This is Spinal Tap
Spinal Tap is a semi-fictitious heavy metal rock band that first appeared in the 1984 Rob Reiner film This Is Spinal Tap. The band is portrayed as being British, although several of the band members are played by Americans. The film was a make-believe documentary (a mockumentary or "rockumentary") that satirized the wild personal behaviour and musical pretensions of bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Who, the latter-day Beatles, Judas Priest, and Queen among many others. Today, the band exists both as a fictitious entity, whose members are the characters portrayed by the actors, and also as a real entity, in that the actors have performed and released recordings under the band's name. Spinal Tap was originally created by actors and comedians Michael McKean (as "David St. Hubbins"), Christopher Guest (as "Nigel Tufnel") and Harry Shearer (as "Derek Smalls") for a 1978 ABC comedy special, The TV Show. Soon after, the three comedians teamed up with Reiner to turn the idea into a full-length film. Much of the film was ad-libbed, and several dozen hours of footage were shot before Reiner edited it down to the released film. A 4.5 hour bootleg version of the film exists and has been traded among fans and collectors for years. A ten hour version is also rumored. The most recent DVD editions of the film include one hour of deleted footage as an extra. |