I was re-watching Batteries Not Included, a delightful film from 1987. It’s adorable and wonderful. That said, in the opening credits I noticed something both hilarious and inappropriate. Can you see it?
It’s at 3:48 in the following video.
Am I misinterpreting it or does it really say what I think it does? And on the screen with Spielberg listed as Executive Producer!
Batteries Not Included 1988 Laserdisc Release Opening (MCA Home Video) - YouTube
Dave
Took me a moment to figure out you were referring to the graffiti on the left side of the screen. Yes, that says what you think it does.
Is the quality any better on the OP’s version? All I could make out was “For A” and then just blurry stuff.
I couldn’t make it out in the smaller version that YouTube defaults to, but when I switched to Full Screen, it was pretty obvious.
It appears to be on the side of that outcropping/covered up bay window. If whomever was scouting the location walked down the street the other way they may not have even noticed it was there. I could see it being an Easter egg, or I could see it being entirely overlooked. I could see someone on set noticing it but saying, “Eh, they put that there so I’m not going to say anything about it. Not a big deal & not my yob”
The “w” in “blow” seems to be obscured. I wonder if someone modified it in post-production?
For me everything after the B is hard to make out, so it looks like “For a good b[blurry, obscured letters] job…” We can all fill in the blank, but I too wonder if it was intentionally censored in post production.
Is that a B? It looks more like an S to me, and I was having a tough time thinking of any word that would fit.
Watching it again, to me it looks like a B at first, then it kind of goes out of focus for a second kind of morphs into something that kind of looks like an S. But I’m pretty sure it’s a B. It’s just an out of focus B depending on exactly where you pause the video.
The second letter looked like a lower case ‘t’ at first, but on closer inspection is probably an ‘L’ with a line through it. The rest of the word just looks like a black blob to me, which like I said before made me wonder if it was purposely censored.
What’s a “Stan job”
I just see a blur. Are my eyes that bad?
No idea. How many times have you done it?
Yeah, it’s pretty clear to me.
How is this an easter egg? An easter egg is usually a hidden reference or inside joke. Unless someone from the production put it there as a joke?
I don’t even see any letters. I must be looking at the wrong thing.
Yeah, all I can find is a coincidence. This had a limited release a week later (spoilered for NSFW language):
20 bucks, same as in town
Could someone who sees it clearly spell it out for those of us who cannot?
mmm
On the white wall section there appears to be graffiti that says “for a good blow job…” and then some other illegible stuff.
I’m not sure I would call it an “easter egg” per se. The street in the shot is coded as seedy and dilapidated, and dirty graffiti would not at all be out of place. But on the other hand, it does seem a bit daring for a PG heartwarmer, and I’ve never observed this particular graffito written on the wall of a building. You generally see this sort of scrawl in men’s restrooms and highway rest stops, for obvious reasons of privacy and practicality.
Yeah, I take back what I said about an Easter Egg. I just feel like someone should have caught it. It’s a relatively long establishing shot.
If it is real, someone was either really impressed with the service they received, or very entrepreneurial themselves.