Continuity mistake: At the very beginning of the film when Akim is being awoken, he gets out of bed and rose bearers can be seen from above dropping rose pedals on the floor, but they are fairly sparsely scattered. When it's cut to them walking out of the bedroom, you can see in the background, a LOT of rose pedals in the floor.
Continuity mistake: When Akeem and Lisa show up at the apartment and see the rose petals they're all in neat piles and a lot more of them than previously dropped.
Continuity mistake: When Darryl throws the shake at Akeem, he tosses it underhanded. When it hits him, you can see it was thrown hard at him.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where the robber tries to rob the restaurant you can see out the windows. This scene was shot in two places. 1. Highland and Hollywood Blvd. before they knocked down the Burger King there, and re-did Highland Avenue. When the men go outside, it's really Queens Blvd, and it's snowing, but the scenes in the restaurant are sunny and bright outside. Same when you see them walking down the street to the restaurant, it's snowing and cold, but when they get inside, the weather outside is CA weather.
Continuity mistake: When Oha visits the restaurant he leaves a bill on the counter which the father picks up. In the next shot the bill is still there.
Continuity mistake: Darryl visits Patrice and she places her arm on his shoulder to comfort him. The arm swaps from straight to bent between shots.
Continuity mistake: Akeem's cab pulls over in front of the barber shop. When Akeem steps down, the car is several meters to the right, close to a fence.
Continuity mistake: When Lisa's on the couch, before her Cartier earrings are brought, the dog is sitting either between two cushions or one cushion only, depending on the shot.
Continuity mistake: When Akeem is woken up, from the angle above all of his head is resting on the pillow. In the close-up, just half of his head is, the rest is very close to the wall.
Answer: How would Akeem's parents know what they were up to? They think he's taking an American vacation, and in the pre social media days, it was hard to keep track of people. As for McDowell, what sort of background check did you expect him to do on a fast food employee in the 80s? McDowell seems like a guy who would cut corners anyway.
Brian Katcher
There aren't exactly a lot of people lining up to work at McDowell's, so Cleo gives the applications a once over and hires them on the spot. I'm in my 40's and I've had plenty of jobs that didn't even call my references, let alone perform a background check.