Trivia

Remade in America three years later in 1989 by the same director as Three Fugitives (1989).

A near fatal accident happened on set when a stunt went wrong after a technician didn't properly secure a steel cable to a ten ton truck driven by star Gérard Depardieu, leading to the cable snapping and the truck slamming straight into actor Jean Benguigui. As a result, producers Depardieu, Pierre Richard and The ComDads (1983) decided to double Benguigui's salary.

Co-stars Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu also portrayed characters named respectively François Pignon and Jean Lucas three years earlier in The ComDads (1983), writer/director Francis Veber previous film. Despite this, they are not meant to be the same characters and the films are unrelated.

The last of three films in a row for writer/director Francis Veber to co-star Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu, after La Chèvre (1981) and The ComDads (1983). It is also the last of Veber's films to star Richard, who had been in all his films as a director up to that point, and several of those as a writer. As for Veber and Depardieu, they would reunite 14 years for The Closet (2001).

Francis Veber: [François Pignon] features a likeable idiot called François Pignon.