"In a rare instance of being less slow-witted than his bandmate, Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) steps in to supply the missing adjective: "clever." Forty-one years later, the fictional hard-rock supergroup is back to toeing that line in Spinal Tap II, with Reiner once more at the helm and Harry Shearer joining McKean and Guest by returning as bassist Derek Smalls, the self-described "lukewarm water" between the sparring guitarists' "fire and ice.""
"I didn't realize at the time that Spinal Tap the band had preceded Spinal Tap the movie by several years: McKean and Guest, friends and collaborators since they met in college in the 1960s, created the band for a one-song sketch on a TV comedy special in 1979. Reiner, who appeared on the same show in the guise of celebrity DJ Wolfman Jack, thought highly enough of the ersatz British metal gods that he made them the subject of his directorial debut five years later."
Spinal Tap II reunites original actors Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer with director Rob Reiner, continuing the fictional band's story and adding new songs. The film positions Derek Smalls as the calming presence between two volatile guitarists and preserves the band's absurdist, hard-rock persona. The original Spinal Tap act began in 1979 as a one-song sketch created by McKean and Guest during their long-running collaboration. Reiner adapted the characters into a mockumentary feature in 1984, turning the band into a cultural touchstone routinely cited among top comedies and films. The mockumentary form had earlier precedents that similarly satirized famous bands.
Read at Slate Magazine
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