All right, Internet Movie Database, you and me are gonna have a little talk about your “Trivia” entries. First off, most of them are amazingly lame. Is it really “trivia” that the set for the rig in “The Abyss” are standing in a tank somewhere or that 5 out of 6 actors from “The Practice” have appeared on “Law and Order”? Second, do you think you could make up your minds among yourselves before you post something? Look at you “Law and Order” trivia. You have like six entries going back and forth on whether Steven Hill is an “original cast member” or not. For the love of God, make up your mind! We don’t want this lame faux-trivia shit! We want the kind of obscure information we can’t find in any back issue of “Entertainment Weekly.”
And another thing…I sent you like a dozen goofs and you haven’t posted any of them. Hurry the hell up, you bastards.
I’m not sure I’m with you on that one Otto. I kind of look at the trivia section a bit like movies themselves. A whole lot of useless crap with one or two rare quality bits mixed in. The goofs section is the same way. Personally I don’t care (though there are those that might) if the shadow of the Key Grip’s thumb is visible against the backdrop of the foliage. But I do find the explanations for the non-goofs interesting, and the anachronisms and plot wholes are fun to read.
Of course, complaining about IMDB is a bit like complaining about Post-Its or Google. Certain things we survived with before, but would never give up.
Don’t remember which movie it was, but I saw in the Goofs section that they contradicted themselves: a goof, then an incorrectly-regarded-as-goof. Nice job, guys.
"Is it really “trivia” that the set for the rig in “The Abyss” are standing in a tank somewhere or that 5 out of 6 actors from “The Practice” have appeared on “Law and Order”? "
Well yeah, that’s why it’s called trivia. You know, trivial?
Don’t blame the IMDb for that. Remember, much of their info comes from us fans and I’d hate to see how many submissions they get a day. They’ll probably get everything straightened out eventually; they just need a push in the right direction.
Take a look at guest appearances for just about any currently running series (e.g.: Firefly, Enterprise, etc.) if you want to see a real IMDb mess.
Now this you can blame the IMDb for, they should have removed the first listing when they added the second.
I have tried to get them to correct a goof listed for I.Q., the one regarding the Marlon Brando imitation. I was trying to point out that the imitation was probably intended to be from The Wild One but so far all they’ve done is reword what they had originally.
I have managed to get them to clear up a few things regarding other movies, O Brother, Where Art Thou and The Shadow, for example. For the former, someone listed “You Are My Sunshine” as not being popular until the '40s and the latter was something regarding the availability of pizza in NYC. Then there’s the listing of Gilligan’s Island: The Movie which I pointed out does not exist, referencing a Brian Dennehy (who was listed as being cast as Skipper Jonas Grumby) radio interview. That listing has since been removed.
If it cheers you up, they’ve posted very few of my quotes, trivia and goofs. I pointed out a glaring error on a TV show, and I’m still waiting for it to show up.
And as far as the contradictions, they don’t erase stuff once it’s put up. You look up, for instance, Goodfellas, and you’ll get three repetitions of “How am I funny?”.
I like the fact that they do occasionally straighten things out if you e-mail them and explain the error. Like the one I got them to correct: they had a tv show listed in the filmography of a 15-year-old actor that showed him being the host of a 1974 game show. They didn’t seem to think he’d been reincarnated after all
Some people add theirselves or people they know to cast lists for fun. One of the friends of David Mikkelson, Snopes curator, added him as playing a curling referee in Help! He’s still there.
There was also that “Fantastic Four” movie whose cast included the Apple computer guy and Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka from Something Awful. I think they fixed that one, though.
