Buenos Dias on this Looney Lunes, my friends. I figure I've probably used up all of the silly puns on days of the week in English, so it's time for me to branch out. Heck, maybe you'll learn something (like the extent to which Peter will travel to avoid saying something in a normal manner). Disirregardless, I'm back for another week of UOPTA thoughts and stories. I once toyed with the idea of adding a subtitle to this page. It would've read, "Thoughts and stories from a thoughtful and storiful guy." Would you have liked or disliked that? I guess that doesn't matter now. What matters is that you fell back appropriately per Daylight Savings Time's mandate. I hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep, and get ready for more darkness.
Last Thursday, I wrote about the wonderful world of edited songs on the radio. I said that I found the whole topic of dubbing to be a goldmine, and I have to agree with myself. Thursday night at bowling, my homey Rockabye said, "You know what you should've mentioned when talking about dubbing?" He told me, and I said, "That's already planned for Monday's post. How could I leave that out?" Are you intrigued now? As Mr. Burns would say to Smithers, "Excellent."
While clean versions of songs are funny, they could go completely unnoticed to everyone who is unaware of the original version. The same is not the case with dubbed-for-tv movies. They never - never! - sound like normal speech, and this is a great source of joy for me. The classic example of this is one that I quote with my friends fairly often (and the one Rockabye wanted to make sure I didn't omit). In the movie "Major League," the climax of the (quality) flick comes when "Wild Thing" Rick Vaughn is pitching to his nemesis on the Yankees. Vaughn, played impeccably by Charlie Sheen, had slept with Corbin Bernsen's character's wife without knowing who she was. She told him and proceeded to tell Bernsen's character as well. So as Sheen is standing on the mound in this incredibly tense moment, Bernsen approaches the mount. "Uh oh," everyone thinks, "he's gonna kick his ass right there." Bernsen looks right at him, and says, "Let's cut through the crap, Vaughn. I only got one thing to say to you. (Dramatic Pause) Strike this motherfucker out." It's a great scene, and putting it on a tv station that doesn't allow bad words only serves to make it greater. In that version, Bernsen says, "I only got one thing to say to you. (Dramatic Pause) Strike this GUY out." Words don't do it justice, but the tone and syllables are so off from the original that it would leave no doubt in anyone's mind that a bad word had been there. It's so bad it's good, or as the kids like to say, it's craptastic.
The same is true on the tv version of one of my favorite movies of all time. By a show of hands, how many of you are familiar with "The Jerk" starring Steve Martin? Good, good, almost all of you. Well, please still allow me to set the scene. A dog wakes up Navin R. Johnson (Martin), and he thinks that the dog is telling him that there's a fire. He then runs around to wake everyone up, and says that since the dog is such a lifesaver, his name should be Lifesaver. The fire ends up being a false alarm, and an old Asian man walks up to Navin and says, "Don't call that dog Lifesaver; call him Shithead." It's a fantastic line, but made even better by the fact that he actually calls the dog Shithead for the rest of the movie. On tv though, the line is: "Don't call that dog Lifesaver; call him STUPID." He remains as STUPID throughout the rest of the movie, and it never sounds natural. It's glorious.
Lastly in this category, I found myself watching a free Showtime weekend probably six or seven years ago. Since it was free to everyone, I guess they thought they had to bleep out bad words. (I don't think this is still the practice when pay channels have free weekends, but I could be wrong.) I found myself watching an episode of the short-lived "Chris Isaak Show." In hindsight, this show was really the precursor for "Entourage." It was an inside look at a life of a star and some of his friends. I think the problem was that Chris is too likeable and seemingly goody-goody (whether he is or not). In any case, I was watching the episode because I was bored, and one of Chris' friends starting talking about a girl. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like, "Oh my God, she's so hot. The minute I saw her I got the biggest harPOON." Yes, they changed "hard on" to "harpoon," figuring that euphemism is better than slang. If anything, it just brought more attention to the thing they were trying to clear up. Let's put it this way: I wouldn't have remembered watching that show if the actor had simply said "hard on."
I think that's the larger issue I have with these clean versions of things. When done poorly, they do the opposite of what they intend to. It's like when they print "Sh-t" or "F-ck" in something mainstream. What are they trying to accomplish there? Does the letter "I" make that first one go from a random assortment of letters to a naughty word? When it's so obvious through the censorship, I think the damage of seeing a bad word is already done.
Finally, I've seen things in the past few years in which one person calls another an asshole. What does the station do make it ok? They change it to just "ass." That's right, they bleep out the incredibly offensive "hole." They're more concerned with making sure that the sentence still makes sense than getting rid of the offending word in it.
Man I hate people sometimes. On the bright side, "The Incredibly Offensive Hole" could be a good band name. Ok, that should do it for today. Have a great day, and watch out for errant expletives. Hey, got any favorite movies that are dubbed or altered in funny ways for tv? Comment away or email ptklein@gmail.com. See you tomorrow, gentle readers.
Last Thursday, I wrote about the wonderful world of edited songs on the radio. I said that I found the whole topic of dubbing to be a goldmine, and I have to agree with myself. Thursday night at bowling, my homey Rockabye said, "You know what you should've mentioned when talking about dubbing?" He told me, and I said, "That's already planned for Monday's post. How could I leave that out?" Are you intrigued now? As Mr. Burns would say to Smithers, "Excellent."
While clean versions of songs are funny, they could go completely unnoticed to everyone who is unaware of the original version. The same is not the case with dubbed-for-tv movies. They never - never! - sound like normal speech, and this is a great source of joy for me. The classic example of this is one that I quote with my friends fairly often (and the one Rockabye wanted to make sure I didn't omit). In the movie "Major League," the climax of the (quality) flick comes when "Wild Thing" Rick Vaughn is pitching to his nemesis on the Yankees. Vaughn, played impeccably by Charlie Sheen, had slept with Corbin Bernsen's character's wife without knowing who she was. She told him and proceeded to tell Bernsen's character as well. So as Sheen is standing on the mound in this incredibly tense moment, Bernsen approaches the mount. "Uh oh," everyone thinks, "he's gonna kick his ass right there." Bernsen looks right at him, and says, "Let's cut through the crap, Vaughn. I only got one thing to say to you. (Dramatic Pause) Strike this motherfucker out." It's a great scene, and putting it on a tv station that doesn't allow bad words only serves to make it greater. In that version, Bernsen says, "I only got one thing to say to you. (Dramatic Pause) Strike this GUY out." Words don't do it justice, but the tone and syllables are so off from the original that it would leave no doubt in anyone's mind that a bad word had been there. It's so bad it's good, or as the kids like to say, it's craptastic.
The same is true on the tv version of one of my favorite movies of all time. By a show of hands, how many of you are familiar with "The Jerk" starring Steve Martin? Good, good, almost all of you. Well, please still allow me to set the scene. A dog wakes up Navin R. Johnson (Martin), and he thinks that the dog is telling him that there's a fire. He then runs around to wake everyone up, and says that since the dog is such a lifesaver, his name should be Lifesaver. The fire ends up being a false alarm, and an old Asian man walks up to Navin and says, "Don't call that dog Lifesaver; call him Shithead." It's a fantastic line, but made even better by the fact that he actually calls the dog Shithead for the rest of the movie. On tv though, the line is: "Don't call that dog Lifesaver; call him STUPID." He remains as STUPID throughout the rest of the movie, and it never sounds natural. It's glorious.
Lastly in this category, I found myself watching a free Showtime weekend probably six or seven years ago. Since it was free to everyone, I guess they thought they had to bleep out bad words. (I don't think this is still the practice when pay channels have free weekends, but I could be wrong.) I found myself watching an episode of the short-lived "Chris Isaak Show." In hindsight, this show was really the precursor for "Entourage." It was an inside look at a life of a star and some of his friends. I think the problem was that Chris is too likeable and seemingly goody-goody (whether he is or not). In any case, I was watching the episode because I was bored, and one of Chris' friends starting talking about a girl. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like, "Oh my God, she's so hot. The minute I saw her I got the biggest harPOON." Yes, they changed "hard on" to "harpoon," figuring that euphemism is better than slang. If anything, it just brought more attention to the thing they were trying to clear up. Let's put it this way: I wouldn't have remembered watching that show if the actor had simply said "hard on."
I think that's the larger issue I have with these clean versions of things. When done poorly, they do the opposite of what they intend to. It's like when they print "Sh-t" or "F-ck" in something mainstream. What are they trying to accomplish there? Does the letter "I" make that first one go from a random assortment of letters to a naughty word? When it's so obvious through the censorship, I think the damage of seeing a bad word is already done.
Finally, I've seen things in the past few years in which one person calls another an asshole. What does the station do make it ok? They change it to just "ass." That's right, they bleep out the incredibly offensive "hole." They're more concerned with making sure that the sentence still makes sense than getting rid of the offending word in it.
Man I hate people sometimes. On the bright side, "The Incredibly Offensive Hole" could be a good band name. Ok, that should do it for today. Have a great day, and watch out for errant expletives. Hey, got any favorite movies that are dubbed or altered in funny ways for tv? Comment away or email ptklein@gmail.com. See you tomorrow, gentle readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment