Talk:This Is Spinal Tap

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Contents 1 High 2 DVD info 3 Question about umlaut comment 4 Need for disambiguation? 5 Everything except why 6 Skiffle 7 Other rock parodies 8 The Simpsons, a television show in which Harry Shearer is also one of the principal voiceover actors 9 Stonehenge 10 Spelling the name 11 Unicode 12 Move request 12.1 Discussion 13 Spun off a separate Spinal Tap article 14 Trivia 15 Joe "Mama" Besser 16 Dead referrence 17 Other musical parodies 18 Guitar solo cover of classical piece 19 Story of band offended by movie 20 Up to eleven needs to be merged in

[edit] High

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

[edit] DVD info

Needs info on DVD, director commentary, original preview, MTV music videos, etc

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Skiffle

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

[edit] 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)

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)

[edit] 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)—The preceding unsigned comment was 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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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).

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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!

[edit] 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).

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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??"

[edit] 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)