Best Closing Credits

I rented Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star this weekend (nothing else in new release and I’ve picked through the rest of the store) and what could have been a funny, even touching, premise was of course completely derailed by David Spade’s talentless little smarmy ass. (Who keeps giving this guy jobs? Is there anybody who actually thinks he’s funny?)

HOWEVER, it had the greatest closing credits I’ve ever seen in a comedy: the USA for Africa style song “Child Stars” that assembles basically every kid on every show you grew up with. Hearing Maureen McCormick use the “F” word and seeing all three guys from “What’s Happenin’” and Jay “Dennis the Menace” North were all just surreal (as was realizing that “E! True Hollywood Story” notwithstanding, Leif Garrett really can sing). Fantastic moment (especially the extended version on DVD).

So what are your favorite closing credits? To Dickie Roberts I’d ad the hilarious “bloopers” from “A BUG’S LIFE”.

Let me answer your own mini-hijack by saying this: You will never understand David “One Trick Pony” Spade’s celebrity–nevuh, nevuh, nevuh. To understand David Spade’s enduring box office draw is to understand Tom Green, Pauly Shore and, yes, Adam Sandler–Sandler being among the biggest cash cows of 2003, mind you. Carl Bernstein said it best: Idiot Culture.

How about Airplane? There were some great moments in the closing credits. The guy in the taxi cab at the very end of the movie. Plus, it may have been one of the first movies to add soime stuff to the closing credits. I remember staying to the very end trying to catch all the “hidden” things in the closing credits. Too bad for credit crunches on TV showings.

I’d like to submit the closing credits on School Of Rock, the recent Jack black film (number one son and I watched on sunday arvo).

The movie essentially plays right to the very end of the credits and then some after the fade to black following the copyright notice at the end, there is no endof movie, start of credits, simply credits roll over the last scene.

It worked very nicely simply for keeping me glued to the very end of the credits, and despite not being an integral part of the story (but nonetheless spoilerish, so I’ll not post actual details) the sequence was still part of the story and very much in keeping with the spirit of the film.

Oh, the movie was pretty sweet too (and I don’t mean that in a pot-head, ‘Dude, Where’s my car’ use of sweet, I actually mean, -sweet-. The movie was nice).

I liked the “Blazing Saddles” credits. After listing the Best Boy, they credited Adolf Hitler as “Worst Boy”. I think there were some other funny bits in there.

And I think it was one of the “Gremlins” movies that, for some reason, had Daffy Duck popping on and off the screen and making smart-aleck remarks. For instance, at one point he just stood there and watched the credits rolling, and then said, “There certainly are a lot of them, aren’t there?” Toward the end of the credits, he looked out into the theater, scanned the seats and said, “Still lurking about, eh? Don’t you people have homes?” (Kinda non-PC today, but I love it!)

School of Rock was really fun, especially when one of the girls sang some lyrics about " the movies over…are the credits done…"

I always enjoyed the Smokey & the Bandit or any Burt Reynolds flick, for that matter, credits. I love the bloopers.

Although they’re not closing credits, I have to nominate the credits from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, of course. Silly Swedish subtitles, plus credits for moose hairdressers and the like, plus also Spanish llama credits! What more could you wish for?

I like when comedies put in bloopers. I’m thinking specifically of Nutty Professor. I still smile when I think about how many times they had to redo the scene where a depressed Professor Clump is drinking from a bottle full of M&Ms and Eddie Murphy can’t stop giggling.

On a similar note, Matthew Broderick at the end of Ferris Bueller: “You’re still here? It’s over. Go home.”

Everything has been comedies so far, but I have to add any Jackie Chan movie. The out takes of his earlier American movies are unbelievabe (think Rumble in the Bronx).

Another vote for School of Rock (which, incidentally, should have won that Best Song Oscar… ah, well). It was great that they showed just how talented these young musicians are.

I’ve always been fond of Jackie Chan’s end credits bloopers, until the last few movies, in which most of them were clearly staged. I mean, it’s bad enough that they faked the blooper, but did they have to rub it in our faces by blatantly cutting back and forth between two obviously separately filmed versions of the same “blooper”?!

The closing credits that stick out most with me are from Repo Man, simply because they uncharcteristically scrolled down rather than up.

Although the credits themselves weren’t all that great shakes, at the time I first saw this it was the greatest moment of my life.

My parents owned a one-screen movie theater when I was growing up. When Star Wars came out I was 6 years old. I watched the movie in our theater every single chance I could until the reel was returned. My older brother recorded the movie one night when we were closed, converted it to Beta, and I watched it as much as I possibly could on our Betamax, pretty much for years and years. Suffice it to say I had the entire movie memorized - I could speak Greedo, Jawa, PowerDriod, R2D2, R5D4, every musical cue, you name it. Nothing in my life mattered more than Star Wars.

One day I decided to read all the credits, and to my complete and total elation, I saw that an actor - a rather major character in the movie - had the same exact real-life name as me. I thought I was going to piss myself.

It would be foolish, of course, to tell you which actor it was, but he certainly isn’t / wasn’t a household name.

Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai.
The character sketches were a nice touch in ROTK.
The actor’s signatures were a nice touch in STVI (Undiscovered County)
The fake bloopers in Pixar films.
The highlighting of A,G,C and T in the GATTACA credits were a nice touch.

Brian

The Naked Gun 33 and 1/3 had humorous credits, most of which I’ve long since forgotten. But I do remember this bit:

Grip: John Doe
What the hell is a grip: It’s the person responsible for equipment maintenance.

Your name wouldn’t happen to be Lightning Bear, would it? :wink:

Didn’t Animal do the same in one of the Muppet movies?

I really liked the ROTK credits. Classy, dignified, and touching… perfect ending to the perfect end of the trilogy.

I think the credits in Bukaroo Banzai were the best part of the film and the only part that I can watch on a continuous basis.

I don’t know why Daffy Duck would be in a Gremlins film. Sounds more like "Who Framed

There was one that I saw recently that basically had a picture of everyone who worked on the film as part of the credits. Shallow Hal?

The underpromoted Flawless has some pretty good stuff going on as the credits roll.

In the film, DeNiro plays a homophobic ex-cop who, after a serious stroke, winds up taking therapeutic singing lessons from a pre-op transexual (Philip Seymour Hoffman) that lives in his building.

The credits roll over some improvisational stuff with them banging out The Name Game – with some inspired seed words.

You can tell they had a great time with it.

School of Rock credits were great, glad I didn’t miss them.

Also, the end credits for “Stuck On You” ( a film which far exceeded my admittedly low expectations) were surprisingly sweet and touching.

And definitely gotta have those Pixar bloopers. Those are half the fun of watching Pixar flicks. (The short movies are the half, and the film itself, is of course, the third half. :D)

Young Sherlock Holmes had a long shot of a carriage being pulled through the English countryside all throughout the credits. As the credits end, the carriage pulls up at an inn, and the main bad guy Rathe, supposedly drowned in the final battle, gets out and goes in.

He signs the register Moriarity.