Favorite little details


Everyone remembers the big stuff, but there's the little stuff that makes the film work so well:

- David slipping in a Roger Daltrey-esque stammer ("You know what I n-n-n-n-n-n-need") as the band finds their way into "Gimme Some Money" (a song that would have been on the charts when "My Generation" was, after all) during the sound check.

- "This is Cindy's first mustache" as Derek, in the back of the bus, not too seriously bats the giggling groupie's hand away.

- Sticking your finger in your ear to hear yourself sing--really, the whole Elvis Presley's grave sequence ("That sounds reggae" [pronouncing it "rahga"]).

What about you?

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At the album signing (where nobody showed up).
How are you supposed to sign your name on an
album cover that is completely !BLACK! on both
sides? lol!

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For me, the best subtle thing is Nigel's last line, which is also the
very last line in the movie: "Well I don't know, what are the hours?"
Brilliant. Another great moment of humor is when Fred Willard is telling
the guys how he's always been a fan...not of them specifically, but the
whole genre of Rock and Roll. Lol

Jeff K
Full time dreamer.
"Excuses are like buttholes - everybody has one and they all stink."

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The name "Artie Fufkin"

The whole meltdown (and I'm quoting from memory here, so apologies..) in the recording studio:
"It's your facking wife!"
"She's not my wife"
"Well whatever the fack she is.."

The way Marti looks away like a scolded child when Nigel tells him not to look at the guitar.

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The subtle hint that Artie Fufkin is a homosexual, when he is chatting with the record store manager/clerk. Plus his mannerism are clearly not normal, but back then this probably flew over most of audiences head.

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And at that record signing event, David is holding a black sharpe.

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I'm watching it right now. Got it at the flea market (DVD) for $1

An album called "Shark Sandwich?" The Herpes sore on the guys lip at the party? Spontaneous combustion? The dwarfs crushing Stonehenge?

When Rob Reiner is sitting by the piano and listening to Nigel's beautiful piano piece (classical music) in "D" minor which is the "saddest of all keys" and after listening to the beautiful melody he says "what's the song called?" and Nigel says "Lick my Love Pump..."

Or how about going through the metal detector and the guy has to pull out his cucumber wrapped in foil from his crotch cause it sets off metal detectors?

Or, what day did God create Spinal Tap and why couldn't he have rested on that day?

About the teenie weenie Stonehenge:
"But Ian, this is what I was given to build, this napkin, 18"(inches)" Then, Ian says "*beep* the napkin..."


David St. Hubbins: I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem *may* have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being *crushed* by a *dwarf*. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object.

Ian Faith: I really think you're just making much too big a thing out of it.

Derek Smalls: Making a big thing out of it would have been a good idea.
The feminist music executive who injected feminist attitudes into the cover and nixed the "smell the glove" original album cover because she thought it was too "offensive?" Then when the "smell the glove" album finally arrives, it is just black with no writing on it, and the guys try to make lemonade out of lemons, "well it looks like leather..." "it's shiny and you can see yourself in it like a mirror..."

The Yoko Ono girlfriend who tears the rock band apart?

Yep, it was an over the top parody. Lots of funny in this picture. To me a classic.

Just my opinion.

Lena

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When they are playing at the park, after being billed under the puppet show and they bust out "Jazz Odyssey" and David is certain to let the crowd know that Derek "wrote this."

There's nothing like an ice cold beer on a hot Christmas morning

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The hint of an affair between Nigel and Jeanine. And David, totally oblivious, as he hands out copies of Jeanine's astrological chart for the band, and Nigel shows that he already has a copy!

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The hint of an affair between Nigel and Jeanine. And David, totally oblivious, as he hands out copies of Jeanine's astrological chart for the band, and Nigel shows that he already has a copy!


I don't think that was hinting an affair, just that Nigel was so disinterested he was reading something else, so she assumed he didn't get his copy. He had it, he just ignored it totally.

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For the theme park scene, I like David's response to Derek's suggestion of "Jazz Odyssey".

"We're not gonna do a 50-minute free-form jazz...exploration...in front of a...a...FESTIVAL crowd!"

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"Spinal Tap's version of Sex Farm...?"

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When Derek is trapped in that lung type thing on stage the roadie trying to free him pulls out the high voltage cable and tests it with his tongue like its a battery.

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"Mime is Monney"

Nigel closing the window in the Limousine

"so we wil have to play what, 50 hours?"

"doubly"

"Stonehenge ... where the banshees live and they do live well"

"What's wrong about being sexy?"

"how much more black could this be? None"

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I've always found Derek's double necked bass guitar funny - like it's a needless ego enhancement rather than something he actually needs. After googling it a bit, it turned out it's even more so. People pointed out that both necks are identical fretted 4-strings. There is a handful of custom-made double necked bass guitars that musicians have actually used in live concerts, usually with different number of strings or one fretted/the other unfretted. Theoretically the necks could be in different tunings, but since Nigel and David are also playing bass guitar during "Big Bottom," it really is the ultimate useless novelty instrument.

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Ian telling the band not worry about their concert cancellation because, Boston's not much of a college town."

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