This was Ramis' first feature film and was a major boost to Dangerfield's film career; previously, he was known mostly for his stand-up comedy. Grossing almost $40 million in the U.S. alone (16th highest of the year), it was the first of a series of similar comedies. A sequel, Caddyshack II, followed in 1988, although it was not nearly as successful or well-received.

Michael O'Keefe (born Raymond Peter O'Keefe, Jr.) in Mount Vernon, New York, the oldest of seven children in a devoutly Roman Catholic Irish American family.  His father was a law professor at Fordham University, as well as also teaching at St. Thomas of Villanova College. O'Keefe attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and New York University, and made his acting debut in a 1970 Colgate television commercial. He is a cousin of Will Eno.

O'Keefe's best known film role is Danny Noonan in the comedy film Caddyshack. He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role as the oldest son of a Marine aviator in The Great Santini, starring Robert Duvall, also nominated for an Academy Award for the film. He played a Marine in 1980 in the miniseries A Rumor of War as the friend of Brad Davis' character, Philip Caputo, and played the lead role in the 1982 film, Split Image, as an all-American college athlete who gets lured into a religious cult by a beautiful girl (Karen Allen). He has also appeared in the independent film The Glass House, as well as starring alongside Tommy Lee Jones in the 1983 pirate adventure Nate and Hayes (also known as Savage Islands). More recently O'Keefe appeared opposite George Clooney in Michael Clayton. He's appeared twice opposite Jack Nicholson, as his son in Ironweed and as the father of a murdered girl in The Pledge. His film Frozen River was in the competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. He also plays the powerful District Attorney Calvin Beckett in the film American Violet.