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Quotes

Crazy Ernie: If nobody comes down here and buys a car in the next hour, I'm gonna club this baby seal. That's right! I'm gonna club this seal to make a better deal. You know I'll do it, too, cause I'm crazy.

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Mistakes

Throughout the telethon we see volunteers taking pledges over the telephone. As with all telethons the vast majority of pledges will be paid by cheque. Instant bank transfers were unknown in the days the film was set and the telethon ends at midnight, at which time American banks are most certainly shut! How does George manage to have $75,000 in CASH for Big Louie on site that very night? Not every single pledge would (or could) go out to the remote site to pay in cash - not at that time of the night, anyway - and he couldn't raise more than the required sum as this was a share offer and an oversell would reduce the value of individual shareholder's equity. See more...

Trivia

During one of Stanley's Clubhouses, Stanley sprays whipped cream into an audience member's mouth. This is Dr. Demento, the first DJ to put Weird Al on his station. See more...

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Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Right after George Newman pays off Big Louie, a man from the FCC tells RJ Fletcher, ".your broadcast made a big impression on me. I'm revoking your license. Effective immediately, you're off the air". This is in reference to Philo's broadcast of RJ calling the community "festering dogsnot" from the camera he had previously hidden in RJ's office. Although rude and offensive, there was nothing illegal about RJ's statement. The one who broke the law, if anyone, would have been Philo for illegally transmitting on Channel 8's frequency. [He revokes Channel 8s licence because they are late filing their financial returns for the year, not because of the broadcast. He makes it clear that late filing of a return would normally involve a large fine - so it's a serious offence - but after seeing Fletcher's offensive broadcast he is taking Channel 8 off the air, something he is entitled to do anyway.]
Edit Time
The manager of the top rated television station in even the smallest town in America - and the town this film is set in seems to be quite a large one - would have no problem at all in obtaining a $75,000 loan from a bank (in the time the film was set, anyway). Based on advertising revenues alone, $75,000 would be a very modest amount to ask for. The whole premise of the telethon and the fundraising efforts is completely superfluous. [True, however George's adversary R.J. Fletcher is a big man in the business community with lots of financial connections. He could easily have pulled strings to see that George doesn't get a loan.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
George and Bob leave the deserted building after a disastrous taping of Uncle Nutsy's Funhouse, which featured half a dozen bored, unhappy kids. They go to a bar and watch the second half of the show, now starring Stanley, who took over as host. He now has an full audience of dozens of happy, enthusiastic kids. Channel 62 is miles from anywhere - where did those kids come from? [As mentioned, there are six kids with George, all spread out with the camera pointing at the benches in a wide shot. When the program returns with Stanley as host, the same kids have moved down on the bench to be closer to Stanley. When the camera cuts the to the bench again, it is a closer shot since all of the kids have moved closer together. No extra kids appear between the two segments.]
Edit
At the last minute of "Save Our Station" when Stanley said, "This is it. This is our last minute," the time is 11:59 and nine seconds. When R.J. takes the plug out, it is exactly 12:00. If one count between those, it is only 13 seconds, not 51. [This is an artifact of film-making technique. Films are not presented in real time - they'd be too long if they were. Events are compressed or elongated for dramatic purposes all the time - such as this instance.]
Edit Time
At the very end of the movie when the main character's in a different setting, there are thick black lines in the background, but when George Newman says, "I knew she was gonna say that." and they kiss, the lines are gone. [It's a fantasy, all happening in George's head. Anything can happen.]
Edit Time
In the Town Talk/Geraldo sequence, the order in which the maniacs are sitting changes. [No, they don't. At 0.59:48 we have a slow tracking shot showing a Nazi, a hooker, a Klansman, a smiling schoolgirl and an axe murderer, in that order. Then we cut to a studio shot at 1.00:02 and the order is precisely the same.]
Edit Time
In the Clubhouse scene with the 'Marble in the Oatmeal'-competition, the spout from the waterhose the boy gets a 'drink' from sprays past the dummy (or whatever it was they hosed). [You are watching a film within a film - the careful staging of a television show which involves physical stunts with children. Obviously the producers of 'Stanley Spadowski's Funhouse' carefully stage the stunts to make sure the children are not hurt, and that is what we see.]
Edit Time
In the 'Conan the Librarian' trailer, the dummy which is hacked apart for bringing back some overdue books is broader than a human (easy to see in slow motion). [Channel 62 makes and broadcasts a lot of cheesy programmes with poor production values, and this is just one of them. It's a part of the plot, not a mistake.]
Edit Time
In the Rambo Fantasy, when George turns the plane on, if you look closely, he's actually turning it off. [Yes, but this is a fantasy scene of George's. He is not a trained pilot, and can only base his fantasy on what he remembers seeing in movies, so he gets this wrong (either from the character mistake of false memory, or from seeing a movie that got this wrong as well).]
Edit Corrected by Twotall Time
Al goes to visit his Uncle Harvey who just bought "a little TV station at the edge of town". We know that it is close by because Al still has the same uniform on from earlier in the day when he was fired from the burger joint. It is also made clear that RJ is Al's cross-town rival who is trying to take over the UHF station. So why is it when, later in the film, when Uncle Harvey goes to meet RJ about selling the station, he has to take an airplane to do it? We even see RJ meeting Uncle Harvey at the airport. Did he really need to take a plane to go across town? [Just because Al lives close by the TV station, it does not mean that Uncle Harvey does. In fact, he lives out-of-state, and bought the station from there (Notice how Al always talks to his uncle on the phone, never in person?). When RJ propositions him with a business deal, he finds it important enough to fly in in person to negotiate.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
At the end of the Indiana Jones parody when George Newman faints from running too much, he falls backwards so the rock will hit his head first. In the next shot, it hits him feet first, but it is impossible to turn around that fast. [No, he falls forward and then rolls over on the ground, hence he should get hit feet first.]
Edit Corrected by Garlonuss
In the Rambo fantasy, when George Newman blows up the people, play it in slow motion and you can see that all of them are dummies. [That's the whole point. That spoof makes fun of Rambo's obvious fakeness.]
Edit Corrected by Sereenie Time
When Terry attempts to talk with Fletcher and he lets off his speech about the public, which Theo records, there is a pause as Terry's face is shown - but the pause does not appear in Theo's replay action. [He edited it out, of course. No television engineer is going to allow dead air to be broadcast.]
Edit
After George and Bob have been fired there is a closeup of a car and the camera crew is visible in the reflection on the side of it. [It's a vague reflection of something, but not the crew. Check again - the angle is wrong for it to be the crew.]
Edit
During George's Rambo fantasy a man on the ground fires at him and he catches the bullet in his teeth. Problem is, the bullet still has the shell casing on it. [Yup, but its a fantasy, George obviously knows nothing about bullets.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot