Goofs

During the final dive sequence, Chas already has made one dive, but when he is about to make his second dive and gets cramps, his hair is perfectly dry and combed.

The scenes at the college campus all have the trees in beautiful fall colors except the one in the diving scenes. These trees are all in a healthy summer green.

During the final dive meet the diver who gets blinded by the mirror courtesy of Derrick has his appearance change from skinny with longer dark hair before the dive to a much stockier individual with short blonde hair during the dive.

After singing Twist and Shout, Thornton leaves the stage with his shirt completely unbuttoned. Less than 5 seconds later as he meets Jason, his shirt is completely buttoned up.

When Valerie and Chas arrive at the caveman party, the saber-tooth teeth on Valerie's necklace are all pointing outward as normal. In her closeup when she says "Jason said it would be great", the teeth on her left are pointed inward toward her chest. They then return to facing out in the next shot.

When the song "Everybody's Crazy" is playing at the caveman party, the record playing on the turntable has an MCA label, despite the fact that that song was released by Columbia Records.

During the final scene, Thornton Melon gives a speech as a freshman for the graduating seniors. Even though he never attended college before, he is wearing not only graduation robes, but doctoral robes. As part of his generous donation, however, he may have been bestowed an honorary degree.

While there is a clear diving double for Rodney Dangerfield, there is too big of a difference to be accidental, it is clearly a joke.

When Thornton and Lou are making the Bruce Springsteen sign, the student at the table is supposed to be writing on a poster but the marker is clearly not touching the paper.

When Thornton makes his first dive of the movie, he exits the pool on the ladder and there is clearly a cut in the film. He exits the pool dry, no water dripping anywhere.

(at around 2 mins) In the outside shot of the Meloni's Clothing Store, the sign does not align with the frame, indicating that it was added in over the existing sign.

When Thornton takes his first high dive, his diving double's wig almost comes off in mid-air.

When Jason is at the party before he goes outside and ends up hitting Chas, he is drinking beer from a bottle. When he exits the building, he is holding a can.

When Thornton's son and roommate are in the student store buying used books (they are all marked "USED" on the back spine). Thornton looks at the FRONT of the books only and asks why they're buying used books. He couldn't even see the back of the books where the USED stickers were.

When the party ends and Thornton is swimming a boom mic operator is visible. After he dives in the camera cuts out and you clearly see a boom mic operator in the window behind the pool. He's wearing a red shirt and clearly holding something.

The sequence showing the limo arriving to the "Grand Lakes University" (University of Wisconsin - Madison) campus has the limo driving east on Observatory Drive past Elizabeth Waters Hall, then driving north under the pedestrian bridge on N Park St. coming from the south (Observatory Drive is to the north of the bridge) and ends with the limo headed back west on Observatory Drive just past N Charter St. where Elizabeth Waters Hall can once again be seen, this time on the opposite side of the limo.

In several scene it is indicated that it's cold outside by wearing jackets. But however during the pool scene everybody is outside without shirts on or dresses in bikini. Also people are swimming in the pool like a regular summer day.

After Thornton's dive at the end of the film, the score the judges give him is never shown, yet the audience and Thornton's team all immediately act like they won the contest.

In the scene where Melon's private secretary was typing up his notes, Dr. Barbay said "... you will never, ever pass this class" yet at the very end when Diane was running to Thorton, she announced he passed all the classes.

Professor Terguson (history) mentions the US withdrawing from Vietnam in 1975. While it's correct that the US withdrew its last civilians and embassy personnel from Vietnam in 1975, the context Terguson uses suggests combat forces. These largely withdrew from Vietnam by 1972 and completed their withdrawal by March 1973 under the terms of the Paris Peace Accords.

In one scene in Diane's classroom, the title The Great Gatsby is in quotation marks on the chalkboard. An experienced college professor would know that, being the title of a novel, The Great Gatsby should be underlined, not put in quotation marks.