The one with Charles Nelson Reilly is called “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” and it’s got a similar idea but not quite the same. It doesn’t go over different versions of the same event, but it does show one sequence of events as told by different narrators, with each narrator’s spin on what happened. (It’s probably my favorite episode of any television series, ever).
Depending on how low-brow you want to go with this thread: “The Powerpuff Girls” had an episode like this, where each of the girls described what happened to the Mayor in her own style. Each retelling had different animation and a different art style, and it was all pretty clever.
While I agree with your basic point, I think it’s interesting to note that in Pulp Fiction there is one little bit of overlap between the stories. Pre-credits, we see Pumpkin and Honey Bunny gear themselves up for their robbery and Honey Bunny starts things off by screaming out:
But at the end of the movie, when that scene is focused on Jules and Vincent, we hear her in the background saying:
A simple continuity gaffe, or Tarantino’s little nod to Rashomon?
Like many of Akira Kurasawa’s samurai epics, Rashomon was remade as a Western, The Outrage, with a wonderfully weird cast – Edward G. Robinson, William Shatner, Clair Bloom, Howard daSilva (Ben Franklinh from 1776, and Paul Newman in the Toshiro Mifune role (as a Mexican!!!) I’ve never seen it, but my Grove Press copy of the script of Rashomon includes some of the script of The Outrage and a few pictures. (The Grove Press edition is worth getting your hands on if you like the film – not only does it have the whole script and several pictures, but it includes the two short stories that inspired the film, along with some reallu good essays on it by Donald Ritchie and others.)
The version I want to see made would be * Kaiju Big Rashomon*, starring Godzilla and King Kong:
King Kong: Roar!(trans: I won! You can see me swimming away at the end of the film!)
Godzilla: Gree-honkkkkkk! (trans, no, I won! At least in the Japanese version!)
Little Boy in short pants: No, that’s an urban myth! Kong won in both versions (His lvoice flagrantly does not match the motion of his lips, and he talks too fast)
Godzilla: (Greeeee-honkkkk! HHHHHHHHHHHHH! (He spews his fire-breath at the annoying little kid, vaporizing him.)
As if the Clue reference wasn’t enough to ruin my reputation forever (apparently wrong to boot! It’s been some time since I watched it…I thought it was the same storyline told by the different witnesses and just changed the murderer at the end) I just remembered an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Both Will and his uncle have to recount the happenings at a recent pool party in front of a judge and do so quite differently.
I’ll join the Hall of Shame by confessing that I remember an episode of Bosom Buddies like this. I think it was about Peter Scolari’s character going on a date with Tom Hanks’ sister, and they recounted different versions of what happened, or what they thought happened. In Hanks’ version, Scolari was dressed like a pimp, slithering around on the floor and leering at Hanks’ sister. It was pretty funny.
Yes, okay, I admit it! I liked Bosom Buddies! AND Clue! And I don’t care who knows!
The first instance of this I remember seeing is from the old Garfield cartoon. The episode starts with a disaster in the kitchen spreading goop all over the neighborhood. Jon tells the police his version of what happened while Garfield…er…mentally transmits his version to Odie.
Rugrats also had an episode like this. Tommy’s favorite clown lamp is broken, and the kids have a little mock trial to figure out who broke it. All the kids tell their stories of what they were doing right before the event, and Angelica uses leading questions to make them look guilty. Of course, in the end it turns out Angelica did it.
More cartoon fun. In an episode of Rocko’s Modern Life, Heffer and Rocko are on a talk show for friends really mad at each other or something. They both tell a story of how Heffer shows up at Rocko’s birthday party and ruins everything. There was also an episode where they all tell their own version of the history of the town.
The recently made Lion King 1.5 tells the story of the Lion King from an alternate viewpoint, though it doesn’t have both viewpoints in the same movie. Another along those lines is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, in which we see Hamlet from another viewpoint.