Do you see what happens when you fight a stranger in the alps?
November 15, 2010 7:45 AM   Subscribe

Dubbing over dialoge is a necessary evil for any network that wants to play a movie within their standards and practices. But it can often turn a crass, but cogent line into something outright bizarre. The Big Lebowski. Snakes on a Plane. Pulp Fiction. Die Hard 2.
posted by mccarty.tim (59 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
After watching that, I never, ever, want to find a stranger in the alps.
posted by schmod at 7:50 AM on November 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


Your mother sews socks that smell.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:53 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Flip you, you flippin' melonfarmer.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:56 AM on November 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


There's a fantastic TV edit of Repo Man out there, the movie I saw at the tender age of 14. Every single use of the word "fucking" is replaced with "flippin", which is pretty hysterical with Harry Dean Stanton. And the edit has a bunch of scenes that aren't in the theatrical release, including a great scene between Kevin and Parnell. "Lorna Doones? I love Lorna Doones!" and "Vending machine cood contains all the nutrients necessary for survival".
posted by Nelson at 7:58 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


One of my favorite examples of this is the Burt Reynolds movie "The End", in which his character wants to commit suicide. After his initial attempt, he wakes up in the hospital, and, realizing that he failed, screams "Goddamn sonofabitch!"

When the movie aired on network TV some time a few years, the dub changed the line to "Gosh darn son of a buck!"

Now, of course, they probably wouldn't even bother to dub the line (except maybe to cut out the "god" part).
posted by briank at 7:58 AM on November 15, 2010


Flip you, melon farmer!
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:01 AM on November 15, 2010


*hands Nelson a [REDACTED] Coke*
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:03 AM on November 15, 2010




My favourite is the replacement of "This town is one big pussy waiting to be fucked." with "This town is one big chicken waiting to be plucked." in Scarface.
posted by Edwahd at 8:19 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


A few years ago, I caught a censored version of Blazing Saddles on cable. I don't remember how most of it was dubbed (terribly, I suspect), but the one thing that I can recall with absolute clarity is that they removed all the fart and belch sounds from the fart scene. Just a full minute of cowboys eating beans and lifting their legs, in absolute silence. It was completely surreal.

Seriously, they censored FARTS?
posted by specialagentwebb at 8:25 AM on November 15, 2010 [5 favorites]


The State had this same issue when doing a classic scene from William McGuire's prizewinning play, “Tenement.” but everyone managed to get milk-faced and hum like rabbits.
posted by TofuGolem at 8:27 AM on November 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


Edgar Wright is known for replacing his swear words for TV with odd replacements on purpose. His rule is that they shoot only one take of the clean version.

In the already PG-13 "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World", Wright was told to come up with a clean alternative to the word "ass". He substituted it with the word "owl".

Check out last week's episode of Doug Benson's always-funny podcast "Doug Loves Movies" for an interesting riff by Edgar Wright, Aubrey Plaza and Michael Cera about "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole"
posted by inturnaround at 8:30 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Yeah, showing Scarface on broadcast TV doesn't make a whole lot of fucking sense.
posted by dbiedny at 8:33 AM on November 15, 2010


Simon Pegg's Hot Fuzz Hot Funk
posted by sodium lights the horizon at 8:37 AM on November 15, 2010


My favorite that I've ever seen was The Usual Suspects on network TV, in which a whole police lineup of men had to say "Hand me the keys, you fairy godmother."

Close second (YEARS ago): The Breakfast Club on network TV, in which "slip her the hot beef injection" was replaced with "give her some hot wild affection." I believe that showing even predated The Simpsons, as "Eat my shorts" was altered to "Eat my socks."

Oh, my OTHER favorite--Clueless on network changed "hymenally challenged" to "hermetically sealed." I actually thought the latter was a pretty good euphemism for a virgin.
posted by dlugoczaj at 8:44 AM on November 15, 2010


Badfellas.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:45 AM on November 15, 2010


There was a version of Blue Velvet that got a bit of air time here in Australia, in which Fuck was universally replaced with Freak. The best result was perhaps Dennis Hopper, all crazy eyed, screaming "Freak you, you freaking freak!"
posted by Ahab at 8:49 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Canadian networks don't do this nonsense.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 8:49 AM on November 15, 2010




Damn you, Combustible Edison Lighthouse.
posted by dead cousin ted at 8:54 AM on November 15, 2010


MetaFilter: Just a full minute of cowboys eating beans and lifting their legs, in absolute silence.
posted by Beardman at 8:57 AM on November 15, 2010 [6 favorites]


Pulp Fiction is unwatchable on TV. Not just because of the excessive overdubbing, because they remove most of the "I Just Shot Marvin In The Face" scene, fading to black and overdubbing that exact line.

OTOH, adding farts to an existing scene can often improve it. I once saw someone's reel where they did this to a teleevangalist, with hilarious results.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:00 AM on November 15, 2010


My brother and I still say "That's what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps" whenever things go wrong.

MADtv's The Sopranos on PAX sketch was one of their best.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:15 AM on November 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


There's a fantastic TV edit of Repo Man out there...

I saw the same cut! Hilarious.
posted by brundlefly at 9:19 AM on November 15, 2010


The Canadian network Showcase, which ran a lot of movies had a great ad campaign based on this premise years ago to promote that they ran movies uncut.

They used the lineup scene from Pulp Fiction, with "Hand me the keys, you fuckin' cocksucker" replaced with "Hand me the keys, you fuzzy sock sucker". Just terribly dropped in there; I think they had the same guy dub everybody's lines.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:29 AM on November 15, 2010


"D'you have to use so many cuss words?"

"The fuck you talking about?"
posted by gompa at 9:31 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


I remember watching a network broadcast of "Midnight RUn" that did overdubs that not only fit, but perfectly matched the scene so that my teenaged self didn't notice. For years, I though that Grodin was told that if he screwed up, he'd get "stabbed through the heart with a broken pencil" instead of a "fuckin' pencil".
posted by ShawnStruck at 9:34 AM on November 15, 2010


I remember being on a bus during a school field trip in the late 1990s. To pass the time, we watched an edited version of Die Hard with a Vengeance, which I had previously seen in the theater. In the edited version, the scene where Bruce Willis' character was blackmailed into walking around Harlem wearing this sandwich board with the "N"-word (warning: racial epithets) looked like this instead.

Apparently, though, the "I hate everybody" was the original, being changed to the racially-charged version in post-production for the theatrical release. Still, it's hard to imagine anyone getting upset over a sign that says "I hate everybody."
posted by dhens at 9:42 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Two I remember from my childhood:

Martin Short in Three Amigos! making his joke about a mail plane (Didn't you notice its little balls?) was changed to didn't you notice its little things?

And of course, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which was full of funny and odd edits, the one that sticks out though is this:

"Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight, if you stuck a lump of coal **in his fist** in two weeks you'd have a diamond."

The infamous rental car scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles is nowhere near as effective on basic television as well.
posted by cottoncandybeard at 9:45 AM on November 15, 2010


"Freak you, you freaking freak!"

This has become a mantra among my friends. Also: "Let's freak!"
posted by joe lisboa at 9:48 AM on November 15, 2010


A few years ago, I caught a censored version of Blazing Saddles on cable. I don't remember how most of it was dubbed (terribly, I suspect), but the one thing that I can recall with absolute clarity is that they removed all the fart and belch sounds from the fart scene. Just a full minute of cowboys eating beans and lifting their legs, in absolute silence. It was completely surreal.

Seriously, they censored FARTS?
posted by specialagentwebb


I saw that scene overdubbed with horses neighing, which was pretty surreal.

Weird flipside-dub thing I noticed this weekend: I watched Office Space for the first time in a long, long time and noticed that when the Geto Boyz' "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Ganster" is playing, a lot of the more profanity-laced lines of the song have been really badly overdubbed. But this is for the DVD, not for TV... it makes me wonder if it was like that in the original theatrical release.
posted by COBRA! at 9:49 AM on November 15, 2010


My name is Buck, and I like to party.
posted by kagredon at 9:49 AM on November 15, 2010 [7 favorites]


"Did you see a sign in my yard that said 'dead AFRICANAMERICAN storage?'
posted by davelog at 9:53 AM on November 15, 2010


I watched Jackie Brown on a plane, and they replaced every single one of Samuel Jackson's "motherfuckers" with "Maryland farmer".

You think I wouldn't find out about your little doodoo head cootie queen? Who are you calling a cootie queen you lint licker?
posted by electroboy at 10:47 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Al Pacino upbraiding Kevin Spacey at the end of Glengarry Glen Ross is absolutely unreal on television.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:04 AM on November 15, 2010


My all time favorite was the TV-edit of "The Great Outdoors" with John Candy and Dan Ackroyd.

There's a great scene (one of the few funny scenes in that movie as I recall) where the characters keep yelling minor variations on "Blow it out your ass!" at one another.

For some reason, the censors decided that the most sensible word to subsitute in for "ass" was "kazoo."

It was surreal.
posted by 256 at 11:12 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Not a movie, but the best example of this that I know of is the "radio edit" version of Adam Sandler's "Piece of Shit Car".

Various car horns are substituted for the numerous swear words to the effect that it's the same song, but with different, er, words.

It's just as enjoyable in its own way as the original.
posted by mmrtnt at 11:18 AM on November 15, 2010


I always enjoyed that bit in the TV version of Robocop where one OCP executive talks about calling his boss an airhead, while his mouth clearly pronounces a completely different word.
posted by permafrost at 11:22 AM on November 15, 2010


Yes, 256! I was just coming in here to post that! Good memories.
posted by King Bee at 11:27 AM on November 15, 2010


Does anyone distribute tv edits online, in a freelance capacity? Or do I just need to break down and order TBS?
posted by mecran01 at 11:28 AM on November 15, 2010


The other notably hilarious dub in Scarface (I couldn't find it on youtube) is during the interrogation scene at the beginning, where the officer asks him, "where did you get that scar?"

"I got it from eating pussy pineapple."
posted by invitapriore at 11:33 AM on November 15, 2010


FPP this, you metafiltering mefite!
posted by mmrtnt at 12:40 PM on November 15, 2010


Various car horns are substituted for the numerous swear words to the effect that it's the same song, but with different, er, words.

It's just as enjoyable in its own way as the original.


Along those lines, there's Monty Python's I Bet You They Won't Play This Song on the Radio, which I'm not even sure exists in uncensored format.

One oft-repeated dub around here is from Fargo, during the scene where Carl Showalter is berating Wade Gustafson on the parking garage roof: "I gave you simple [fruitful] instructions!"
posted by usonian at 1:01 PM on November 15, 2010


I remember the dubbed version of Police Academy featured the classic line "Stop or I'll shoot your knees off, eggroll!"
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 1:33 PM on November 15, 2010


Mr. Show - Pallies
posted by lone_one at 1:42 PM on November 15, 2010


I can't wait for the network TV re-dub of Deadwood. Where would you start?
posted by tim_in_oz at 1:49 PM on November 15, 2010


In "Quick Change", the dub had Geena Davis saying "this is viking ridiculous," as they are being car-jacked. That's the best one I've seen.
posted by squarehead at 1:50 PM on November 15, 2010


I treasure the fond memories of the completely different voice of John McClane in Die Hard 2. Still, I think the best was the awful Michael J. Fox buddy cop movie, The Hard Way, with James Woods showing an actor how cops worked. The movie was overly enamored with the phrase 'son of a bitch,' which on TV became...

"Slug in a ditch!"

Best dubbing ever.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:55 PM on November 15, 2010


"I want more life, father."

Actually kind of an improvement.
posted by jiawen at 2:00 PM on November 15, 2010


The worst one I ever heard was from The Breakfast Club, where someone decided "mother-fucker" was too coarse, so they changed it to "maggot-farmer".

To this day, decades later, I'd much rather be called a mother-fucker. "Maggot-farmer" is just creepy beyond words, and infinitely more disturbing to my mind.
posted by quin at 2:19 PM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Slug in a ditch, you viking maggot farmer!

Has a ring to it!
posted by mmrtnt at 2:34 PM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


I have fond memories of the alternate-universe Smokey and the Bandit, in which Jackie Gleason really hates "scumbums" and sounds like Fred Flintstone.
posted by evilcolonel at 2:43 PM on November 15, 2010


When I was under sixteen, I wasn't allowed to see R-rated movies, and had no older friends who could drive me to the theater. So the first time I saw Breakfast Club, it was on TV. They cut out all the references to pot, so it seemed like the kids were just aimlessly running around the school, and when Judd Nelson asserted that his dope was in Johnson's underwear, I was just confused. More so when they started lying around and giggling for apparently no reason.

That edit was also high up in the bad dubbing department. "What about you, dad?" "Damn you!" "NO DAD, WHAT ABOUT YOU?" "DAMN YOU!"
posted by cereselle at 3:00 PM on November 15, 2010


I always enjoyed that bit in the TV version of Robocop where one OCP executive talks about calling his boss an airhead

I like when he breaks up the robbery, and the robber is crying "WHY me? Oh, WHY me!!"
posted by WhackyparseThis at 3:05 PM on November 15, 2010


cereselle, the version of Breakfast Club I saw didn't even have damn. It went 'What about you, dad?' 'Darn you!' 'NO DAD, WHAT ABOUT YOU?' 'DARN YOU!'

It's nice to know all I need to see is 'No dad, what about you?' to know exactly where the conversation is.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:47 PM on November 15, 2010


Whoa! Boddicker drives around Emile! That is totally weird. I'd never seen that before.
posted by stinkycheese at 3:49 PM on November 15, 2010


The TV edit of Half Baked gave us Bob Saget sucking feet for cocaine. Also: "What was that thing we used to eat? Oh yeah, pudding."
posted by asperity at 7:29 PM on November 15, 2010


I almost cried laughing watching that Lebowski edit. Thank you sooo much.
posted by little light-giver at 8:12 PM on November 15, 2010


I caught Blazing Saddles on network television sometime in the early 90's which amazing included all the N-bombs. For example, the dialog here replaced the words "Up yours..." with "Outta my way..." (Caution, link contains original language.)
posted by peeedro at 7:09 AM on November 16, 2010


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