SPINAL TAP II: Fairly Funny But No Instant Comedy Classic

SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES
(Dir. Rob Reiner, 2025)

Okay, let’s get this out of the way. I haven’t even looked at other reviews yet, but I know many of them are going to address whether or not this movie goes to 11. Of course, this refers to the famous scene in the 1984 comedy masterpiece, THIS IS SPINAL TAP, in which lead guitarist, Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) explains that his amplifier’s volume knob goes one louder than most amps. So, I’ll say upfront that, no, the new sequel, SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES, doesn’t go to 11, but it’s a solid seven. 

 

Reprising his role as filmmaker Marty Di Bergi, Rob Reiner brings us up to date on the career of Spinal Tap in the 40 years since the original as Britain’s loudest band is lured out of retirement for one last concert, a contractual obligation to their deceased manager Ian Faith (played in the first film by Tony Hendra, who passed in 2021). While the band had performed some high-profile gigs – Wembley Stadium, Royal Albert Hall, and Glastonbury (these were real concerts) in the following decades, they had a falling out, and haven’t spoken in 15 years.

 

In the meantime, David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) composed instrumentals for podcasts and for telephone hold music; Nigel Tufnel runs a cheese and guitar shop with his girlfriend Moira (Nina Conti), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) curates a glue museum. There’s friction when the three re-unite for their show at New Orleans’ Lakefront Arena, which continues into their rehearsals that make up the bulk of the film.

 

That’s what there is of the plot, but is it funny? Well, yes, though I mildly chuckled more than laughed out loud. Most of the proceedings left me with a smirk as Reiner, who co-wrote with Guest, McKean, and Shearer reassemble many of the beats from the original, and catch us up with what happened to a number of their supporting players, including Fran Drescher as Bobbie Flekman, Paul Shaffer as Artie Fufkin, and June Chadwick as St. Hubbins’ ex-wife, Jeanine Pettibone.

As I’ve been a huge fan since seeing THIS IS SPINAL TAP on opening night at the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill in 1984, I had fun seeing these people again, and had a warm, fuzzy feeling when lines landed, but also felt some cringe when things were more awkward than amusing.

One thread that didn’t exactly kill was the new character of concert promoter Simon Howler (Chris Addison), who is clinically unable to appreciate music. This premise doesn’t pay off, and the conclusion to the character’s screen-time is far from satisfying. Spinal Tap’s young new drummer, Didi Crockett (Valerie Franco) is affably spunky but also doesn’t fare as very funny, but they didn’t give her much to do except when it comes to the climatic concert sequence. 

Faring better are cameos, as a scene featuring Sir Paul McCartney joining Spinal Tap in the studio for a rendition of their faux ‘60s song, “Cups and Cakes.” St. Hubbins’ reaction afterward is hilarious as he feels the famous former Beatle has a “toxic personality.”  Elton John’s appearance isn’t as funny, but he brings it onstage for the big “Stonehenge” finale where they finally have the right size dimensions for the stage prop.

As a fairly funny film, SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES does continue the vibe of its predecessor, but it’s a little too loose and lazy to come anywhere close to the original’s comedy classic status. Mileage will vary on how big a fan of the fake band one is, as so much of the sequel relies on how well one knows what went down the first time.

I liked, but didn’t love what Reiner, Guest, McKean, and Shearer did here, but it’s still better than I expected. It’s great that this and the NAKED GUN reboot (which honestly is much funnier), are showing that comedy can make a comeback to the movies, so here’s hoping that’s what will really continue.

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R.I.P. David L. Lander, Who Was So Much More Than Squiggy

For some reason, I was hit by the death of comic actor David L. Lander just as hard as I have the recent passings of musical heroes, and other entertainment legends. It might be because I think I saw every episode of Laverne & Shirley when I was a kid, listened repeatedly to the album Lenny & Squiggy Present Lenny and the Squigtones (that’s its full title), and named the first cat I ever adopted and had for 16 years, Squiggy. One of those. All of them. 

Although the title of this post declares that Lander was so much more than the character of Andrew “Squiggy” Squiggman, this is where we’ll begin as that’s how this performer is best known. Hell, the name Squiggy may likely be on Lander’s gravestone. 

Lander portrayed the goofy greaser for eight seasons, encompassing 178 episodes from 1976-1983. Lander and his friend, Michael McKean, came up with the characters when they were college buddies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, then called Carnegie Tech. In 2007, Lander told Lanny Swerdlow of the Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project that they created Lenny & Squiggy when they were high. 

Apart from entertaining friends with the improved antics of the duo at parties, Lander and McKean didn’t do much with them until 1975, when they were recruited by Penny Marshall, and her brother, producer Garry Marshall, to play Lenny & Squiggy on the sitcom, Laverne & Shirley. They were the upstairs neighbors to Marshall as Laverne and Cindy Williams as Shirley, and there was a running gag to their entrances long before Kramer made his boundryless bursts through Jerry’s door on Seinfeld in the ‘90s. 

You can get the idea from This YouTube montage of many of their entrances:

One of my favorite things that Lander and McKean did with the characters was the aforementioned album by Lenny & the Squigtones. The record features a live performance, recorded at the Roxy in LA in 1978, by the duo with a band (actually including Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel). The songs are both hilarious and solid, and highly recommended - you can hear the whole album here.

Preceding Laverne & Shirley, both Lander and McKean were in the Los Angeles-based comedy group, The Credibility Gap. Lander joined the now little known outfit in 1969, followed by McKean in 1970. Harry Shearer, who would later go on to work with McKean in THIS IS SPINAL TAP, was also a major member, and through club appearances, radio appearances, and the making of several albums helped keep the project afloat until the late ‘70s. 

Their records are well worth seeking out as The Credibility Gap, seen above with Shearer, Lander, founder Richard Beebe, and McKean, really gave ‘70s era comedy competitors like Firesign Theater and National Lampoon a run for their money, and there’s a fair amount of their material on YouTube – maybe not enough for a rabbit hole deep dive though. This is one of my favorite bits – Lander and Shearer presenting a re-write/update of Abbott & Costello’s classic “Who’s on First” routine. Somehow the sketch makes more sense as it uses the real rock band names of The Who, Guess Who, and Yes for its premise:

For a while there, it looked like Lander and McKean were going to be inseparable comedy partners as they were in multiple movies together including CRACKING UP (Lander’s first film), 1941, and USED CARS. But in the early ‘80s they went their separate ways with McKean starring in a run of movies like SPINAL TAP, CLUE, EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY, and, one of my favorites, Christopher Guest’s first film as director, THE BIG PICTURE, while Lander became an ace voice actor for such animated projects as Galaxy High School, A Garfield Christmas Special (he was later on The Garfield Show), WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, Johnny Bravo, A BUG’S LIFE, SpongeBob SquarePants, and too many more to mention. To cap off this look at Lander’s voice-over output, he re-united with McKean in cartoon form on the Nickelodeon show Oswald in the early 2000s. 

This is not to say Lander couldn’t be regularly seen in live action as he did guest spots on almost every TV show you can name from the ‘80s to the Aughts. He put in appearances on The Love Boat, Highway to Heaven, Matlock (yay, Matlock!), Simon & Simon, Married…with Children, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Head of the Class, Family Matters, The Nanny, Nash Bridges, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and even a recurring role (well, three episodes) on Twin Peaks! 

Lander contributed many memorable bit parts in movies, but his most notable is certainly his role as Radio Sportscaster in Penny Marshall’s 1992 hit, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN. The character was perfect for him as he was a huge baseball fan, and was later a talent scout for the Anaheim Angels, and the Seattle Mariners. 

But it all comes back to Squiggy. I had long thought that his last portrayal of the iconic greaser weasel was a surprise cameo with McKean on Saturday Night Live in 1994. The occasion was a sketch entitled Quentin Tarantino’s Welcome Back Kotter, which took advantage of the show’s host John Travolta at the height of PULP FICTION popularity - hence the guns.

I was wrong about that being the guy’s finale as Lander reprised Squiggy in a 2002 episode of The Simpsons:

There’s also the fact that he played Principal Squiggy in SCARY MOVIE, but I’m not sure I want to count that. 

So Lander, who died at the age 73 from complications from multiple sclerosis, was a much loved comic actor who put an undeniable stamp on pop culture, though it’s one that will sadly fade as what kid is watching Laverne & Shirley these days? He’d definitely fit in with this blog’s Actors You Recognize, But Don’t Know Their Name series, as even those who grew up with him only know him as Squiggy. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that he “Was So Much More Than Squiggy” because he often referred to himself that way as in his 2002 book, Fall Down Laughing: How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis. Maybe I should have said he was “Squiggy & More.” 

As Lander said back in 2007, “Whatever happens, MS can't take it all.” 

R.I.P. David L. Lander

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Actors You Recognize, But Don't Know Their Names: Michael McKean

This post is dedicated to one of my favorites: Michael McKean. 

Despite having portrayed two iconic comedy characters - Lenny on Laverne & Shirley and David St. Hubbins in Rob Reiner's immortal 1984 mockumetary (I don't care if Christopher Guest hates this term), THIS IS SPINAL TAP - McKean is sadly not a household name. 

Folks may also know him from USED CARS, YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE, CLUE, PLANES TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES, EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY, and the Christopher Guest films BEST IN SHOW, A MIGHTY WIND *, and FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION among tons of other movies. 

* McKean scored his only Oscar nomination for A MIGHTY WIND, but not for acting - it was for the delightful song, “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow,” which he co-wrote with his wife, Annette O'Toole.

McKeans's TV credits are too extensive to list here, but my favorite McKean role is as Jimmy McGill’s brother Chuck McGill on AMC's excellent Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul. He was seriously robbed of an Emmy for that work.

One last note about Mr. McKean: many folks aren't aware that Lenny & Squiggy, as Lenny & the Squigtones, put out an album in 1978:

The record consists of hilarious parodies of '50s style rock 'n roll, and is notable for featuring the first appearance of Spinal Tap lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) four years before THIS IS SPINAL TAP. Here's a segment from American Bandstand in 1979 showcasing Lenny & the Squigtones in their prime:

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The Children Of AIRPLANE!

As I talked about in my last post, it looks like the next few months will be a sucky season filled with sequels. With every genre represented, and every cliché exploited, it is going to be a long hot summer.

One genre that I’m really sick of is represented by the arrival on DVD of SCARY MOVIE 3. You know the genre, the AIRPLANE!/Mad Magazine-derived joke-a-minute spoofs that seem to appear every several months and have inane scatalogical humor in place of real satire. So let’s take a look at the chief offenders in this increasingly lame genre in a mini-guide to:

The Children Of AIRPLANE!

For those of you just tuning in, fellow comedy writers/performers Jerry and David Zucker, along with Jim Abrahams created a franchise around a bunch of cheap jokes and lame sight gags. 

It started when the Zuckers and Abrahams (ZAZ for short) took their stage show from the Kentucky Fried Theater in Milwaukee to Hollywood to make the crude but hilarious sketch film  THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE in 1977.

KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE begat AIRPLANE! 
(Dirs. ZAZ, 1980) which begat: 

Police Squad! (ABC-TV Series, 1982) After his straight-man to a perfection performance in AIRPLANE!, Leslie Neilsen starred as Detective Frank Drebin in a ZAZ's dead-on parody of '60s and '70s cop shows. Unfortunately this blueprint would soon be bred dry.

TOP SECRET! (Dirs. ZAZ, 1984) 

File this under "what were they thinking?!!?" I mean the idea was to mix Elvis movie musical fluff with Nazi spy dramas, right? RIGHT?!!? I dunno, but Val Kilmer does his earnest best to fend off prison anal sex jokes, and a misguided BLUE LAGOON take-off.

At least it has that one surreal sequence with Peter Cushing, otherwise what a collection of misfires! 

THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD! (Dir. David Zucker, 1988)
THE NAKED GUN 2½: THE SMELL OF FEAR (Dir. David Zucker, 1991)
NAKED GUN 33⅓: THE FINAL INSULT (Dir. Peter Segal, 1994)

Detective Drebin (Nielsen) returns from sitcom cancellation purgatory in three movies that get progressively worse and are sadly most remembered for having O.J. Simpson appear as Drebin's cop partner punching bag in all three.

Priscilla Presley, Ricardo Montalban, Anna Nicole Simpson, and Robert Goulet chime in with pop culture icon plug-aways, and the jokes - hit or miss - just keep coming.

The first NAKED GUN movie is the only one I’d recommended.

HOT SHOTS! (Dir. Jim Abrahams, 1991)/ HOT SHOTS! PART DEUX (Dir. Jim Abrahams, 1993) 

While the Zucker Brothers did other less jokey projects (GHOST, RUTHLESS PEOPLE) Jim Abrahams never left the always go for the funny fold. 

Abraham's Charlie Sheen fronted TOP GUN spoofs took on RAMBO, NO WAY OUT, BASIC INSTINCT among countless other targets to better success than a number of later day Zucker efforts. Surprisingly both flicks hold up today - on a silly stupid level, mind you. Bits like the Saddam Hussein look-alike casting kills, and add a clueless war-time President played by Lloyd Bridges and you'll get sucker punched into the next decade.

HIGH SCHOOL HIGH (Dir. Hart Bochner, 1996) Hip hop high school dramas like DANGEROUS MINDS get a beat down in a movie that actually lets Jon Lovitz take the lead, a romantic heroic lead at that. Problem is the plethora of cheap throwaway gags, but in 1996 who was even paying attention? Only David Zucker of ZAZ was involved here as a co-writer. 

Some of the ZAZ team appear as writers or producers of the following offspring of AIRPLANE! but some titles are unrelated hangers-on or copycats. Most notably Ken Finklemen's AIRPLANE 2: THE SEQUEL (note the lack of an exclamation point) which ZAZ not only had nothing to do with - they made a pact never to see it. Despite some genuine laughs it was a blatant cash-in much like the majority of movies here:

YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE
(Dir. Garry Marshall, 1982) 
One of the first to use lame slogans like "in the tradition of..." or ad copy along the lines of "does to soap operas what AIRPLANE! did to disaster movies." Wishful thinking. This Gary Marshall directed hospital farce didn't even come close despite the talents of a post Laverne & Shirley/pre-Spinal Tap Michael McKean and Sean Young (she was in BLADE RUNNER the same summer this came out).

JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY (Dir. Amy Heckerling, 1984) This time out it's '30s-'40s gangster movies getting the joke-a-minute treatment. Try joke every 30 minutes more like.

I'M GONNA GET YOU SUCKA (Dir. Keenen Ivory Wayans, 1988) The Wayans Brothers pre-In Loving Color take on Blaxploitation movies from the '70s using the ZAZ mold.

FATAL INSTINCT (Dir. Carl Reiner, 1993) The less said the better.

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S LOADED WEAPON I (Dir. Gene Quintano, 1993) Ditto.

No, I'm just kidding. This send-up of the LETHAL WEAPON movies, starring Emilio Estevez and Samuel L. Jackson had its fair share of funny gags, one of which included Bruce Willis in a cameo as his DIE HARD character, John McClane.

JANE AUSTEN'S MAFIA! 

(Dir. Jim Abrahams, 1998) 

Abrahams should've known better. At least the exclamation point was back.

The genre was dead as door-nail by the late '90s, but crap kept coming:

BASKETBALL (Dir. David Zucker, 1999) This ill-fated collaboration with Trey Parker & Matt Stone of South Park fame is barely a blink on the comedy radar. Remember it? I didn't think so.

SPY HARD (Dir. Rick Friedberg, 1996) & WRONGFULLY ACCUSED (Dir. Pat Proft, 1998) Leslie Nielsen cashes in on his ZAZ-created non-persona. Why not? 

Most recently, David Zucker took over the SCARY MOVIE franchise (originally helmed by Keenen Ivory Wayans) for SCARY MOVIE 3, now out on DVD. Wayan's movies stole heavily from the ZAZ style in their slapdash spoofery of the SCREAM movies and the modern horror genre so the takeover makes sense. If only it made laughs.

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