MovieChat Forums > Days of Thunder (1990) Discussion > Days of Blunder

Days of Blunder

posted 18 years ago by detective_john_mcclane
8 replies | jump to latest

Is "Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby" a comedy version of Days of Thunder?
Its weird how this thought came about, but I was looking at the 1:64 scale die-cast cars from the Talladega movie, when I noticed an odd similarity. There was only 5 cars in the set, 3 of them for Ricky Bobby, 1 for his rival/friend, and 1 for the "bad guy" of the movie....
Then I thought....hey wait a minute, this is like the Days of Thunder die-cast cars. There was only 5 total, 3 for the main character, 1 for his rival/friend (the Exxon car), and 1 for the "bad guy" of the movie (the Hardee's Car)....
So, I wondered if maybe the plot could be the same/similar to "Days"....then I watch a tv spot for Ricky Bobby, and I could of swore it showed him racing in a wheelchair, just like a scene in Days of Thunder....then I find out that John C. Reilly is in this thing! He was in Days too!
And then I finally get to see the full trailer and hear the line...

"Help me Jesus! Help me Tom Cruise!!"

So, what's up, is this to Days of Thunder, what Spaceballs is to Star Wars???

I'm guessing, just guessing mind you....that the plot would go something like this:
Ricky Bobby is a pompus ass who thinks he's the greatest driver in the world despite knowing nothing at all about cars, gets to race under a cheap sponsor (car 1). He starts up a nice little winning streak and gets a newer bigger named sponsor (car 2), On one particular race, him and the John C. Reilly character get into a really nasty wreck,.... "The Big One".
While they're recovering in the hospital, Ricky does the wheelchair race scene, and later on learns humility, and eventually gets his driving legs back and comes back to face "the bad guy" of the movie in his new car (car 3).....

If that's the case then yeah this is Days...
replace "Ricky Bobby" with "Cole Trickle",
replace car 1 with "City Chevrolet"
replace car 2 with "Superflo"
replace "John C. Reilly character" with "Micheal Rooker character"
replace "the bad guy" with the Cary Elwes character, the Hardee's driver
and replace car 3 with "Mello Yello"

....its the same damn movie!
I mean no offense to either movie, but its just....man, its almost too similar. But who knows I could be completely wrong and they're in fact nothing alike, I mean Days never showed a young Tom Cruise stealing his mom's car, so who knows.

[–] NickRose_242 18 years ago

Ya know, you do have a point. TN may be a comic version of D of T. But I still want to see it. I like D of T but its out of date. TN is more current style Nascar. By the way, Car 1 is Laughing Crown malt liqour and Car 2 is Wonder Bread, mind you. ;) Car 3, Im not really sure what it is. My dad belongs to the Action Nascar Diecast RCCA club so we get these club catalogs and they have all the cars in em. Im wondering what part a #62 ME car with a lion or some other wild cat has to do with the movie. Can someone clarify that?

[–] easyridercrimsontider 18 years ago

i read somewhere that ricky bobby became so obnoxious, that no one would sponsor him. therefore, he ends up sponsoring himself, hence the sponsor ME. i'm not sure about the panther, but in anchorman, there's a cologne called sex panther. i'm sure it's somthing subtle since the same people created both movies.

[–] detective_john_mcclane 18 years ago

ME!!! THAT'S HILLARIOUS! LOL!

And the panther, Isn't there a scene where he fights a panther or something?

[–] ecf82 18 years ago

i think it's a cougar that he fights, I've only seen the trailer so might be wrong...

[–] shawn-turner 18 years ago

that isnt what happened dude, he was in a wreck , made himself think he was paralyzed and lost his ride lol. days of thunder is not even close to this movie. and you guys need to realize, its the movies and nascar, there is only so much you can do with cars racing around a track lol geesh Everytime I come in here people say this isnt this and this isnt real or could never happen, who cares its a freakin movie, that means it isnt real either way lol god.

[–] johnsmith4444 18 years ago

Wow you guys are so profound!!!! I mean would have never seen the criptic references from DOT to Ricky Bobby. I bet you have a Harvard English major or something.

[–] johnsmith4444 17 years ago

I take it back, you guys are all cool. Keep fighting the good fight guys. Please die at a clan meeting.

[–] boomstick_316 14 years ago

Bit of a bump here...

"I mean Days never showed a young Tom Cruise stealing his mom's car, so who knows"

Tom Cruise really did steal his mother's car. Around the age of fourteen, he would regularly take her car from the driveway and have his sister(s) push it until it was far enough away from the house that his mother wouldn't hear it when it was started up.

Not that I've seen Talladega Nights, but I imagine that scene was a nod to Tom.