Continuity mistake: When the teachers play the confiscated tapes of Harry, it's Christian Slater's voice, not the disguised voice you hear on the students' radios.
Pump up the Volume (1990)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Allan Moyle
Starring: Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Annie Ross, Anthony Lucero, Andy Romano, Cheryl Pollak, Keith Stuart Thayer
The FCC comes to town. Hard Harry holds one final broadcast, taking his transmitter mobile so it is harder to trace. The FCC catches Harry at the high school where he tells a group of listening students to start their own stations. He is arrested. As the movie ends we hear others, including teachers, who have started their own pirate radio stations.
More mistakes in Pump up the Volume
Mark Hunter: You see there's nothing to do anymore. Everything decent's been done. All the great themes in life have been used up, turned into theme parks. So I don't really find it exactly cheerful to be living in the middle of a totally exhausted decade where there's nothing to look forward to and no-one to look up to.
Trivia: Every time Harry plays a recording of "Everybody Knows" to start his show, he uses a different format. First it's a reel-to-reel tape, then a vinyl record, then a cassette tape.
Question: I've always wondered if Mark, just before his final broadcast, told his parents the whole truth. It would seem that way because Mark tells his girlfriend his mom let him use the Jeep ("She kinda loaned it to me"). Also, his Dad was at the gathering in the school's athletic field, but there is no shot of him acting surprised or horrified when Mark pulls in to where the crowd is and gets arrested. So the question is: did Mark fess up to his parents? Or is it irrelevant/left for us to wonder?
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Chosen answer: Well, with no actual scene where he confesses, it's left up to us to wonder. Personally, I find it unlikely that he'd actually admit the whole thing to his parents, but they're not stupid and already had their suspicions, so the lack of any great surprise on his father's part isn't unreasonable. You also have to remember that Mark's voice changer had already broken before they drove down to the crowd - his father would have easily recognised his voice before his actual arrival, giving him a certain amount of time to get through the initial shock.
Tailkinker