Clip of the Day: This Is Spinal Tap

With the big screen version of hit Broadway musical Rock of Ages now in theaters, which celebrates the aesthetically questionable though arguably still fun hair metal days of the 1980s, it's a fitting time to revisit one of the funniest movies from that era, the mock-rockumentary This is Spinal Tap from 1984.

Although the movie doesn't specifically parody poodle-haired hair metal rockers, it does aim at the pretentiousness and absurd showbiz excesses regularly found in heavy metal and hard rock bands from that time. To quote that sage of the everyman, Homer Simpson: "It's funny 'cause it's true."

In the scene below, the ever-durable Spinal Tap--frontman/guitarist David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), keyboardist Viv Savage (David Kaff), and drummer Mick Shrimpton (R.J. Parnell)--come undone when discussing the new blacker-than-black Smell the Glove LP cover with their smooth-talking manager Ian Faith (Tony Hendra). Things only get worse when they hit the stage to perform the song "Rock and Roll Creation" and a stage prop fails to work.

Yes, rock and roll can be fun, but sometimes the joke is on the band.