The "Turk 182" tag is loosely inspired by the real-life tag of "TAKI 183", one of New York City's first and most famous graffiti writers.
Though the film's actual title is "Turk 182!", movie posters and marketing materials for the film, including DVD and home video, have usually dropped the exclamation mark, publicizing the title without it as "Turk 182".
The second of four appearances where Timothy Hutton' plays a person fighting the system. The first was Taps (1981) and the next two would be The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), & Leverage (2008).
Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert cited it as the initial example on their hit TV show of a movie that exemplified the "Idiot Plot". The two critics would use that term often to describe movies where the main issues/problems could and should have been solved in a few minutes, except for every major character in the movie being a complete idiot.
Director Bob Clark and actress Kim Cattrall had previously worked together on Tribute (1980) and Porky's (1981). The movie was the third of four collaborations, the other being Baby Geniuses (1999).