Talk:This Is Spinal Tap

High

Cult film, influential, IMDB 250 Andman8 20:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

DVD info

Needs info on DVD, director commentary, original preview, MTV music videos, and lots more.

... (^^ the above was unattributed and not written by me :) I have an official DVD release not mentioned here. It is the original film and no extras, no commentary track, nothing. It cost £2.99 in a bargain bin, so I"m quite happy. I've now bought the 25th Aniversary release anyway. 77.99.125.25 (talk) 13:24, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Question about umlaut comment

"This is a construction that only exists in the minor Jacaltec language of Guatemala, though it is questionable whether the writers of Spinal Tap knew this at the time."

• What is that supposed to mean? Is that inferring that only the Jacaltec language uses umlauts? If so, that's drastically incorrect; many languages do (Icelandic, as an example.) Pacian 13:17, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think this refers to the umlaut over the n. --B.d.mills 01:27, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Quote from article: "The band's name is officially spelled with an umlaut (two dots) over the letter 'n'"

Does the umlaut in Spin¨al Tap need to be reverted? كسيپ Cyp 21:28 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure; I reverted a mangled attempt. -- Notheruser 21:32 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I guess it's debatable--it's there on the video box, but not in the "official" IMDb title. q.v. http://us.imdb.com/Title?0088258 Koyaanis Qatsi 21:34 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

IMDb is falliable. Kingturtle 21:35 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that, thanks. They're especially fallible in areas with few entries or little exposure, just where we are also most fallible. q.v. talk:Sid Davis. Anyway, No site I've seen, including Spinal Tap's own, displays an umlaut over the N except in a graphic. A technical question: is it even possible to display an N with an umlaut over it? Koyaanis Qatsi 21:39 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yes, this is the sort of thing that combining diacritics in Unicode are for. I've done this in Heavy metal umlaut, but I don't know how many browsers it will work on. --Zundark 21:44 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ok then. Thanks. Koyaanis Qatsi 21:47 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The link looks fine in Opera 7.11, but doesn't render right with IE6 SP1. -- Notheruser 21:47 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Doesn't work on mine... There's a hole in my fonts around ̄... Damn Micro$oft™... (Easiest company to blame.) So, combining works in Mozilla, crazy font command works in IE, can't think of anything that might work in both, at the moment. There's combining things that go on top, but can't get 2 of them next to each other. (Can have 2 combining marks, but only on top of each other...) كسيپ Cyp 21:51 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Doesn't work on IE 5.0 for win2000, and I have a rather extensive font collection due to a near psychotic dislike for boxes in browsers.  :-) It shows as Spin[]al Tap. Koyaanis Qatsi 21:59 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've got IE and Netscape on XP Home Edition. On Netscape the n is just an n, in IE it's a box. Lee M 03:44, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Download the font "Arial Unicode MS" from somewhere. It has support for most Unicode characters including the combining diaresis. Try it out and see if it works for you. A word of warning: It's about 25 megabytes in size. --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 22:24, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Works fine in Firefox 1.0.7. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 09:29, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Need for disambiguation?

Does this need a disambiguation versus the medical procedure, which I couldn't even find? Pakaran 17:13, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Probably yes. There doesn't seem to be an article on the procedure, but we could start one, of course. Kosebamse 17:19, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I've made a stub at lumbar puncture (which as a title seems less slang-ish, but then, I might be mistaken, I'm not a native speaker), so a disambiguation should be fine. Will extend the stub if I find the time. Kosebamse 17:40, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Everything except why

This article fails to answer the most important question: Why is Spinal Tap culturally significant? What makes them special? The article is full of detail and trivia which is completely uninteresting as long as the reader doesn't know why he should care.

--194.47.144.5 09:56, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia is to some degree a collection of uninteresting pop culture trivia; you could help alleviate that condition by editing articles that you don't agree with. Welcome! - Kosebamse 11:25, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Or even better, try adding articles with which you do agree. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 13:31, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Skiffle

Were The Thamesmen a parody folk band, or a parody skiffle band? -- Karada 11:29, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Other rock parodies

I think this section is a little long. Most of what is mentioned could just be included in the "see also" section. Thoughts? [[User:Lachatdelarue|Lachatdelarue (talk)]] 02:11, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is there an article on rock parody or somesuch that this list could be moved to? sjorford #£@%&$?! 09:12, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I've cut down a lot of the "Bad News Tour" part of "Other musical parodies" in the interest of NPOV and staying on topic. I've never seen BNT, but I'm not convinced that TIST is a "ripoff" of it - the idea of a mock documentary on a bad band is hardly earthshakingly original. As for why Spinal Tap is British, it's probably because many of the early metal bands were: Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Judas Priest, Venom, Girlschool, Vardis, Fist, Mantis, Witchfynde, Diamond Head... --JdwNYC 15:20, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

According to the Bad News wiki page, both were in production at the same time. The Bad News may have aired first, but that's only because TV is edited and aired in a much shorter time than movies are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.155.193.74 (talk) 14:18, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

This whole sections seems to have little (and in some parts, nothing) to do with Spinal Tap. Does it have to go on this page? --65.94.147.141 15:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The Simpsons, a television show in which Harry Shearer is also one of the principal voiceover actors

Is this intentionally ironic? (sorrry about my spelling)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.134.176.82 (talk • contribs)

- Shearer is a voiceover actor in the simpsons. In what way would it be ironic to say so? ElectricRay 23:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

because he plays the principal of the elementary school --Progjunky 00:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Stonehenge

The quote regarding the Stonehenge monument is incorrect... I may have to check with the movie to get this correct, but I am certain it is currently not so...

Trench 19:33, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC) I've updated the quote in line with the script in the official companion book, someone might want to still check the film in case it's not word for word what was shot.

I realise Black Sabbath had their own 'Spinal Tap' moment with the Stonehenge set, but I find it difficult to believe this was because measurements offered in feet were accidentally interpreted in meters. The recreation of the stones was certainly too large for many venues, but a reasonable-sized set more than tripled in size would leave no room on stage for the band. Anywhere. Also, I'm a huge Black Sabbath fan. If this was true, I'm sure I'd have come across it elsewhere, which I haven't.

This tale is just too good a joke to be true. My guess is that Sabbath's Stonehenge set was exactly the size it was supposed to be, but was simply too ambitious. The feet-to-meters anecdote is probably a later embellishment, added to make what really happened even more like the Spinal Tap movie.

Spelling the name

The artielc states:

Ironically, Guest thought that "spinal" was a deliberate misspelling, when it is in fact the correct spelling.

I'm almost (but not quite) afraid to ask how he thought it ought to be spelled. --Phil | Talk 08:46, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

The name of the band also appears to use a dotless i. --B.d.mills 04:21, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

... and at least the dotless i we can render: Spınal Tap. We should do that, shouldn't we? I would be cool about the combined diacritic as well, even though my own browser chokes on it. I would rather have the diacritic incorrectly following the letter n, instead of suppressing it completely. So my suggestion is to use Spın̈al Tap throughout the article, including the title, and include a note on the inadequate display of combined diacritics in most user agents. Arbor 29 June 2005 09:09 (UTC)

I think that the dotless i and umlauted n in the name are merely humorous and do not need to be reflected in the page title. Such diacritics are not serious, as in actual Turkish, Serbo-croat, etc names. I propose that we remove the notice saying that the reason for the lack of accents is purely technical.

However, if a majority believes the silly accents are important, I think we should be consistent and make sure that every mention of the name in the article and its title should carry those accents. I'll implement that if necessary. — Chameleon 29 June 2005 13:10 (UTC)

Some friendly soul moved this page so that the title used the combined diacritical n-umlaut. I took the liberty of also removing the dot over i (a relatively harmless change, from a character encoding point of view). If nothing else, this page now serves as a live test of using really strange Unicode gimmickry in the title. Let's see what happens,,, Arbor 9 July 2005 16:22 (UTC)

Unicode

• The Unicode used in this document title, and throughout this document, do not display properly on my computer, using Windows 98 SE with Internet Explorer 6.0. --Blu Aardvark 08:45, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Move request

I propose this this should be moved back to This Is Spinal Tap (or possibly This is Spinal Tap, I don't mind which). Reasons:

• Browser support for Unicode combining diactritics appears to be highly variable - see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#combining diacritical marks for further discussion. (The dotless "i" presumably has much better browser support, but there's no point having one without the other.)
• Mentioning or using the umlauted version in the article text is one thing, but potentially displaying garbage characters in the title is highly unprofessional.
• The existence of the umlaut is an inconsistent joke - it is only usually used when displaying the band's logo, and almost never (except on Wikipedia!) when just mentioning the band's name in print.

Oh...it's just better without the umlaut. ;) sjorford (?!) 14:23, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support - The umlaut is purely heavy metal decoration here, and cannot by any stretch be considered part of the name, since n-umlaut has no known pronunciation (due respect to the Jacaltec people). Since some systems won't display this bastard combination, I'm opposed to leaving it in just for fun. —Michael Z. 2005-08-28 15:49 Z
• Comment. The combining diacritics are used elsewhere in the article extensively, so I don't understand why the title should be a special case. Nobody will have trouble finding the page as there is an existing redirect from the non-umlauted This Is Spinal Tap. A band's name should be spelled properly using Unicode characters regardless whether some browsers have problems displaying them — it is the user's web browser, not Wikipedia, which is being "unprofessional" such cases. However, if it is true, as sjorford claims, that the band's proper name is Spinal Tap (without the umlaut) and that the umlaut is used only sporadically for comic effect, then I have no problem moving it back. —Psychonaut 15:50, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

  Well, I would like the un-umlauted version to be used in most of the text as well - I don't mind it being mentioned once or twice though. sjorford (?!) 17:10, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree; remove it from the text. The umlaut is super-cute, but to clarify: it is part of the logo, not of the name. In my browser it breaks where the text is italicized (Safari 2.0 with plenty of large Unicode fonts installed). Since n-umlaut belongs to practically no language, there is no guarantee that any computer system can display it unbroken. —Michael Z. 2005-08-28 21:37 Z

• Support the move as per Michael Z and sjorford. The umlaut is decoration. — mark ✎ 19:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
• Support: I agree with Michael Z and sjorford. CDThieme 22:30, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
• Support move and removal of umlaut from text. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:29, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed after the result of a move request. I am inclined to believe the "I" in "Is" should be lowercase as well, but I left it uppercase since there was very little discussion of this. Dragons flight 08:05, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

I've removed most of the umlauts in the text, except for the one in the naming section. sjorford #£@%&$?! 09:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Spun off a separate Spinal Tap article

In theory, separating the details about the expanded universe of the mostly fictional band from the film in which they appeared should help with the organization of both articles. 69.3.70.58 05:05, 14 October 2005 (UTC).

Trivia

I'm not a fan, so I don't know where to insert this trivia: the band performs in the Milwaukee music venue "Shank Hall" in the movie. Someone please do this for me. Thx Royalbroil 20:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC) (Wikiproject Wisconsin)

and i've deleted it again. as you rightly note, it's trivia. There's no place for it in Wikipedia. ElectricRay 23:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

...so fictional gigs and venues are not allowed but Spinal Tap's fictional albums do get a mention...!?! 77.99.125.25 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:28, 25 December 2009 (UTC).

Joe "Mama" Besser

While I don't think Reiner or the rest come out and say it, but isn't the last drummer in the film, Joe "Mama" Besser, a reference to Joe Besser, one of the guys who replaced Curly and Shemp in the Three Stooges? --YoungFreud 05:47, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Dead referrence

I asked for a source since this "fact" was also added to the Grateful Dead's page. Actually only Pigpen died while a member of the group. Keith LEFT before his death, and Brent died AFTER the movie came out. The drummer parody seems to REALLY refer to all the drummers that seemed to be dying as the article points out. If we can't nail this down with a reliable source it should be removed, IMO. ThanksTom 15:17, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi! I added the paragraph about a possible link between the band's name and the sci-fi novel by Fred Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth. I have just read the criteria for deletion and realise that I have probably broken several rules. Sorry if I have!

Other musical parodies

The "Other musical parodies" section seems unecessary to me. There's quite a bit of information in there, but the movies are related to This is Spinal Tap only by not being This is Spinal Tap. What do you all think? Originalbigj 02:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

True... seems to me that it's interesting information but would be better off in a seperate article. Mark Grant 16:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Delete Section - Not only does it seem misplaced in this article, it seems rather pointless - does Wikipedia really need a list of musical parodies? --BlueSoxSWJ 23:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I chopped it down to a list of four, and removed all the discussion. In general, this whole article is WAY over long, and WAY self indulgent. ElectricRay 23:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

uh, how is airheads a rockumentary? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Progjunky (talk • contribs) 01:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

I'm surprised this article doesn't mention "The Last Waltz:" The Marti De Bergi (sp?) is clearly a parody of Martin Scorcese in "The Last Waltz," from the beard to the hat to the sychophantic questioning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.229.176 (talk) 23:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Noticed that as well - saw "The Last Waltz" for the first time not too long ago, and too much of it is an obvious inspiration. Not sure where that would go in here - maybe a section called Inspirations or Sources? That would work for some other items too - "Gimme Some Money" and other songs could use some discussion, the whole Stonehenge starting point, dead drummers, guitar solos... Patrickbowman (talk) 06:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Guitar solo cover of classical piece

Hi all... Does anyone know what the piece of classical music covered by Tufnel in the movie is? It's a relatively famous piece but I've never been able to find out what it is. The original is played with a violin or similar bowed instrument. And shouldn't such information appear in the main article? In either case, thanks.

Me again... Found it. It's Luigi Boccherini's Minuet from 'String Quintet in E Major' Op. 13 No. 5, G. 275.

Story of band offended by movie

For years I've heard a story that a certain band, upon seeing the movie for the first time, stormed out of the theater because they thought it was a direct parody of them. In most tellings, the band is Scorpions, but I've also heard it applied to Aerosmith, Judas Priest and Uriah Heep. The story is most likely an urban myth, but if there is documentation (or disproof) of the story I think it would be worth discussing in the article. Does anyone have information?

There was also a story that they showed the film pre-release to an audience of band members and music business people and it had a pretty hostile reception in several quarters from people who thought the piss was being taken. So much so that it affected the launch and promo of the film, which helped it to be not as much an instant commercial success as it later became as a cult in other formats. The manager is supposedly Simon Napier-Bell, a Sixties London wheeler/dealer manager and promoter, who allegedly did smash a television set with a cricket bat at least once. Also, I have heard it said (by an ex-employee) that the Patrick Macnee part, the record company boss, was a carbon copy of Decca boss Sir Edward Lewis, a man apparently in the habit of asking "who's Mick Jagger" at the time when the Stones were practically paying for Decca Records.

David Konow tells about the response of heavy metal artists in his book 'Bang Your Head'. Most of which was, "Oh, yeah. That happened to us, that too, yeah we got lost backstage too. How'd they make a movie about us??"

Up to eleven needs to be merged in

The article is mostly a crufty collection of references in popular culture. It is notable however, and should be in the main article on the movie instead.--SeizureDog 07:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. That article is about the idiom. While there is a connection to the film, the phrase has taken on a life of its own. When it is used, it is often done in a way that has no reference to the film. It's inclusion in the OED is highly relevant. I do agree that the article has become a catch-all for every minor use of the phrase, but I'm in no mood lately to try to enforce some kind of sourcing order on the article. —Malber (talk • contribs) 17:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The phrase has gone way beyond the movie. Don't merge. 59.167.62.77 11:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether not that other article is merged, the signature phrase at least needs some mention in the plot summary here! —Steve Summit (talk) 18:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Add to list of actors

Since I can't seem to find the link to edit the introductory section, can someone less dense in such things than I please add Billy Crystal to the list of actors with small or cameo roles? He was the "boss mime" who was berating fellow mime Dana Carvey and who utters the line, "Come on! Mime is money!" Amateur Mendicant 08:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Guns N' Roses parodied

In the plot overview section, there was a sentence reading "In this section, Nigel also refers to a 'trilogy' that he is creating, a parody of the sad Guns N' Roses 'trilogy,' which fits Nigel's description". I have removed this sentence as I believe it to be inaccurate. Although parallels can be drawn with Guns N' Roses, this band could not have been the subject of the parody since they were yet to form and didn't release any widely accessible records until 1987 - three, possibly four, years after the production of Spinal Tap. Hope this meets with Wiki approval!GeorgeRob 12:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Thamesmen

"Gimme Some Money" - sounds like some work from The Animals, was that the inspiration? David.Monniaux 14:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikiquote link

The name of the Wikiquote page for this film is spelled WITHOUT the umlaut - so the link at the bottom of the article doesn't work. Can this be corrected?

If it can't, then perhaps this is another reason why the name of this article should be changed to remove the umlaut.

132.244.246.25 (talk) 09:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Spinal Tap - Stonehenge excerpt.ogg

Image:Spinal Tap - Stonehenge excerpt.ogg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Thamesmen - Gimme Some Money excerpt.ogg

Image:Thamesmen - Gimme Some Money excerpt.ogg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 06:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Playing guitar with the foot

About the parodic reference : besides Jimmy Hendrix playing with his teeth, there is ex-Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who used to do such a thing. During his guitar-killing scenes, he would drop his guitar on the floor, and play it with the foot. Faenglor (talk) 01:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Name in Oracle 9i

SELECT 'Sp' || UNISTR('\0131') || COMPOSE('n' || UNISTR('\0308')) || 'al Tap' FROM dual; -- Bardnet (talk) 16:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Interview from AV Club with McKean on song influences

I don't know whether this is better here on on the band page but dropping here for reference [1] --MASEM (t) 14:19, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Initial Reception

I made a not very helpful edit summary and hit "Save Page" too soon, so I'll explain myself. The "Reception" section says, "suffering from, among other things, the failure of many viewers to understand that it was not a real documentary." I find this extremely unlikely. TIST was clearly publicised as a mock documentary at the time, and it's obvious when seeing it. I find it hard to believe that there were many viewers who (a) went to see the film believing it was of a real band, and (b) failed to work it out while watching the movie. So I stuck a "fact" tag on the it, but I'm tempted to delete it altogether. Peter Ballard (talk) 06:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

No discussion, so deleted. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Placement within the Genre

There doesn't seem to be anything in the article about what came before (see Cinema Verite, Cinema Direct) that influenced this film, or any subsequent influence on other productions. Surely this is important for a film of this relevance to the genre? AlatarK (talk) 04:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Band origins

On the Criterion DVD commentary, the three main cast members reveal that a lot of people thought the film was based on Black Sabbath and/or Jeff Beck. Harry Shearer reveals that he went on the road with UK rock group Saxon, and stole a few stories from their bass player, but they all agree that they wanted Spinal Tap to be their own band -- rather than something like The Ruttles, which would be obviously traced back to a real band. Saying that, they admit they had Status Quo or Uriah Heap in mind in terms of longevity. Useful information for future expansion of this article, I think. Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker (talk) 16:59, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Umlauts and diaereses

Can we relegate the talk about the orthographical peculiarities to a footnote or something? Seems to be getting the article off on the wrong foot to talk about these little quirks, instead of getting right to the point of what the movie is about. Vranak (talk) 17:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Resolved: Took care of this myself.