In an earlier article, I wrote about the cleaned-for-TV version of Samuel Jackson’s famous in the movie Snakes on a Plane. Here’s an even better-known line – Bruce Willis’ battle cry from the Die Hard movie series – as edited for prime-time television audiences:
You have to keep in mind that there is no character or concept in the movie named “Mr. Falcon”; the words seems to have been picked randomly. He might as well have said “major factor”, “motor fixer” or even “mojito freezepop”.
(And whoever did the voice rework did a terrible Bruce Willis impression. He sounds more like a young John Travolta saying “Yippee ki yay, Mr. Kotter.”)
For reference, here’s the non-Bowdlerized version:
Inventive as the attempt to come up with a prime-time TV-friendly substitute for “motherfucker” in Die Hard 2 is, it doesn’t hit the creative new heights achieved in this clean-up of The Usual Suspects’ “lineup scene”:
I think it might’ve worked better had they simply bleeped those words out.
Once again, in the name of completeness, here’s the unedited version:
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Then there’s always this classic from The Big Lebowski: “This is what happens when you find a stranger in the alps.”
And the original
And just for grins, the GTA IV machinima version
My favourite was the old lady in The Running Man, who referred to Arnold as “one mean MOUND OF FLESH”. Excellent censor-dub.
But just FYI, the drug czar refers to himself as “Falcon” as his code name over the walkie talkies several times. Williiam Sadler, the head baddie, is “Eagle Nest”, and the group of Marines doing the double-cross is “Hatchling”. So I don’t think it was randomly selected….
This reminds me of the commercials that the Showcase channel used to do that advertised the fact that they showed uncut movies after 10pm. They did a spoof of this scene in the Usual Suspects, with a really obvious overdub of each character saying, “Show me the keys you fuzzy sock sucker!” The guy doing the dub was doing hilarious impressions of the actors, but his Kevin Pollack and Gabriel Byrne impressions were the best.
I’ve always laughed remembering the A&E version of Repo Man.
Melon farmer and buzzard were the substitutes.
And of course, the classic DVD extra – The Scarface Special edition side-by-side splitscreen of the original scene and the network tv version.
“…This town is like a big lady just waiting to get kissed…”
I feel obligated to post the the classic Mr. Show sketch “Pallies” which has the awesome visual overdub of a thumbs up over a middle finger… plus the “Mother-father chinese dentist!!!!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n-rGnI9XNo
Find a stranger in the alps! That’s great!
I enjoyed a TV version of a Bruce Willis movie where MF turned into Mellon Farmer. Very clever.
And just the other day I wrote about MF snakes. http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2009/05/08/swings-on-a-train/