Trivia / Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

• California Doubling: Some scenes that are supposed to represent Texas Motor Speedway were actually shot at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which shares an identical track design with Texas, and the walls being repainted to look like such.
• Corpsing: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Michael Clarke Duncan can barely hold it together during the scene where Ricky stabs a knife into his own leg. By the end of it, all three are on the verge of breaking character.
• Defictionalization: Kurt Busch raced Ricky's "ME" car in the 2012 Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway, which is on display at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Busch's Ax-Crazy tendencies and his release from Team Penske (then Penske Racing) powerhouse at the end of the 2011 season, and subsequent efforts to rebuild his reputation through a year with Phoenix Racing and then a season in the Denver-based Furniture Row Racing before being signed on to Stewart Haas Racing in 2014, is almost like Ricky Bobby's departure from the Dennitt Racing powerhouse.
• Dueling Movies (or a really funny double feature): With Pixar's Cars, which also features a cocky race car "driver" who's brought down a few notches by a long-lost master in pursuit of a green-colored rival (the only difference being that Girard is a lot better behaved than Chick Hicks).
• DVD Commentary: Not one but two bizarre commentaries. On the unrated edition, Adam McKay and Ian Roberts talk about such bizarre tidbits as Ricky Bobby's sons being played by robots and Sean Penn being paid $3 million to play an extra. And then there's the standard edition's "25 Years Later" commentary, set in 2031 - or at least one where, among other things, McKay was eaten by a shark years ago (causing his son Darnell to fill his role in the commentary) and John C. Reilly is a military captain who defeated Ted Nugent's militia on the "island state" of Michigan. On a somewhat poignant note, the latter commentary features Michael Clarke Duncan, who died in 2012.
• Fake Nationality: Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays the French Jean Gerard, is actually British.
• Life Imitates Art:
  • Five years after the film, A 2011 invocation at the NASCAR race in Nashville by Pastor Joe Nelms was a social media hit after it referenced parts of Ricky's prayer in the film, including detailed thanks to many sponsors and to his "smokin' hot wife" and two sons. https://youtu.be/DuewQlRbR1c
  • In 2021 Kurt Busch won the NASCAR race in Atlanta with strategic help from a teammate who was in 21st place and in position to be lapped. Busch acknowledged this in the press conference as “Shake and bake! Yeah, and the 42, he did his job as a teammate”. "Shake and Bake" has also entered the NASCAR commentator vocabulary, occasionally used to describe the drafting maneuvers like the ones used by Ricky and Cal in the film.
  • Pastors and theologans have also used the Sweet Baby Jesus prayer scene to launch discussions of how people perceive Jesus in their own ways and the effects of those perceptions
• What Could Have Been:
  • Will Ferrell offered Steve Carell a part, but he was unavailable.
  • There was supposed to be a Spiritual Successor called Booby Trap: The Tale of Rusty Butte that would complete the Will Ferrell "Mediocre Man trilogy" that began with Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and continued with this film. For reasons unknown, it was never made.
• Working Title: NASCAR officials initially objected to the original title of Talladega Nights and the working title was then changed to the name of the production company, High, Wide, and Handsome. Loud and Proud also was considered. Following a brief phase in which the movie did not have a title, the film eventually reverted to its original title.

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