Production

Several locations on Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...

, Massachusetts were used for the film: Barnstable High School

Barnstable High School

Barnstable High School is a public high school in the village of Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA, Town of Barnstable. It is the largest high school in Barnstable County on Cape Cod. It is divided into 5 "houses", described as "schools within a school". In the 2010–2011 school year, it had...

 (as Generic High School), Hyannis West Elementary School (as Generic Elementary), the Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard And Nantucket Steamship Authority ferry dock in Woods Hole, where the characters board the ferry, and the motorcycle gang leader jumps his motorcycle into the water. The internal scene of the gas station bathroom were shot on a stage built in the MBL Club in Woods Hole.

Hoops McCann is named after the protagonist in Steely Dan

Steely Dan

Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...

's song "Glamour Profession" from the Gaucho

Gaucho (album)

Gaucho is the seventh studio album by the American Jazz rock band Steely Dan, released in 1980. The sessions for Gaucho represented the peak of Steely Dan's recording studio perfectionism and obsessive recording techniques...

album, who is in the first verse of the song, introduced as a basketball aficionado (though, as the song progresses, the character is revealed to be mixed up in far less reputable employment).

Savage Steve Holland was reportedly upset with Gene Siskel

Gene Siskel

Eugene Kal "Gene" Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted the popular review show Siskel & Ebert At the Movies from 1975 until his death....

 and Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

's criticism of his earlier film Better Off Dead, which led to the gag with the two bunnies that get blown up at the end of the movie who resemble the movie critics.

Reception

Nina Darnton of the New York Times wrote, "In spite of the director's flair for zany humor, this film is just absurd." Pat Graham of the Chicago Reader found it "Not a bad film, and certainly more polished than Holland's Better Off Dead debut, though it's marred by unevenness and the director's ineradicable penchant for infantile clowning." The film maintains a 60% score at Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

among RT's selected critics, as well as the at-large RT community, among 4100 voters.