Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Will Ferrell as a NASCAR driver raised on one piece of fatherly wisdom: "If you ain't first, you're last." The summer 2006 comedy opened at #1 with $47 million and gave the world "shake and bake" — a catchphrase real drivers still quote.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby arrived August 4, 2006, directed by Adam McKay and written by McKay and Will Ferrell. Ferrell's Ricky Bobby is a stock-car superstar built entirely on the credo his absentee father Reese (Gary Cole) left him with: "If you ain't first, you're last." John C. Reilly played best friend and teammate Cal Naughton Jr. — the other half of the "shake and bake" duo — while Sacha Baron Cohen channeled every cliché of a European rival as French Formula One driver Jean Girard, with Amy Adams along as the assistant who believes in Ricky.
The film teased and loved NASCAR in equal measure, and the sport played along: NASCAR cooperated with the production, and drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jamie McMurray made cameos. The opening weekend confirmed Ferrell's box-office reign — $47 million, #1 in America, his biggest debut to that point — on the way to $163.4 million worldwide.
The legacy is the quotes. "Shake and bake" jumped the fence from parody to the real garage, invoked by actual drivers on actual race weekends — a parody so affectionate its subject adopted the joke.
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