On February 13, 1983, the Cinema Statuto in Turin, Italy, burned while screening the film, resulting in 64 deaths. Investigations revealed that the theater's owner locked the emergency exits to prevent people from sneaking in for free. The owner was subsequently convicted and given a 10 year prison sentence.
There are two German dubbed versions for this film. The reason for this is that the original dubbing (supervised by Rainer Brandt) which was used for the theatrical showing of the movie was drastically different from the original version in terms of humor and vulgarity, so that the German TV ordered a new language track for the TV premiere of the movie which resembles the language and atmosphere of the original version of the movie much closer.
First among three movies starring Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard that was remade in Hollywood. Coincidentally, Richard's characters in the Hollywood version of this film and their third film, The Fugitives (1986), were both played by Martin Short.
Most of the Spanish actors recited their dialogs in Spanish, and later they were dubbed in French.
Gérard Depardieu wanted to play the role of François Perrin, but writer/director Francis Veber refused, insisting he should play Campana. As a result, Depardieu ended up being particularly difficult to work with on the film. Despite this, this ended up being the first of three films in a row for Veber to co-star Depardieu and Pierre Richard.