After initial box-office returns were surprisingly low, a newspaper poll was taken in the summer of 1980 to figure out why teenagers were not flocking to see the film. One of the main complaints from kids was that they did not know what the word Urban meant.
John Travolta had a mechanical bull installed in his house two months before production began. He became so good that he was allowed to dismiss the stunt double and do the takes himself.
At the time the film was shot, Gilley's, used as the film's main nightclub location, was the largest nightclub in the world in terms of available space for the patrons, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. This was later overtaken quite substantially by Billy Bob's Texas, in Fort Worth. It is so large that it does not have a mechanical bull. It has real ones that are ridden in an indoor arena at the northeast corner of the building.
The soundtrack album was a major hit. It sold several million copies and featured the hit tunes "Looking for Love", "Can I Have This Dance?" and "All Night Long".