Blooper
Encyclopedia
A blooper, also known as an outtake
or boner
is a short sequence of a film or video production, usually a deleted scene, containing a mistake made by a member of the cast or crew. It also refers to an error made during a live radio or TV broadcast or news report, usually in terms of misspoken words or technical errors. The term blooper was popularized in the 1950s in a series of record albums entitled Pardon My Blooper, in which the definition of a blooper is given thusly by the record series' narrator: "Unintended indiscretions before microphone and camera."
Bloopers are often the subject of television shows or are occasionally revealed during the credit
sequence at the end of comedy movie
s. (Jackie Chan
and Burt Reynolds
are both famous for including such reels with the closing credits
of their movies.) Humorous mistakes made by athletes are often referred to as bloopers as well, particularly in baseball
. Prominent examples of films with bloopers include: Cheaper By the Dozen, and Cheaper By the Dozen 2. Fake bloopers are in the animation films A Bug's Life
, Toy Story 2
, Monsters, Inc.
, and Valiant.
in the 1950s. Schaefer produced a long-running series of Pardon My Blooper! record albums in the 50s and 60s which featured a mixture of actual recordings of errors from television and radio broadcasts, coupled with re-creations. Schaefer also transcribed many reported bloopers into a series of books that he published up until his death in 1979.
Schaefer, however, was by no means the first to undertake serious study and recording of broadcast erratum; NBC's short-lived "behind-the-scenes" series Behind The Mike (1940–41) occasionally featured reconstructions of announcers' gaffes and flubs as part of the "Oddities in Radio" segment, and movie studios had been producing so-called "gag reels" of outtakes (usually for employee-only viewing) since the 1930s.
showcased his own out-takes as an epilogue entitled A Comedy of Errors to his BBC shows in the mid 1970s. The later British show It'll be Alright on the Night
, which has been running on ITV
since 1977, and hosted by Denis Norden
(replaced by Griff Rhys Jones
in 2008) showed out-takes from film and TV. The BBC
's answer to the show, Auntie's Bloomers
, presented by Terry Wogan
(and its spin-off sporting-mistakes show, Auntie's Sporting Bloomers, also presented by Wogan), ran until approximately 2001, and was replaced by Outtake TV
, which began as a series of one-off specials in 2002, hosted by Paul O'Grady
, before a series was commissioned and subsequently broadcast on BBC One
in 2004, but this time hosted by Anne Robinson
. Special Weakest Link
themed editions were common during Robinson's tenure, which lasted until 2009. Rufus Hound
took over in 2010. Outtake TV now appears in occasional one-off specials, much in the same way as It'll Be Alright on the Night.
ITV has also produced two other shows, TV Nightmares, and TV's Naughtiest Blunders
. Both were presented by Steve Penk
at one stage, before the latter was changed to show wall-to-wall clips with voiceover by Neil Morrissey
. The former also singled out certain TV personalities as they related some of their most hair-raising moments, whether live, out-take, or otherwise, whilst the latter was set aside for more risqué mistakes. The latter has also been criticised for being used as a simple schedule filler, often with ridiculously titled editions (e.g. "All New TV's Naughtiest Blunders 18").
During the 1982-83 season, TV producer
Dick Clark
revived the bloopers concept in America for a series of specials on NBC
called TV's Censored Bloopers. This led to a weekly series which ran from 1984 through 1992 (co-hosted by Clark and Ed McMahon
) and was followed by more specials that appeared on ABC
irregularly until as recently as 2004, still hosted by Clark. These specials (along with a record album of radio bloopers produced by Clark in the mid-1980s) were dedicated to the memory of Kermit Schaefer.
After Clark suffered a stroke
, the blooper shows went on hiatus until 2007, when John O'Hurley
hosted a Dick Clark Productions-packaged special for the ABC.
The success of both Clark's and Norden's efforts led to imitators on virtually all American and Australian TV networks, as well as scores of home video
releases; many American productions are aired to fill gaps in prime time
schedules. The ABC Network aired Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders
hosted by Steve Lawrence
and Don Rickles
in direct competition with the Clark TV series. With the coming of DVD
in the 1990s, it is now common for major film releases to include a "blooper reel" (also known as a "gag reel" or simply "outtakes") among the bonus material on the disc.
In 1985 a relatively unknown producer named Steve Rotfeld
began compiling stock footage
of various sports-related errors and mistakes and compiled them into a program known as Bob Uecker
's Wacky World of Sports. The show is now known as The Lighter Side of Sports
and is still in production today.
In the UK, lecturer Jonathan Hewat started collecting bloopers and producing short radio programmes of them on BBC Local Radio
, he then sold cassettes of bloopers to raise money for the British Wireless for the Blind Fund. The collection was finally released as two CDs, again for the BWBF.
s have only a short time to deliver a large amount of information and are prone to mispronounce place names and people's names, or switch a name or word without realizing it, as in a slip-of-the-tongue or Freudian slip
.
Some common examples include:
The famous old chestnut of show business "Never work with children or animals" demonstrates two other causes of out-takes: Children, especially those who have no acting experience, often miss cues, deliver the wrong lines or make comments which are particularly embarrassing. Similarly, animals are very likely to do things not in the script, generally involving bodily functions.
A third type of blooper is caused by failure of inanimate objects. This can be as simple as a sound effect being mistimed or a microphone not working, but frequently involves doorknobs (and doors) not working or breaking, props and sets being improperly prepared, as well as props working in ways they should not work.
In recent years, mobile phone
s have been a new source of bloopers with them frequently going off. Many of them belong to actors, presenters and contestants who may have forgotten to turn them off or put them in silent mode. The effect is especially pronounced when the film setting is before the modern era (e.g., Ancient Greece or Rome). However, this blooper is rarely seen in recent films but commonly used in fake bloopers for animations.
The reaction to bloopers is often intensified in the stressful environment of a movie or television set, with some actors expressing extreme annoyance while others enjoy the stress relief brought on by the unexpected event.
, who accidentally referred to then-US President Herbert Hoover
as "Hoobert Heever" during an introduction. Reportedly it was upon hearing of this mistake that Kermit Schafer was inspired to begin collecting bloopers, although the exact circumstances of the event have been debated. http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/radio/vonzell.asp. A similar situation occurred decades later when then-new president Gerald Ford
was introduced as "Gerald Smith
", the same name as an American Fascist leader from the 1930s.
One famous out-take from Australia
n television is from the gameshow Who Dares Wins
, hosted by former cricket
er Mike Whitney
. The scene involved Whitney introducing a challenge by throwing a water balloon
from hand to hand and delivering the line, "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, and we'd play with water balloons? You'd throw them all over the place and they'd burst and water would go everywhere". The out-takes of this scene, aired after the credits of the show, feature Whitney delivering the line in the following ways:
On an episode of The Red Skelton Show
in the 1950s, a skit involving Red's "country bumpkin" character "Clem Kadiddlehopper", had him leading a cow onto the stage. Several seconds into the skit, the cow defecated on-stage during the live broadcast. Whereupon the audience laughed uncontrollably, and Skelton resorted to the use of the ad-lib, saying "Boy, she's a great cow! Not only does she give milk, {pause} she gives Pet-Ritz Pies!" He followed up with, "Why didn't you think of that earlier?", "You have bad breath too!" and finally, "Well, it's like in psychiatry... {long pause} Get it out of your system!" Red then finally broke into laughter, and the network cut to a commercial.
A much-bootlegged recording of Bing Crosby
has him singing to a recording of a band playing "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
", when he realizes that the master tape had not been fully rewound, and ad-libbed vocals to the truncated music. He begins, "Castles may tumble, that's fate after all/ Life's really funny that way." Realizing the shortened music, he ad-libs, "Sang the wrong melody, we'll play it back/ See what it sounds like, Hey Hey!/ They cut out eight bars, the dirty bastards/ I didn't know which eight bars he was gonna cut/ Why don't somebody tell me these things around here?/ Holy Christ, I'm goin' off my nut!" This recording was first made available to the public by Kermit Schaefer in Volume 1 of his Pardon My Blooper album series for Jubilee Records
in the late 1950s.
On the Wild Bill Hickok radio series in the early 1950s, a newsflash caused an unexpected blooper when it broke into the show. With sound effects providing the sound of horses' hoofs galloping and gun
s firing, Guy Madison
spoke the line "Cut him off at the pass, Jingles!" Whereupon an announcer interrupted with, "We interrupt this program to bring you a bulletin from the Mutual newsroom in New York
! According to an announcement from Moscow
radio, Lavrenti Beria, former head of the Soviet secret police, has just been executed! We now return you to Wild Bill Hickok." At this point, Andy Devine
(as Jingles) was delivering the line "Well, that oughta hold him for a little while, Bill!"
In a similar vein, New York children's radio show host "Uncle Don" Carney supposedly delivered the ad-libbed line "Are we off? Good...well, that oughta hold the little bastards" after signing off on his show one night, thinking his studio microphone was switched off. As a discredited urban legend has it, the remarks went to air, eventually leading to the show's cancellation and "Uncle Don"'s disgrace; apparently, Carney himself would tell the story of his blooper, especially it became popular after the release of Schaefer's records. However, according to the debunking website Snopes.com, not only did the alleged incident never happen, the much distributed recording of the incident was a fabrication. (The alleged incident was even parodied in the 1993 Simpsons
episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled
".)
An episode of the radio drama Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
was presumably introduced as "Mr. Keen, Loser of Traced Persons." (Bob and Ray
once did their own parody of this program under the title "Mr. Trace, Keener Than Most Persons".)
A popular story among Texas broadcasting circles has it that a station manager's late change in programming from Les Brown
's orchestra to a religious programme marking the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur
led to the staff announcer's billboard urging his listeners to "Stay tuned for the dance music of Yom Kippur's Orchestra." (Many gentile
DJ's have urged their Jewish listeners to "Have a happy Yom Kippur!")
A radio commercial for A&P
food stores ended with the announcer excitedly blurting out "...and be sure to visit your nearby A & Food P Store!" In much the same vein was an ad for instant tea as came out in the end "Instant White Rose, hot or cold — Orange Tekoe Pee" and a bakery advertising itself as having "the breast bed and rolls you ever tasted; I knew that would happen one night, friends," all the while breaking out in fits of uncontrollable laughter trying to get the line right.
During the Davy Crockett
mania of the mid-1950s, a radio ad for children's bedding cashing in on same had the line ". . . with scenes of Davy Crockett in action on the mattress," a clear example of how unintentional double-entendre can translate into blooper material.
A public-service announcement urging young women to volunteer as nurses during a critical shortage thereof ended with the appeal "Volunteer to be one of America's white-clapped angels of mercy," confusing a slang term for infection with syphilis
with "white-clad."
The announcer of a radio ad for the 1948 Bob Hope film The Paleface
, which costarred buxom actress Jane Russell, enthusiastically promised: "Bob Hope, America's favorite comedian, and Jane Russell...what a pair!"
A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
radio announcer's station-identification message once allegedly came out "This is the Dominion Network of the Canadian Broadcorping Castration," in turn coining an oft-used sarcastic term for the public broadcaster. Like other blooper recordings distributed by Schaefer, a recreation was created as the original recording was not preserved, leading to debate over whether the event actually happened.
A radio adaptation of Don Quixote over the BBC
had one episode ending with the announcer explaining where "I'm afraid we've run out of time, so here we leave Don Quixote, sitting on his ass — a word that could refer either to the buttocks or to the animal, jackass
until tomorrow at the same time."
sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
had a tradition of airing outtakes over the closing credits, though blooper reels were not shown during the closing credits of the show during the first, fifth (except for one episode) and sixth seasons. Many of these involved malapropism
s on the part of the cast, often lampooned by Will Smith
. Additionally, Smith would reference black culture in setting up mistakes made by the rest of the cast. An example of this is when Uncle Phil (James L. Avery, Sr.
) comments, "Well, the silverware's obviously not in the house. It must been stolen", before realizing the line was "It must have been stolen" and correcting himself. Smith appears in the shot and, in an exaggerated accent
, responds, "It must been stolen. Feet, don't fail me now!"
Another sitcom, Home Improvement, also showcased outtakes over its closing credits; however, some episodes featured a tag scene over the credits in lieu of a blooper reel.
Star Trek: The Original Series
produced many famous out-takes, which were shown to the delight of fans at gatherings over the years and have been extensively bootlegged. One famous example shows actor Leonard Nimoy
, who plays the supposedly emotionless Mr. Spock, breaking into laughter when, in the first season episode "This Side of Paradise", instead of saying the line "The plants act as a repository", says "The plants act as a suppository
". In another out-take, series star William Shatner
breaks character during a scene and starts complaining about the food served in the studio commissary. A third example begins with the third season episode "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", in which guest actress Diana Muldaur
recited the line, "We've come to the end of an eventful... trip", to which Shatner replies, "I don't know what you've been taking..." — a reference to the then-topical issue of drug-induced hallucinations
or "trips". People bumping into supposedly automatic doors when the backstage personnel mistimed opening them was a common accident depicted. Similarly there were also mishaps while filming in exterior, with aircraft flying over supposedly alien planets.
Hee Haw
often showed bloopers in the show itself, usually with the actor or actors requiring several tries to get a line right, ending in most cases with the correctly delivered line.
Many theatrical motion pictures feature bloopers during the end credits. For example, many Jackie Chan movies end with footage of failed stunts, blown dialogue, and other mishaps; Chan was inspired to do this by Burt Reynolds' films of the early 1980s (in particular Smokey and the Bandit II
and The Cannonball Run) that also featured end-credits bloopers. As an homage to its inspiration, the closing-credits blooper reel for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
actually featured one outtake from Smokey and the Bandit II.
Pixar
also has a tradition of including blooper-like material during the end credits of such films as Toy Story 2
and A Bug's Life
; the latter was at one point reissued to theatres with a major selling feature being the addition of extra "bloopers". Since Pixar's films are painstakingly computer-animated, making actual blunders of this sort impossible, these scenes are in fact staged to provide additional audience enjoyment. The makers of another computer-animated film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
, likewise also created a faux blooper reel showing the characters playing practical jokes and, in one case, bursting into laughter when one "sneezes" during a dramatic sequence. However, the movie Shrek
has actual bloopers that were released on DVD. These bloopers are technical errors within the system, causing blurred characters or the characters bodies going through objects, such as a bush or the crown Lord Farquard wears. Going back decades earlier, in 1939 Warner Bros.
cartoon director Bob Clampett
produced a short "blooper" film (for the studio's annual in-house gag reel) of Looney Tunes
character Porky Pig
smashing his thumb with a hammer and cursing.
The television show, Full House
, had various bloopers in television specials but unreleased bloopers were leaked containing cast members using profanity to express their mistakes in a family-friendly program.
The fishing television series
Bill Dance Outdoors
has produced four videos (two VHS
and two DVD
) focusing entirely on bloopers occurring during production of the show and associated commercials, often showing various mishaps such as missed lines (which sometimes take several takes to finally deliver correctly), accidents during filming (including falling into the water, being impaled with a fish hook
, or equipment malfunctions), as well as practical jokes played on the host by his guests and film crew (and vice versa). Some of the outtakes shown on these videos would sometimes be shown over the end credits.
The Discovery Channel
series MythBusters
will often keep some bloopers included in the actual episodes, usually various mishaps that occur on the show, such as minor injuries suffered by the cast, or various other accidents and malfunctions, which are usually quite spectacular and/or embarrassing when they do occur.
In Mainland China
, variety shows would sometimes air bloopers titled NG's, which stands for no good/not good. These NG's would usually feature hosts forgetting their words by mistake and admit they make mistakes on occasion.
One blooper for Back to the Future
, which was intended as a practical joke, featured Michael J. Fox
taking a drink from a prop bottle, which (unknown to him) had real alcohol in it, causing him to spit it all over the car and co-star Lea Thompson
.
Bloopers can even exist in professional pornographic videos. Examples include corpsing
, forgotten lines, props malfunctioning, people getting in the way and sexual acts not being executed properly.
Director Hal Ashby
's decision to include a blooper reel of star Peter Sellers
in his 1979 film Being There
, for example, is sometimes blamed for Sellers' failure to win that year's Academy Award for Best Actor
(for which he was nominated). Sellers had reportedly urged Ashby not to include the outtakes in the final edit of the film, to no avail.
Among his other issues with Star Treks producer
Gene Roddenberry
, Leonard Nimoy
was not happy that Roddenberry showed the show's blooper reels to fans at conventions in the early 1970s. He felt actors needed to be free to make mistakes without expecting that they would be shown to the public, and wrote a letter to Roddenberry asking him to stop. Roddenberry's answer was to send Nimoy a blooper reel of his own should he have wished to show it at conventions.
website uses the term goof
s instead.
The Vietnam era grenade launcher, the M79 also has the nickname "Blooper" due to its distinctive firing noise.
Outtake
An outtake is a portion of a work that is removed in the editing process and not included in the work's final, publicly released version. In the digital era, significant outtakes have been appended to CD and DVD reissues of many albums and films as bonus tracks or features, in film often, but not...
or boner
Boner
Boner may refer to:* A boning knife, a narrow knife for removing bones from meat, poultry or fish* A United States Department of Agriculture carcass grade for slaughter cattle...
is a short sequence of a film or video production, usually a deleted scene, containing a mistake made by a member of the cast or crew. It also refers to an error made during a live radio or TV broadcast or news report, usually in terms of misspoken words or technical errors. The term blooper was popularized in the 1950s in a series of record albums entitled Pardon My Blooper, in which the definition of a blooper is given thusly by the record series' narrator: "Unintended indiscretions before microphone and camera."
Bloopers are often the subject of television shows or are occasionally revealed during the credit
Closing credits
Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...
sequence at the end of comedy movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s. (Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...
and Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...
are both famous for including such reels with the closing credits
Closing credits
Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...
of their movies.) Humorous mistakes made by athletes are often referred to as bloopers as well, particularly in baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
. Prominent examples of films with bloopers include: Cheaper By the Dozen, and Cheaper By the Dozen 2. Fake bloopers are in the animation films A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
, Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer animated film directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the third film to be produced by Pixar...
, Monsters, Inc.
Monsters, Inc.
Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American computer-animated film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and written by Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett...
, and Valiant.
Origins
The collecting of bloopers (and the coining of the term; the word "boner" had been the common term for such errors previously) was popularized in America by television producer Kermit SchaeferKermit Schaefer
Kermit Schafer was an American writer and producer for radio and television in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for his collections of "bloopers" — the word Schafer coined for mistakes and gaffes of radio and TV announcers and personalities.-Early bloopers:Bloopers came into prominence in...
in the 1950s. Schaefer produced a long-running series of Pardon My Blooper! record albums in the 50s and 60s which featured a mixture of actual recordings of errors from television and radio broadcasts, coupled with re-creations. Schaefer also transcribed many reported bloopers into a series of books that he published up until his death in 1979.
Schaefer, however, was by no means the first to undertake serious study and recording of broadcast erratum; NBC's short-lived "behind-the-scenes" series Behind The Mike (1940–41) occasionally featured reconstructions of announcers' gaffes and flubs as part of the "Oddities in Radio" segment, and movie studios had been producing so-called "gag reels" of outtakes (usually for employee-only viewing) since the 1930s.
TV shows featuring "bloopers"
Comedian Dick EmeryDick Emery
Richard Gilbert "Dick" Emery was an English comedian and actor. Beginning on radio in the 1950s, an eponymous television series ran from 1963 to 1981. He was the brother of Ann Emery.-Life and career:...
showcased his own out-takes as an epilogue entitled A Comedy of Errors to his BBC shows in the mid 1970s. The later British show It'll be Alright on the Night
It'll be Alright on the Night
It'll be Alright on the Night is a British television bloopers show screened on ITV and produced by London Weekend Television. It was one of the first shows created with the specific purpose of showing behind the scenes bloopers from film and TV and it has been running since 18 September 1977...
, which has been running on ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
since 1977, and hosted by Denis Norden
Denis Norden
Denis Mostyn Norden CBE is a former English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during World War II. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the successful BBC Radio comedy programme Take It from Here with Frank Muir...
(replaced by Griff Rhys Jones
Griff Rhys Jones
Griffith "Griff" Rhys Jones is a Welsh comedian, writer, actor, television presenter and personality. Jones came to national attention in the early 1980s for his work in the BBC television comedy sketch shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones along with his comedy partner Mel Smith...
in 2008) showed out-takes from film and TV. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's answer to the show, Auntie's Bloomers
Auntie's Bloomers
Auntie's Bloomers was a blooper show hosted by Terry Wogan that ran from 29 December 1991 to 29 December 2001 and aired on BBC1. Most bloopers consisted of homegrown BBC programmes including soaps, sitcoms, dramas and news. Although the show was made by the BBC it was also made by independent...
, presented by Terry Wogan
Terry Wogan
Sir Michael Terence Wogan, KBE, DL , or also known as Terry Wogan, is a veteran Irish radio and television broadcaster who holds dual Irish and British citizenship. Wogan has worked for the BBC in the United Kingdom for most of his career...
(and its spin-off sporting-mistakes show, Auntie's Sporting Bloomers, also presented by Wogan), ran until approximately 2001, and was replaced by Outtake TV
Outtake TV
Outtake TV is a blooper show originally hosted by Paul O'Grady from 2002 to 2003, then, by Anne Robinson from 2004 to 2009 and as of 2010, Rufus Hound. Robinson had been presenting the show 2004 to 2009 and airing on BBC One. It replaced the channel's original blooper show Auntie's Bloomers...
, which began as a series of one-off specials in 2002, hosted by Paul O'Grady
Paul O'Grady
Paul James Michael O'Grady MBE is an English comedian, television presenter, actor, writer and radio DJ. He is best known for presenting the daytime chat television series, The Paul O'Grady Show and, more recently, Paul O'Grady Live, as well as his drag queen comedic alter ego, Lily Savage, as...
, before a series was commissioned and subsequently broadcast on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in 2004, but this time hosted by Anne Robinson
Anne Robinson
Anne Josephine Robinson is an English journalist and television presenter, known for her assertive views and acerbic style of presenting. She was one of the presenters on the long-running British consumer affairs series, Watchdog, from 1993 to 2001 before returning in 2009...
. Special Weakest Link
Weakest Link
The Weakest Link is a British television quiz show, currently broadcast on BBC Two. It was devised by Mr Wilton and Euan Green and Cathy Dunning, and developed for television by the BBC Entertainment Department. It has since been replicated around the world. The UK version is hosted by Anne...
themed editions were common during Robinson's tenure, which lasted until 2009. Rufus Hound
Rufus Hound
Rufus Hound is a British comedian and presenter. He is also the winner of 2010 "Let's Dance for Comic Relief".-Career:...
took over in 2010. Outtake TV now appears in occasional one-off specials, much in the same way as It'll Be Alright on the Night.
ITV has also produced two other shows, TV Nightmares, and TV's Naughtiest Blunders
TV's Naughtiest Blunders
TV's Naughtiest Blunders was an out-takes show, that ran from 2000 till 2005. It was shown on ITV and produced by Carlton Television. The show was narrated by Neil Morrissey and features edited out clips and mistakes made by people on TV...
. Both were presented by Steve Penk
Steve Penk
Steve Penk is a British radio and TV presenter. He was born Stephen Penkethman on 28 September 1961, in Rusholme, Manchester and is renowned for his wind-up calls. Penk has worked for various national and local radio stations...
at one stage, before the latter was changed to show wall-to-wall clips with voiceover by Neil Morrissey
Neil Morrissey
Neil Anthony Morrissey is an English actor, media personality and businessman. He is best known for his role as Tony in Men Behaving Badly....
. The former also singled out certain TV personalities as they related some of their most hair-raising moments, whether live, out-take, or otherwise, whilst the latter was set aside for more risqué mistakes. The latter has also been criticised for being used as a simple schedule filler, often with ridiculously titled editions (e.g. "All New TV's Naughtiest Blunders 18").
During the 1982-83 season, TV producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
Dick Clark
Dick Clark (entertainer)
Richard Wagstaff "Dick" Clark is an American businessman; game-show host; and radio and television personality. He served as chairman and chief executive officer of Dick Clark Productions, which he has sold part of in recent years...
revived the bloopers concept in America for a series of specials on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
called TV's Censored Bloopers. This led to a weekly series which ran from 1984 through 1992 (co-hosted by Clark and Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon
Edward Peter "Ed" McMahon, Jr. was an American comedian, game show host and announcer. He is most famous for his work on television as Johnny Carson's sidekick and announcer on The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992. He also hosted the original version of the talent show Star Search from 1983 to 1995...
) and was followed by more specials that appeared on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
irregularly until as recently as 2004, still hosted by Clark. These specials (along with a record album of radio bloopers produced by Clark in the mid-1980s) were dedicated to the memory of Kermit Schaefer.
After Clark suffered a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
, the blooper shows went on hiatus until 2007, when John O'Hurley
John O'Hurley
John George O'Hurley is an American actor, voice actor, and television personality. He is known for the role of J. Peterman on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld and was the host of the game show Family Feud from 2006 to 2010.-Early life:...
hosted a Dick Clark Productions-packaged special for the ABC.
The success of both Clark's and Norden's efforts led to imitators on virtually all American and Australian TV networks, as well as scores of home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
releases; many American productions are aired to fill gaps in prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
schedules. The ABC Network aired Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders
Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders
Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders is the title of a comedy series that aired on ABC for two short seasons in the mid-1980s. The series was hosted by Steve Lawrence and Don Rickles....
hosted by Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence is an American singer and actor, perhaps best known as a member of a duo with his wife Eydie Gormé, billed as "Steve and Eydie"...
and Don Rickles
Don Rickles
Donald Jay "Don" Rickles is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is best known as an insult comic....
in direct competition with the Clark TV series. With the coming of DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the 1990s, it is now common for major film releases to include a "blooper reel" (also known as a "gag reel" or simply "outtakes") among the bonus material on the disc.
In 1985 a relatively unknown producer named Steve Rotfeld
Steve Rotfeld
Steve Rotfeld is an American television producer. His programs have appeared in national broadcast syndication on TLC, ESPN, ESPN Classic, Animal Planet, truTV, Golf Channel and the Travel Channel...
began compiling stock footage
Stock footage
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures and file footage are film or video footage that may or may not be custom shot for use in a specific film or television program. Stock footage is of beneficial use to filmmakers as it is sometimes less expensive than shooting new...
of various sports-related errors and mistakes and compiled them into a program known as Bob Uecker
Bob Uecker
Robert George "Bob" Uecker is an American former Major League Baseball player, later a sportscaster, comedian, and actor. Uecker was given the title of "Mr. Baseball" by Johnny Carson...
's Wacky World of Sports. The show is now known as The Lighter Side of Sports
The Lighter Side of Sports
The Lighter Side of Sports is a long-running syndicated American sports blooper program produced by Steve Rotfeld Productions. It is currently hosted by ESPN personality Mike Golic...
and is still in production today.
In the UK, lecturer Jonathan Hewat started collecting bloopers and producing short radio programmes of them on BBC Local Radio
BBC Local Radio
BBC Local Radio is the BBC's regional radio service for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of 40 stations. They cover a variety of areas with some serving a city and surrounding areas, for example BBC Radio Manchester; a county, for example BBC Radio Norfolk; an administrative region for...
, he then sold cassettes of bloopers to raise money for the British Wireless for the Blind Fund. The collection was finally released as two CDs, again for the BWBF.
Causes
Bloopers are usually accidental and humorous. Where actors need to memorize large numbers of lines or perform a series of actions in quick succession, mistakes can be expected. Similarly, newsreaderNews presenter
A news presenter is a person who presents news during a news program in the format of a television show, on the radio or the Internet.News presenters can work in a radio studio, television studio and from remote broadcasts in the field especially weather...
s have only a short time to deliver a large amount of information and are prone to mispronounce place names and people's names, or switch a name or word without realizing it, as in a slip-of-the-tongue or Freudian slip
Freudian slip
A Freudian slip, also called parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of some unconscious , subdued, wish, conflict, or train of thought...
.
Some common examples include:
- Inconsistent dating of plots
- Inconsistent costumes between scenes
- Uncontrollable laughter (called in television and acting circles, corpsingCorpsingCorpsing is a British theatrical slang term used to describe when an actor unintentionally breaks character during a scene by laughing or by causing another cast member to laugh...
); - Unanticipated incidents (e.g. a propTheatrical propertyA theatrical property, commonly referred to as a prop, is an object used on stage by actors to further the plot or story line of a theatrical production. Smaller props are referred to as "hand props". Larger props may also be set decoration, such as a chair or table. The difference between a set...
falling or breaking); - Forgotten lines; or
- Deliberate sabotage of an actor's performance by a fellow actor (to evoke laughter).
The famous old chestnut of show business "Never work with children or animals" demonstrates two other causes of out-takes: Children, especially those who have no acting experience, often miss cues, deliver the wrong lines or make comments which are particularly embarrassing. Similarly, animals are very likely to do things not in the script, generally involving bodily functions.
A third type of blooper is caused by failure of inanimate objects. This can be as simple as a sound effect being mistimed or a microphone not working, but frequently involves doorknobs (and doors) not working or breaking, props and sets being improperly prepared, as well as props working in ways they should not work.
In recent years, mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s have been a new source of bloopers with them frequently going off. Many of them belong to actors, presenters and contestants who may have forgotten to turn them off or put them in silent mode. The effect is especially pronounced when the film setting is before the modern era (e.g., Ancient Greece or Rome). However, this blooper is rarely seen in recent films but commonly used in fake bloopers for animations.
The reaction to bloopers is often intensified in the stressful environment of a movie or television set, with some actors expressing extreme annoyance while others enjoy the stress relief brought on by the unexpected event.
Examples
One of the earliest known bloopers is attributed to 1930s radio broadcaster Harry Von ZellHarry von Zell
Harry von Zell , born in Indianapolis, made his mark as an announcer of radio programs and an actor in films and television shows....
, who accidentally referred to then-US President Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
as "Hoobert Heever" during an introduction. Reportedly it was upon hearing of this mistake that Kermit Schafer was inspired to begin collecting bloopers, although the exact circumstances of the event have been debated. http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/radio/vonzell.asp. A similar situation occurred decades later when then-new president Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
was introduced as "Gerald Smith
Gerald Smith
Gerald Smith may refer to:*Gerald L. K. Smith , American activist and politician*Gerald W. Smith , American writer*Gerald Smith , Canadian politician-See also:*Gerald Smyth, British Army officer...
", the same name as an American Fascist leader from the 1930s.
One famous out-take from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n television is from the gameshow Who Dares Wins
Who Dares Wins (game show)
Who Dares Wins is an Australian adventure game show that aired on the Seven Network between 1996 and 1998, with re-runs airing in 2005 and 2007...
, hosted by former cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er Mike Whitney
Mike Whitney
Michael Roy Whitney is an Australian television personality and former cricketer, who played in 12 Tests and 38 ODIs from 1981 to 1993....
. The scene involved Whitney introducing a challenge by throwing a water balloon
Water balloon
A water balloon or water bomb is a latex rubber balloon filled with water. They are commonly used in water balloon fights and as a practical joke device.-History:...
from hand to hand and delivering the line, "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, and we'd play with water balloons? You'd throw them all over the place and they'd burst and water would go everywhere". The out-takes of this scene, aired after the credits of the show, feature Whitney delivering the line in the following ways:
- "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, when we were young, when we were kids, when we were young ..."
- "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, and we'd play with water balloons? You'd throw them all over the place and they'd burst and water would go all over the place. [Pause] That's two all over the places."
- "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, and we'd play with water balloons? You'd throw them all over the place and they'd burst and water would go everywhere everywhere." [Laughter]
On an episode of The Red Skelton Show
The Red Skelton Show
The Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for two decades, from 1951 to 1971. It was second to Gunsmoke and third to The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings during that time. Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had appeared in several motion pictures as...
in the 1950s, a skit involving Red's "country bumpkin" character "Clem Kadiddlehopper", had him leading a cow onto the stage. Several seconds into the skit, the cow defecated on-stage during the live broadcast. Whereupon the audience laughed uncontrollably, and Skelton resorted to the use of the ad-lib, saying "Boy, she's a great cow! Not only does she give milk, {pause} she gives Pet-Ritz Pies!" He followed up with, "Why didn't you think of that earlier?", "You have bad breath too!" and finally, "Well, it's like in psychiatry... {long pause} Get it out of your system!" Red then finally broke into laughter, and the network cut to a commercial.
A much-bootlegged recording of Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
has him singing to a recording of a band playing "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (song)
"Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" is a popular song written by Harry Barris with lyrics by Ted Koehler and Billy Moll, published in 1931.The original 1931 popular hit recording was made by Bing Crosby with the Gus Arnheim Orchestra, but the song has become a standard, recorded by many other artists...
", when he realizes that the master tape had not been fully rewound, and ad-libbed vocals to the truncated music. He begins, "Castles may tumble, that's fate after all/ Life's really funny that way." Realizing the shortened music, he ad-libs, "Sang the wrong melody, we'll play it back/ See what it sounds like, Hey Hey!/ They cut out eight bars, the dirty bastards/ I didn't know which eight bars he was gonna cut/ Why don't somebody tell me these things around here?/ Holy Christ, I'm goin' off my nut!" This recording was first made available to the public by Kermit Schaefer in Volume 1 of his Pardon My Blooper album series for Jubilee Records
Jubilee Records
Jubilee Records was a record label specializing in rhythm and blues along with novelty records. It was founded in New York City in 1946 by Herb Abramson. Jerry Blaine became Abramson's partner. Blaine bought out Abramson's half of the company in 1947. The company name was Jay-Gee Recording...
in the late 1950s.
On the Wild Bill Hickok radio series in the early 1950s, a newsflash caused an unexpected blooper when it broke into the show. With sound effects providing the sound of horses' hoofs galloping and gun
Gun
A gun is a muzzle or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are various definitions depending on the nation and branch of service. A "gun" may be distinguished from other firearms in being a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer or mortar, as opposed to a small arm like a rifle or pistol,...
s firing, Guy Madison
Guy Madison
Guy Madison was an American film and television actor.-Early life:Born Robert Ozell Moseley in Pumpkin Center, California, Madison attended Bakersfield College, a junior college, for two years and then worked briefly as a telephone lineman before joining the United States Coast Guard in...
spoke the line "Cut him off at the pass, Jingles!" Whereupon an announcer interrupted with, "We interrupt this program to bring you a bulletin from the Mutual newsroom in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
! According to an announcement from Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
radio, Lavrenti Beria, former head of the Soviet secret police, has just been executed! We now return you to Wild Bill Hickok." At this point, Andy Devine
Andy Devine
Andrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...
(as Jingles) was delivering the line "Well, that oughta hold him for a little while, Bill!"
In a similar vein, New York children's radio show host "Uncle Don" Carney supposedly delivered the ad-libbed line "Are we off? Good...well, that oughta hold the little bastards" after signing off on his show one night, thinking his studio microphone was switched off. As a discredited urban legend has it, the remarks went to air, eventually leading to the show's cancellation and "Uncle Don"'s disgrace; apparently, Carney himself would tell the story of his blooper, especially it became popular after the release of Schaefer's records. However, according to the debunking website Snopes.com, not only did the alleged incident never happen, the much distributed recording of the incident was a fabrication. (The alleged incident was even parodied in the 1993 Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled
Krusty Gets Kancelled
"Krusty Gets Kancelled" is the twenty-second and final episode of The Simpsons fourth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 13, 1993. In the episode, a new show featuring a puppet named Gabbo premieres in Springfield and competes with Krusty the Clown's show...
".)
An episode of the radio drama Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons was one of radio's longest running shows, airing , continuing well into the television era. It was produced by Frank and Anne Hummert...
was presumably introduced as "Mr. Keen, Loser of Traced Persons." (Bob and Ray
Bob and Ray
Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were an American comedy team whose career spanned five decades. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as...
once did their own parody of this program under the title "Mr. Trace, Keener Than Most Persons".)
A popular story among Texas broadcasting circles has it that a station manager's late change in programming from Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
's orchestra to a religious programme marking the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
led to the staff announcer's billboard urging his listeners to "Stay tuned for the dance music of Yom Kippur's Orchestra." (Many gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
DJ's have urged their Jewish listeners to "Have a happy Yom Kippur!")
A radio commercial for A&P
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, is a supermarket and liquor store chain in the United States. Its supermarkets, which are under six different banners, are found in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. A&P's liquor stores, known as...
food stores ended with the announcer excitedly blurting out "...and be sure to visit your nearby A & Food P Store!" In much the same vein was an ad for instant tea as came out in the end "Instant White Rose, hot or cold — Orange Tekoe Pee" and a bakery advertising itself as having "the breast bed and rolls you ever tasted; I knew that would happen one night, friends," all the while breaking out in fits of uncontrollable laughter trying to get the line right.
During the Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...
mania of the mid-1950s, a radio ad for children's bedding cashing in on same had the line ". . . with scenes of Davy Crockett in action on the mattress," a clear example of how unintentional double-entendre can translate into blooper material.
A public-service announcement urging young women to volunteer as nurses during a critical shortage thereof ended with the appeal "Volunteer to be one of America's white-clapped angels of mercy," confusing a slang term for infection with syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
with "white-clad."
The announcer of a radio ad for the 1948 Bob Hope film The Paleface
The Paleface
The Paleface is a 1948 comedy Western directed by Norman Z. McLeod, starring Bob Hope as "Painless Potter" and Jane Russell as Calamity Jane. In the film, Hope sings the song Buttons and Bows, which became his greatest hit by far when it came to record sales. The song also won the Academy Award...
, which costarred buxom actress Jane Russell, enthusiastically promised: "Bob Hope, America's favorite comedian, and Jane Russell...what a pair!"
A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
radio announcer's station-identification message once allegedly came out "This is the Dominion Network of the Canadian Broadcorping Castration," in turn coining an oft-used sarcastic term for the public broadcaster. Like other blooper recordings distributed by Schaefer, a recreation was created as the original recording was not preserved, leading to debate over whether the event actually happened.
A radio adaptation of Don Quixote over the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
had one episode ending with the announcer explaining where "I'm afraid we've run out of time, so here we leave Don Quixote, sitting on his ass — a word that could refer either to the buttocks or to the animal, jackass
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
until tomorrow at the same time."
Contemporary examples
The AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from September 10, 1990 to May 20, 1996. The show stars Will Smith as a fictionalized version of himself, a street-smart teenager from West Philadelphia who is sent to move in with his aunt and uncle in their...
had a tradition of airing outtakes over the closing credits, though blooper reels were not shown during the closing credits of the show during the first, fifth (except for one episode) and sixth seasons. Many of these involved malapropism
Malapropism
A malapropism is an act of misusing or the habitual misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results. An example is Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes".-Etymology:...
s on the part of the cast, often lampooned by Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
. Additionally, Smith would reference black culture in setting up mistakes made by the rest of the cast. An example of this is when Uncle Phil (James L. Avery, Sr.
James L. Avery, Sr.
James L. Avery, Sr. is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of the patriarch and attorney Philip Banks in the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, whom Will Smith's character affectionately called "Uncle Phil." This character was ranked #34 in TV Guides "50 Greatest TV Dads of All...
) comments, "Well, the silverware's obviously not in the house. It must been stolen", before realizing the line was "It must have been stolen" and correcting himself. Smith appears in the shot and, in an exaggerated accent
Accent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...
, responds, "It must been stolen. Feet, don't fail me now!"
Another sitcom, Home Improvement, also showcased outtakes over its closing credits; however, some episodes featured a tag scene over the credits in lieu of a blooper reel.
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
produced many famous out-takes, which were shown to the delight of fans at gatherings over the years and have been extensively bootlegged. One famous example shows actor Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
, who plays the supposedly emotionless Mr. Spock, breaking into laughter when, in the first season episode "This Side of Paradise", instead of saying the line "The plants act as a repository", says "The plants act as a suppository
Suppository
A suppository is a drug delivery system that is inserted into the rectum , vagina or urethra , where it dissolves.They are used to deliver both systemically-acting and locally-acting medications....
". In another out-take, series star William Shatner
William Shatner
William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...
breaks character during a scene and starts complaining about the food served in the studio commissary. A third example begins with the third season episode "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", in which guest actress Diana Muldaur
Diana Muldaur
Diana Muldaur is an Emmy-nominated American film and television actress.-Career:Born in New York City, but raised on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Muldaur started acting in high school and continued on through college, graduating from Sweet Briar College in Virginia in 1960. She studied acting...
recited the line, "We've come to the end of an eventful... trip", to which Shatner replies, "I don't know what you've been taking..." — a reference to the then-topical issue of drug-induced hallucinations
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
or "trips". People bumping into supposedly automatic doors when the backstage personnel mistimed opening them was a common accident depicted. Similarly there were also mishaps while filming in exterior, with aircraft flying over supposedly alien planets.
Hee Haw
Hee Haw
Hee Haw is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with fictional rural Kornfield Kounty as a backdrop. It aired on CBS-TV from 1969–1971 before a 20-year run in local syndication. The show was inspired by Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the major difference being...
often showed bloopers in the show itself, usually with the actor or actors requiring several tries to get a line right, ending in most cases with the correctly delivered line.
Many theatrical motion pictures feature bloopers during the end credits. For example, many Jackie Chan movies end with footage of failed stunts, blown dialogue, and other mishaps; Chan was inspired to do this by Burt Reynolds' films of the early 1980s (in particular Smokey and the Bandit II
Smokey and the Bandit II
Smokey and the Bandit II is a comedy film released on August 15, 1980 in the United States. It is the sequel to the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit. The film stars Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Jackie Gleason, and Dom DeLuise...
and The Cannonball Run) that also featured end-credits bloopers. As an homage to its inspiration, the closing-credits blooper reel for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, or simply Anchorman, is a 2004 American comedy film, directed by Adam McKay and starring Will Ferrell. The film, which was also written by Ferrell and McKay, is a tongue-in-cheek take on the culture of the 1970s, particularly the then-new Action News format...
actually featured one outtake from Smokey and the Bandit II.
Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
also has a tradition of including blooper-like material during the end credits of such films as Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer animated film directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the third film to be produced by Pixar...
and A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
; the latter was at one point reissued to theatres with a major selling feature being the addition of extra "bloopers". Since Pixar's films are painstakingly computer-animated, making actual blunders of this sort impossible, these scenes are in fact staged to provide additional audience enjoyment. The makers of another computer-animated film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most...
, likewise also created a faux blooper reel showing the characters playing practical jokes and, in one case, bursting into laughter when one "sneezes" during a dramatic sequence. However, the movie Shrek
Shrek
Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!...
has actual bloopers that were released on DVD. These bloopers are technical errors within the system, causing blurred characters or the characters bodies going through objects, such as a bush or the crown Lord Farquard wears. Going back decades earlier, in 1939 Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...
cartoon director Bob Clampett
Bob Clampett
Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett was an American animator, producer, director, and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros., and the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil...
produced a short "blooper" film (for the studio's annual in-house gag reel) of Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
character Porky Pig
Porky Pig
Porky Pig is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts using the fat little pig...
smashing his thumb with a hammer and cursing.
The television show, Full House
Full House
Full House is an American sitcom television series. Set in San Francisco, the show chronicles widowed father Danny Tanner, who, after the death of his wife, enlists his best friend Joey Gladstone and his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis to help raise his three daughters, D.J., Stephanie, and...
, had various bloopers in television specials but unreleased bloopers were leaked containing cast members using profanity to express their mistakes in a family-friendly program.
The fishing television series
Fishing television series
Fishing television series are a genre of television programs revolving around recreational and sport fishing. Shows usually share a similar format and features with hunting television shows, and could be considered a sub-genre of sports television...
Bill Dance Outdoors
Bill Dance Outdoors
Bill Dance Outdoors is a fishing television series hosted by retired professional tournament angler Bill Dance. Each episode focuses on various aspects of recreational fishing techniques, usually targeting black bass species such as Largemouth and Smallmouth bass, though does occasionally focus on...
has produced four videos (two VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and two DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
) focusing entirely on bloopers occurring during production of the show and associated commercials, often showing various mishaps such as missed lines (which sometimes take several takes to finally deliver correctly), accidents during filming (including falling into the water, being impaled with a fish hook
Fish hook
A fish hook is a device for catching fish either by impaling them in the mouth or, more rarely, by snagging the body of the fish. Fish hooks have been employed for centuries by fishermen to catch fresh and saltwater fish. In 2005, the fish hook was chosen by Forbes as one of the top twenty tools...
, or equipment malfunctions), as well as practical jokes played on the host by his guests and film crew (and vice versa). Some of the outtakes shown on these videos would sometimes be shown over the end credits.
The Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
series MythBusters
MythBusters
MythBusters is a science entertainment TV program created and produced by Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The series is screened by numerous international broadcasters, including Discovery Channel Australia, Discovery Channel Latin America, Discovery Channel Canada, Quest...
will often keep some bloopers included in the actual episodes, usually various mishaps that occur on the show, such as minor injuries suffered by the cast, or various other accidents and malfunctions, which are usually quite spectacular and/or embarrassing when they do occur.
In Mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, variety shows would sometimes air bloopers titled NG's, which stands for no good/not good. These NG's would usually feature hosts forgetting their words by mistake and admit they make mistakes on occasion.
One blooper for Back to the Future
Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...
, which was intended as a practical joke, featured Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...
taking a drink from a prop bottle, which (unknown to him) had real alcohol in it, causing him to spit it all over the car and co-star Lea Thompson
Lea Thompson
Lea Katherine Thompson is an American actress and director. She is best known for her 1990s NBC situation comedy Caroline in the City and her portrayal of Lorraine Baines McFly, Marty McFly's mother, in the Back to the Future trilogy...
.
Bloopers can even exist in professional pornographic videos. Examples include corpsing
Corpsing
Corpsing is a British theatrical slang term used to describe when an actor unintentionally breaks character during a scene by laughing or by causing another cast member to laugh...
, forgotten lines, props malfunctioning, people getting in the way and sexual acts not being executed properly.
Acceptance of out-takes
The proliferation of out-takes/gag reels/blooper reels, especially on recent DVD releases, has received mixed response by actors and directors. While many do not mind the extra publicity offered by such material being shown to the public and others simply enjoy seeing the mistakes, other actors complain that out-takes are demeaning to themselves and/or the craft and refuse to allow them to be made public.Director Hal Ashby
Hal Ashby
Hal Ashby was an American film director and film editor.-Birth and early years:Born William Hal Ashby in Ogden, Utah, Ashby grew up in a Mormon household and had a tumultuous childhood as part of a dysfunctional family which included the divorce of his parents, his father's suicide and his...
's decision to include a blooper reel of star Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
in his 1979 film Being There
Being There
Being There is a 1979 American comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby. Adapted from the 1971 novella written by Jerzy Kosinski, the screenplay was coauthored by Kosinski and Robert C. Jones. The film stars Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard A...
, for example, is sometimes blamed for Sellers' failure to win that year's Academy Award for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(for which he was nominated). Sellers had reportedly urged Ashby not to include the outtakes in the final edit of the film, to no avail.
Among his other issues with Star Treks producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
Gene Roddenberry
Gene Roddenberry
Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist, best known for creating the American science fiction series Star Trek. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, California where his father worked as a police officer...
, Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
was not happy that Roddenberry showed the show's blooper reels to fans at conventions in the early 1970s. He felt actors needed to be free to make mistakes without expecting that they would be shown to the public, and wrote a letter to Roddenberry asking him to stop. Roddenberry's answer was to send Nimoy a blooper reel of his own should he have wished to show it at conventions.
Alternative definition
The term "blooper" is often applied to describe continuity errors and other mistakes that have escaped the notice of film editors and directors and have made it into a final, televised or released product, where these errors are subsequently identified by viewers. For example, in a film taking place in the Old West, a viewer might spot a twentieth century vehicle driving in the distance of one shot, or in a film taking place in ancient Greece, an actor may have forgotten to remove his wristwatch and it was caught on film. Or it might be a piece of clothing, such as shoes, that change for one shot then change back with no explanation. Strictly speaking, however, these are film errors, and not "bloopers" since they did not occur in outtake footage or a live broadcast. The Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
website uses the term goof
Goof
In filmmaking, a goof is a mistake made during film production that finds its way into the final released picture. Depending upon the film and the actual scene, the goof may have different effects: a loss in realism, an annoyance, or it could just be funny. It is often a type of continuity error...
s instead.
The Vietnam era grenade launcher, the M79 also has the nickname "Blooper" due to its distinctive firing noise.