I Spoke With The Writer of Smokey 3

I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Birnbaum, one of the co-writers of "Smokey" today and learned some interesting facts about the production.
Jackie Gleason would only commit to the film if he had total approval of the script.
Burt Reynolds had no desire of starring in the picture as he didn't get along with the Producer Mort Engelberg.
There were at least 11 versions of the script written before Gleason would approve of the final script.
Gleason hated the script and asked "why do we need writers?"
The whole film was pretty much under Gleason's control.
The film was screened and that is when they decided to bring in Jerry Reed.
They basically just recreated the Bandit scenes with Reed.
Burt's cameo was always in the picture and was basically done as a favor to Gleason and the studio.
The lack of Bandit dialogue in the script was on purpose as Gleason was always ad-libbing.
Mr. Birnbaum has no idea if the original Gleason/Bandit footage still exists.