Corrected entry: To avoid conversing with Cindy about Cindy's alleged pregnancy, Janet picks up an ashtray off the table and claims it's filthy and runs with it into the kitchen. None of the roommates were known to have smoked and no ashtray was seen (in The Apartment) in any other episode. What was the point of an ashtray all of a sudden?
Brian Katcher
27th Jun 2017
Three's Company (1977)
Correction: The episode with the old man had no ashtray in it. In fact, he set a small fire in Jack's bedroom and even said to Jack "you could use an ashtray in there." (Obviously indicating no available ashtray was in The Apartment for him to use).
Actually, that episode did have an ashtray - when Leo (the old man) first entered The Apartment, he asked Chrissy if she had an ashtray and she got one for him off the side table.
Correction: The trio entertained a lot, and smoking was pretty ubiquitous in the 70s. They probably had it out for a guest.
10th Jun 2018
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Corrected entry: When George is drunk and crashes into the tree, the homeowner comes out and yells at him. The man says that his great-grandfather planted that tree, therefore this man and his family would have lived in Bedford Falls for generations. It is also apparent from the movie that George's family has also lived there for a generation or two. However, the homeowner doesn't know who George is. It is mentioned time and time again that Bedford Falls is such a small town. It would be impossible for George and this man not to know each other. (01:37:00 - 01:38:00)
Correction: There is no evidence in the film this man has lived in Bedford Falls all his life and would have known who George Bailey was. Just because he said his great grandfather planted that tree is not proof he was a resident of Bedford Falls in years past. It is just as plausible he inherited the house and property and recently moved to Bedford Falls, and was told through family lore which relative planted the tree.
Correction: Not everyone in Bedford Falls knows George. His daughter's teacher's husband doesn't know him by sight.
26th Aug 2003
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Corrected entry: We see that George McFly died in 1973 when Marty checks the newspaper; the article on the front page says he was murdered, with a sub headline that reads "Local Author Dies." However as we saw in the original Back to the Future, George didn't get his first book until 1985 when Marty came back from 1955. Therefore George was not an author in 1973 when he was murdered. Even if in the alternate future George wrote earlier, when Doc and Marty fixed the future the newspaper should not say "Local Author Honored" because in the non-alternate future he was not an author until 1985.
Correction: His first novel was published in 1985. That doesn't mean other writings of his weren't published prior to 1985.
Correction: The timelines started to diverge in 1955 - no reason to assume changes that were made didn't lead to George publishing his first novel earlier.
But the 'first novel' timeline is in the divergent path. George hadn't published ANYTHING in the original timeline.
Biff also wasn't a Billionaire, gambling was illegal in California and Biff was George's Supervisor in the original timeline. By having the Almanac, Biff altered the future. Therefore, anything in the original timeline is out the window once Biff alters the future.
12th Feb 2005
Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987)
Corrected entry: Towards the end when the Tri-Lams are about to be expelled, you notice that there are ALREADY some of the fraternity members present (the black guys in the yellow T-shirts). Why didn't they defend their brothers? They must surely have known that the Alpha Beta fraternity has tried to take down the nerds before, and smelt a rat.
Correction: This is an "I would have done differently" mistake. Perhaps those fraternity members were a particularly mean batch. Perhaps they were just shy.
Correction: Well, the counsel was going to revoke their NATIONAL charter, so they'd lose their charter too. Also, these were the same guys who stood up to the Alphas when they tried to stop Lewis from speaking at the end.
17th Nov 2007
Cheers (1982)
Corrected entry: When Wally shakes hand goodbye with Norman and Cliff, he said, "Nice meeting you, Cliff". But he can't know Cliff's name - they were never introduced to another and his name was never mentioned. (00:12:40)
Correction: Cliff is a mailman, and he is wearing his namebadge.
No, he's not. There's no nametag on his uniform.
14th Apr 2004
Kingpin (1996)
Corrected entry: How is it that Roy Munson can tutor the Amish guy on how to get a strike first time when he first meets him, but then spends the rest of the movie struggling to improve his own game?
Correction: Many of the best sports trainers are actually terrible at the sport they train. They're all just former players who stopped training themselves, and give their knowledge of the sport to somone else.
Correction: Not to mention he lost his dominant hand. He'd never attempted to bowl with his prosthetic before.
4th Jul 2020
A Few Good Men (1992)
Corrected entry: Tom Cruise has one bar on his right collar on his uniform. He is a Lieutenant. A Lieutenant in the Navy has two bars, as shown on Kevin Bacon's uniform in their first scene.
Correction: Bacon is a captain in the Marine Corps, hence his two bars.
Kevin Bacon also wears his rank horizontally. Marine Corps captains wear this rank vertically.
Not according to the USMC uniform regulations handbook: https://www.marines.mil/portals/1/Publications/MCO%201020.34H%20v2.pdf. Check out page 1-97. Only on the cap is it placed vertically.
Correction: Kaffee is a lieutenant (junior grade), which is one silver bar. A full lieutenant is two silver bars. Both are just called lieutenant.
20th Nov 2006
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Corrected entry: Why does Toula's grandmother attack and call Gus an "ugly Turk" as if she doesn't know much about him? Toula's voiceover earlier in the film says how her father brought his mother from Greece - this is her own son.
Correction: This is a part of the comedy. Toula's grandmother went a little crazy after the war and therefore accuses many people of being Turks, including her own son. It's meant to be funny.
Correction: His mother has dementia, and doesn't recognize her son as a grown man. Sadly, with people with dementia, loved ones can turn into strangers.
5th Jun 2002
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Continuity mistake: Inspector Kemp is known in the village to have had his right arm to be prosthetic (supposedly torn off by the original monster), but during the searching in the woods scene, after the riot starts, when he signals the villagers to keep quiet, his LEFT arm is suddenly prosthetic. The entire shot was apparently made of the villagers moving from left to right, but the negative was threaded backwards to get them to move from right to left. The Inspector's eyepatch is also on the wrong eye, and a villager is holding his shotgun left-handed (shown at the town gathering at the start of the riot as being right-handed).
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: It's a running gag: Igor's hump changes sides, Kemp's missing arm and eye change sides.
Except that for the whole movie every time Inspector Kemp uses his right arm it keeps making a sound to indicate that it's fake, but he can move his left arm normally, showing that it's his real arm. Not only that but, the moving hump was Marty Feldman's idea. It can't actually be confirmed that Inspector Kemp's prosthetic right being switched to the left for that one scene was part of the gag or not.
6th Sep 2003
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Corrected entry: The clock rings 13 times at the beginning of the film.
Correction: It's more of a mistake than trivia. A clock can only chime up to 12, but chimes to 13. So it's a mistake.
I doubt this was a screw up on the director's part, but rather a deliberate attempt to be spooky, and a little silly. After all, you can't really transplant a brain, and yet.
1st Sep 2004
Rat Race (2001)
Corrected entry: When everyone is racing down the stairs to get to their cars/the airport, there is a shot from beneath glass as someone's sneaker rushes across the landing between floors. The landings were all metal platforms.
Correction: That's just a cinematography thing, to shoot the actors from below their feet. They weren't implying the floor was glass.
22nd Mar 2005
True Lies (1994)
Corrected entry: During the final action sequence, we see a janitor in one of the buildings, going about his business. With that kind of a threat, all buildings in the area would have been completely evacuated.
Correction: He was wearing a Walkman, it's possible he didn't hear any warning alarms and that no-one knew he was still in the building (or cared enough about him to go look for him).
Correction: It's just a joke they threw in there.
26th Aug 2003
Fight Club (1999)
Corrected entry: Towards the end when Jack/Tyler and Marla are standing and watching the exploding buildings, we can see that in these buildings the lights are on. This means that people must have been in there. The intention was not to kill anyone. (02:10:00)
Correction: Not necessarily. I used to work in an office building and no one ever turned the lights off at night. Our whole floor would be lit up at midnight (I drove by it on the random Saturday night), but no one was there.
Correction: Jack asked Tyler about janitors and security guards, and Tyler assures him they are all members of Project Mayhem and are out of the buildings. They would have left the lights on to avoid suspicion.
16th Dec 2003
Red Dwarf (1988)
Corrected entry: The whole business about putting people into stasus as a punishment makes no sense at all. What is punishing about being put in a status cubicle and then (in your perception) immediately stepping out when time is several months/years further on (but yourself no older)? Even if you weren't earning your salary during the statis period, you had no expenses either.
Correction: It's a no-fuss way of keeping troublemakers out of the way. You don't have to feed them, you don't have to guard them, they can't injure themselves, they can't shout and make noise. It may be less of a punishment, but it's a lot less hassle for the crew.
Correction: Plus they can't exactly fire Lister when they're off in deep space. They have to wait until they're back to earth.
25th Jan 2004
Red Dwarf (1988)
Corrected entry: When Rimmer and Lister walk back into the teaching room after seeing the Cat for the first time, Lister bumps into the table that he was eating the piles of human ash from, but all the ash has disappeared.
Correction: There may be more than one teaching room on the ship. This may be a similar room but not the one that Lister entered earlier in the episode.
Correction: There was a deleted scene where Lister sweeps up the dead crew's ashes and dumps them into space, but it seemed silly rather than dramatic and was cut.
25th Jan 2004
Red Dwarf (1988)
Corrected entry: Kryten shows Lister a picture of Kochanski and says that he dated her for three weeks, but in the first series it is established that Lister always wanted to ask Kochanski out but never worked up the courage.
Correction: Answered elsewhere - just because he didn't ask her out didn't mean they never dated. Maybe she asked him?
27th Aug 2001
Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (1996)
Continuity mistake: When Crow, Servo, and Mike are using the Interoceter, Servo gets zapped in the head a few times. One of the times, there is about a two second delay from when the animated laser hits him to when his head sparkles.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: I watched this. It wouldn't necessarily start sparking the moment it hit him.
13th Mar 2005
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Corrected entry: When Carrie Fisher uses the flame thrower to blow up the propane tank next to the phone booth Jake and Elwood are in, there is no way the phone booth would have rocketed straight up because phone booths are bolted down to prevent theft.
Correction: Besides, they're on a mission from God. That's how they survive all these ridiculous attacks.
Correction: The bolts are proof against theft, not against large scale explosions.
23rd Dec 2004
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
Corrected entry: When the Muppets and Jim are fighting Long John Silver and his men towards the end, why mid battle does everybody suddenly have a different bright white open shirt? Even Miss Piggy has one.
Correction: It's meant to be somewhat of a joke; that's the way all Muppet movies are made. This doesn't even qualify as a deliberate mistake.
Correction: It's a parody of the old timey pirate movies, where the heroes would wear open white shirts.
12th Sep 2002
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Corrected entry: When Orin (Steve Martin the Dentist) first enters the movie he tortures several patients. One child in particular he knees in the stomach as he takes a pair of pliers to his teeth. He pretends to grab onto a tooth and turn it several times. Unfortunately, the pliers look as though they are grabbing the child's tongue because it is neither angled up or down (where it would need to be to grab the teeth).
Correction: Steve Martin also appeared to do orthodontist work, so he may have been tightening the boy's braces. That would explain why the pliers were angled out, and not up or down. They also move as if they were attached to metal, not a tooth at the end of that scene.
If you listen to the chorus, they mention 'tightening braces', so it's likely that's what he was doing.
Correction: While it might not have been seen previously, it doesn't mean they didn't have one. At that time many non-smokers had ashtrays in their homes (my grandparents did and often used it to hold change or keys). However, they may have had an occasion to have it out for something that we never saw, since we don't see every moment of their lives.
Bishop73
There was an episode with an ashtray and an old man came to stay with them. He was homeless and he did smoke in the episode.
The old man was just a visitor for one episode who smoked in Jack's room and said to Jack that he could use an ashtray in there (as a suggestion).