Following a screening of The Last of the Cowboys at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1977, none of the major studios made an offer to acquire the film from production company Mar Vista Productions; they considered its storyline of a truck driver dying of cancer so depressing that it would be difficult to market. Independent production and distribution company Dimension Pictures agreed to distribute the film after Mar Vista ceded its creative rights. Against star Henry Fonda's wishes, Dimension re-edited the picture to tell a lighthearted story of a sick truck driver who makes a cross-country trip with prostitutes and then retitled it The Great Smokey Roadblock to capitalize on the popularity of Smokey and the Bandit.
More than once in the film it is implied that Henry Fonda's character is 60 years old. Fonda was 71 when the film was shot and 72 when it was released.
The truck in this movie is a 1976 Kenworth W900 with a Detroit Diesel engine.
Dana House was the Playboy Playmate of the Month in the January 1976 issue.
The movie refers to the word ''smokeys'' (or ''smokies'') which is an American slang word for ''police officers''. The singular form of the word is ''smokey''. The term became popularized in American cinema after the popularity of the picture 'Smokey and the Bandit' (1977). 'C.B. Hustlers' (1976), which features the term, was first released the year before. The popularity of the 'Smokey and the Bandit' movies, Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), created a mini-cycle of similarly titled ''Smokey'' pictures such as Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983), Smokey Bites the Dust (1981), Smokey and the Judge (1982), Smokey and the Hotwire Gang (1979), Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws (1978) and 'The Great Smokey Roadblock' [See: The Great Smokey Roadblock (1977)].