Smokey and the Bandit episodes of the series. Needham saw an advertisement for the soon-to-be-released 1977 Pontiac Trans Am and knew right away that would be the Bandit's car, or, as Needham referred to it, a character in the movie. He contacted Pontiac and an agreement was made that four 1977 Trans Ams and two Pontiac LeMans 4-door sedans would be provided for the movie. The Trans Ams were actually 1976-model cars with 1977 front ends. (From 1970 to 1976, both the Firebird/Trans Am and Chevrolet Camaro had two round headlights, and in 1977, the Firebird/Trans Am was changed to four rectangular headlights, while
Hooper (film) office; it was one of the top ten films of 1978, but ultimately the film was deemed a letdown in comparison to Reynolds' "Smokey and the Bandit", second only to "Star Wars" in box office gross the year before. "Hooper" grossed $78 million domestically, nearly 40% less than the gross of "Smokey" in 1977 ($126 million). The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound (Robert Knudson, Robert Glass, Don MacDougall and Jack Solomon). "Hooper" was also one of the first movies to make use of the blooper reel credit crawl. The technique, originated by Needham, showed a