Goofs for
The Cannonball Run (1981)

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• Crew or equipment visible: Reflected in motorcycle mirror.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marcia and her partner are stopped by the police for the first time after the race has started, they are standing outside the car and Marcia's suit is zipped down. They watch the other cannonballers pass, and when she starts talking to the officer, her suit is zippped up so she can zip it down to retrieve her license.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Ramp visible (semi-hidden behind a beach umbrella and inflatable rafts) when Mel and Terry run their car into the pool.
  
  

• Crew or equipment visible: Crewmembers and a camera are visible as the plane takes off after stopping for a beer.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Japanese team does not speak Japanese most of the time. They are mostly speaking Cantonese, a Chinese dialect. The only time that we hear Japanese language is when the Japanese TV show presenter is interviewing these two characters. It is also apparent during this scene that the Japanese TV presenter cannot understand what Jackie's character is saying when he addresses the audience in Cantonese, which is presumably part of the movie rather than an incredibly glaring oversight.
  
  
• Continuity: During the final race to the finish after the fight with the bikers, JJ and Victor pass the Rolls Royce twice, once just as Victor becomes Captain Chaos, and once just as they enter the city.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end when the cars reach their destination, Seymour arrives with the majority of the others in his Aston Martin. Later when the three other cars arrive, one of those is his Aston Martin. At this point he has already gotten out of his car.
  
  
• Continuity: Near the beginning the red Hawaiian Tropic stock car that Mel and Terry drive is a Chevy Chevelle/Malibu. After it's painted grey it's a Chevy Monte Carlo.
  
  
• Continuity: When Terry and Mel get out of the pool after the Hawaiian Tropic goes into it, Mel is wearing socks and Terry is barefoot.
  
  
• Continuity: Throughout the entire film, the wheels on the Ambulance change from black wheels to having chromed hub caps and back again.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the "Big Roadblock" scene when the van explodes after hitting the patrol car, you can see the wire connecting the detonator to the explosives in the van. It flies across the far bridge piling.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When J.J. lands the plane in the middle of a town square so Victor can get beer, if you look in the background, you can see the barriers that were used to block off the streets. You can also see people standing around watching in the background when Victor is running into the store for the beer.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Fenderbaum is placing his bet with the Greek you can see that the references to Porsche on the odds board are listed as Porche.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the pick-up truck is trying to outrun the police and jump over the moving train, the ramp is visible.
  
  
• Continuity: When the man on the motorbike races through the bar he has no helmet, then in the next shot he has a helmet on.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Captain Chaos saves the Lamborghini Babes, we hear a female voice say "You're so macho", but neither woman was speaking.
  
  
• Plot holes: Even though the beginning of the race makes a blatant point of explaining that racers are scored by time, not order of arrival at the finish line, the ending seems to suggest the contrary. Since time is the main factor, any racer who started after the Lamborghini team should still have been able to check-in and beat them. Instead, everyone fights over being the first one to clock in, and the instant she checks in, everyone else simply gives up.
  
  
• Continuity: When Terry and Mel are retuning the Hawaiian Tropic car, Terry tells Mell to "hit it one more time". We then hear the sound of the car trying to start even though one of Mel's arms is on the window and the other on the steering wheel.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When JJ and Victor are riding in the ambulance after their boating accident, the medic's lips say "Like shit through a goose", but the audio track says "Like shot through a gun" when describing how the ambulance gets through traffic.
  
  
• Continuity: At random times during the race, Seymour has his black gloves on and off. At one point where he is not wearing them while driving, his female passenger goes to press a button. He stops her, grabbing her hand, clearly wearing a black glove, yet back to the front-on shot he is clearly not wearing the gloves.
  
  
• Continuity: When the ambulance stops for gas in Missouri, J.J. is still fuming about the all the time lost due to Jimmy Blake and Fenderbaum letting down the ambulance tyres. Yet somehow Blake and Fenderbaum are now behind them, arriving at the gas station after the ambulance.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Shakey Finch (who rides on the back of Bert Convy's motorcycle) is clearly replaced by a dummy in all wide shots. The most amusing of these is when they arrive at the blocked-off California road near the end of the movie; the dummy is lifelessly pitched forward on the motorcycle seat.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Cannonballers are standing around listening to the Instructions, the camera pans through the crowd. J.J. and Victor are standing nowhere near Marcie and Jill. The camera cuts to the speaker, then pans the crowd again. In a close up, J.J. and Victor are right next to Marcie and Jill.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Police chase the Ambulance, J.J. is in the back with Beauty and the Doctor. A second later, as the Ambulance pulls over and stops, he is sitting up front with Victor.
  
  

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