MovieChat Forums > Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979) Discussion > SHOWTIME was not accurate with their inf...

SHOWTIME was not accurate with their information.

posted 18 years ago by jong19822004
6 replies | jump to latest

When this aired on SHOWTIME in may of 1980, the guide listed this as being 40 minutes long. I know that even without commercials, this goes over the 60-minute mark. Did they show a shorter version? Also when they listed some castmembers they did not credit Dan Aykroid,who has two bits, but they did credit Bill Murray, and he has virtually 10-seconds of screentime! It wouldn't be the only time SHOWTIME was off with their information. When they showed ANIMAL HOUSE, which has about 5 nude scenes, the guide did not list it as having nudity. When they showed UP IN SMOKE, that has at the most one discreet nude scene and the guide listed it having nudity! When they showed BLUE COLLAR, the guide listed the names of Richard Pryor and Yahpet Kotto, but not Harvey Kietel, and it was equally his film as theirs!

[–] TelevisionJunkie 18 years ago

The back of the video box lists it as 75 minutes but it runs closer to 70 mins. Running time info on older releases tend to be somewhat inaccurate. As you pointed out, the cable guides from that era also weren't always on the ball.

While it is possible that they made a shorter edit, it's not very plausable. It was filmed as a network TV special (that was deemed too racy for network TV -- boy, the times have changed!), but I can't imagine that Showtime would cut it, even in 1980...

[–] OldeSkool 17 years ago

This film(?) was severely cut when it aired on Showtime back in 1980 (during it's early days) because even they found some footage too tasteless (tasteless for Showtime?) to air. I was PO'd when I viewed it with family after how I talked about this movie over the past year. One of the handful of boo boos the Showtime has been guilty of over the years (along with the TOXIC AVENGER airing).

[–] bijou-2 17 years ago

We played this when I was a theatre manager in the 80's it was well over 60 minutes long. It included tips for Nazis on how to cook Jews among other tasteless skits that did NOT go over well. Audiences walked out in droves asking for their money back. True crap cinema.

[–] pinballwiz12 16 years ago

I just recently did a transfer of this movie from VHS to a digital format. I seem to remember making my copy of this from a friend's VHS original. Quality is very good and running time is just over 42 minutes for my copy. Sorry I missed so much! One other note from my copy, Sid Vicious' rendition of "My Way" is totally intact...no disclaimers or muting.

[–] pacscistaff 15 years ago

The dvd has the mute/disclaimer on it but didn't the 1986 movie Sid and Nancy have Gary Oldman sing the My Way song? Bizarre.

"My Way"
Performed by Gary Oldman, Glen Matlock, Dave McIntosh, John Hoare
Orchestrated by Trevor Bastow
Written by Jacques Revaux / Claude François (as Claude Francois)
© Chappell Music Ltd

Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious did a punk rock version of the song. This version, in which a large body of the words were changed and the arrangement was sped up, charted at #7 in the UK in 1978. The orchestral backing was arranged by Simon Jeffes.

Interviewed in 2007, Paul Anka said he had been "somewhat destabilised by the Sex Pistols' version. It was kind of curious, but I felt he (Sid Vicious) was sincere about it." [2]

Vicious did not know all the lyrics to the song when it was recorded, so he improvised several lyrics. Vicious' reference to a "prat who wears hats" was an injoke directed towards Vicious' friend John Lydon, who was fond of wearing different kinds of hats he would pick up at rummage sales.

In the Philippines it was believed that Vicious' version was inspired by deposed dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, where in the first part of the song Vicious attempted to imitate the voice of the late dictator.

An edited version of the Sid Vicious cover is played during the closing credits of the movie Goodfellas. This version is also used in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Lovers Walk."

In her album The End, released in conjunction with the second live-action Nana movie, singer and actress Mika Nakashima performs a cover of Sid Vicious's version of the song with what sounds like an audience singing background vocals.

At the end of the clip Sid Vicious starts shooting around with a gun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Way_%28song%29#Sid_Vicious_version

[–] The Hoyk 14 years ago

While the scrolling text blames Paul Anka for the absence of the song, it was more likely that the producers could not afford to pay the publishing fees to clear the song. Putting the blame on Anka was probably O'Donoghue's way of prolonging the joke of how offensive his movie was to polite society.

On the current DVD, the song is still missing and the old scrolling explanation is still present. Considering that the company releasing the DVD, Shout Factory, also released THE GREAT ROCK'N'ROLL SWINDLE, where the sequence is intact, they likely again decided it would be cheaper not to pay for having the song restored, and funnier to the tone of the film.