This is Spinal Tap

Trivia: Originally, Rob Reiner was going to be in the band, but decided on just directing the film after the comment, "he didn't look good in spandex," was made by Harry Shearer.

Trivia: The band's name was originally going to be spelled "Spynal Tap," but it was changed because the band members wanted to fit in with the trend of misspelled band names. Harry Shearer later commented that "we later learned we spelled it right by mistake."

Trivia: In an homage to Nigel Tufnul's amplifier that goes up to eleven, the IMDb ranking scale for the movie is out of 11, rather than out of 10 shown for other titles. Overall, This Is Spinal Tap has an 8/11 rating on IMDb.

Casual Person

More for This is Spinal Tap

Mistakes

Continuity mistake: At the Record Label party, where the band meets Bobbi Fleckman, Nigel is wearing a coat. In another shot where the band meets Sir Dennis Eaton Hogg at the same party Nigel has no coat and different shirt.

More mistakes in This is Spinal Tap

Quotes

Nigel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Martin: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel: Exactly.
Martin: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Martin: I don't know.
Nigel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Martin: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel: Elevn. Exactly. One louder.
Martin: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
[Pause.]
Nigel: These go to eleven.

More quotes from This is Spinal Tap

Questions

Question: Did any of the actors know how to play their instruments? Because sometimes Harry Shearer seems to know what he's doing on the bass, particularly during 'Big Bottom' but the two leads sometimes look as though they're playing air guitar.

Answer: The actors are all good musicians - it's them playing.

Tailkinker ★

More questions & answers from This is Spinal Tap

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.