Best comedy movie factual errors of 1990

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Back to the Future Part III picture

Factual error: Though extremely modest on today's standards, the dress worn by Clara to the hoedown shows far too much cleavage for the time. No schoolteacher would ever wear a dress like that in the 1880s.

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Home Alone picture

Factual error: When Kevin's mom leaves Paris to return home, the plane shown departing the airport is a DC-9. No airline uses this plane for trans-Atlantic service - it doesn't have the required range.

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Suggested correction: Although not explicitly mentioned, it could be a connecting flight which departs Europe from another airport. In this case, flying a short or medium range aircraft to reach a hub airport like Heathrow would be plausible.

They stopped at an intermediate airport to catch a connecting flight and still nobody noticed Kevin was missing? Absolute rubbish. The posting is absolutely correct.

This is a mistake on the trip home, by which point they already noticed Kevin was missing. They had a non-stop flight going there.

Nonsense. With a maximum fuel load, the DC9 had a range of 1450 nautical miles (2685 km). If they stopped to refuel at Shannon airport in Ireland - which is closer to New York than Heathrow - they would still have to fly 2878 nautical miles (5330 km) to reach New York. They are going for a very long swim.

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Mermaids picture

Factual error: Cher complains that Astroturf is going to ruin baseball. Mermaids is set in 1963 when Astroturf was still being developed under the name Chemigrass. It wasn't christened Astroturf until it made its world debut on the floor of the Houston Astrodome in 1966.

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Air America picture

Factual error: The movie is set in the late 60's. In the restaurant scene two guys on stage are singing "A Horse With No Name" which didn't come out until 1971.

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Tremors picture

Factual error: Throughout the entire film Burt holds all of his rifles' butts underneath his armpit, rather than against his shoulder. A trained "survivalist" such as him would surely know better. Holding the "elephant gun" in such a way would most likely break his arm, wrist and hand when it fired. (00:58:20)

RJR99SS

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Gremlins 2: The New Batch picture

Factual error: When the Security Guard in the pump room gets bitten on the nose, he starts shooting with his revolver (a SIX shooter). Count the bangs. He manages to fire SEVEN times. (00:39:45)

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Pump up the Volume picture

Factual error: When Christian Slater is talking on the phone in one scene, it is clear it is a cordless phone. When he slams it down, however, it makes that "ding" sound like older phones that really have a bell in them.

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Arachnophobia picture

Factual error: The spider being fried by the fuse box simply can't happen. Fuses are insulated for that very reason.

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Ghost picture

Factual error: Banker Carl (Goldwyn) threatens to kill Molly at 11 pm if he doesn't get his $4 million. Goldwyn goes searching for his money at Whoopi Goldberg's house. Goldberg is arguing with her sisters over whether to watch The Arsenio Hall Show or change the channel to watch Love Connection. In New York, where the movie takes place, The Arsenio Hall Show was on at 11:30 pm (already past the time he threatened to kill Molly) and Love Connection was on at 9:00 am and both shows were broadcast on the same channel.

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Three Men and a Little Lady picture

Factual error: During the second half of the film, set in Britain, Peter Mitchell is hiding away from a woman. She opens the door and asks "What are you doing in my closet?" She seems to talk with an upper class British accent, but she wouldn't use the American word "closet," but use either "wardrobe" or "cupboard."

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Men at Work picture

Factual error: The lights and siren of a police car don't go on when starting the engine. They are turned on and off separately from the engine.

RoyT

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The Freshman picture

Factual error: There are multiple mistakes in the Italian passport for Clark. Febraio (February) is spelled with only one 'b', and the city Palermo is followed by the region name, which is not put on a passport.

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Taking Care of Business picture

Factual error: When Jimmy hot-wires the Lotus for the last time, he touches a red wire to a black one, the starter engages and the engine starts. Then he twists the two wires together. This would result in the starter running constantly, overheating it, and burning it out. A competent car thief would know never to do that.

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Coupe de Ville picture

Factual error: Buddy's early '60s black-and-white photo of his girlfriend is on modern-day Kodak paper - you can see the printing on the back of the photo in the restaurant that's advertising the brand.

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Cry-Baby picture

Factual error: In the time Cry Baby is based, there was racial tension (the judge even makes a racist remark). The jails would have been segregated until 1965, yet when Cry Baby goes to jail, both white and black people are in the scene. That would only ever happen during rec time and meals.

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Problem Child picture

Factual error: When John Ritter and his wife are sitting with the fertility expert, the doctor explains how her reproductive system is not functional. The manner in which he explains this would lead us to believe that she would have been physically unable to menstruate, thus she would have known long before this meeting that she was incapable of bearing a child.

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Another 48 Hrs. picture

Factual error: No handgun shots can throw a police officer through the air halfway over a diner. That's just pure Hollywood fantasy (Mythbusters even proved this using all kinds of guns).

Gavin Jackson

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles picture

Factual error: April interviews (live) the police Chief and then tries to take the train back home. The subway station shows that it's the City Hall stop, and she just finished her interview with the guy, which happened mid-afternoon as you can see by the clock in the corridor. Despite being New York in the middle of the day, there's not a soul in the station, nobody got off the train she just missed, nobody around at all on any of the multiple platforms. It's a trope good for a scene set at 3 AM, not 5 PM. (00:19:25)

Sammo

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Ghost Dad picture

Factual error: When Bill Cosby (as a ghost) goes to the doctor and the doctor checks his heart (which is not beating), Bill Cosby then presses play on a tape recording of a sound of a beating heart. The doctor hears this through the stethoscope, even though the tape recorder is behind Bill's back, which is not possible.

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The Bonfire of the Vanities picture

Factual error: When McCoy gets off the subway, we see he is riding the number 1 train and he gets off at 77th Street station. First of all, the number 1 train runs on the west side of Manhattan, no where near his Park Avenue residence on the east side, and second, there are no 77th Street stops on the number 1 line.

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