound friends Dingy Bell and Benjy Benjamin (Creator/MickeyRooney and Creator/BuddyHackett)
* Burly moving-van driver Lennie Pike (Creator/JonathanWinters)

* Milquetoast edible-seaweed salesman J. Russell Finch, his voice-of-reason wife Emmeline, and her [[EvilMatriarch mother]], Mrs. Marcus (Creator/MiltonBerle, Dorothy Provine and Creator/EthelMerman);