Mac Rauch's original 30-page treatment was titled Find the Jetcar, Said the President - A Buckaroo Banzai Thriller. Early on, one of the revisions Mac Rauch made was changing Buckaroo's surname from Bandy to Banzai. Mac Rauch was not happy with the name change, but Richter convinced him to keep the new name. The Hong Kong Cavaliers also appeared in these early drafts, but, according to Richter, "it never really went to a completed script. Mac wrote and wrote but never wrote the end". Another early draft was titled The Strange Case of Mr. Cigars about a huge robot and a box of Adolf Hitler 's cigars. Mac Rauch shelved his work for a few years while he wrote New York, New York for Martin Scorsese and other unproduced screenplays.