Goofs

During the record company convention scene, the band members have herpes sores on their lips. The sores weren't there before. In a deleted scene, the band tours with an opening act, each band member has sex with the opening act's lead singer, and the entire band gets herpes.

During Big Bottom, just as David sings "The looser the waistband", his girlfriend Jeanine appears on the left edge of the stage. She joined the band much later in the film, so she shouldn't be there (Widescreen only).

During "Stonehenge", Nigel's microphone, a Shure SM-57, alternately gains and loses a windscreen.

When Ian is smashing a coffee table with the cricket bat, the drummer and groupie in the shot, and the rest of the set and their costumes, are all exactly as seen 1:40 later when listening to a bit of their past, their album by the Tinsmen. Smalls is also wearing the same shirt and is in the same hotel room as seen a minute and a half earlier when Ian smashes the TV set.

During the rehearsal when the album "Smell the Glove" first arrives, the horns of the skull stage prop in the background are alternately missing and attached.

During the airport scene when Derek Smalls is told to empty his pockets and go back through the metal detector, it doesn't go off as he's walking back through to re-enter. A metal detector will go off no matter which direction one enters.

The band visits Elvis Presley's grave, in the woods. In real life, Elvis Presley's grave is in a paved garden, facing a wall, with a fountain right behind it.

Ian Faith says "Triptychs" when he means "Triliths".

Marty Di Bergi wears two different US Navy caps, one in the film and one in 'Catching up with Marty Di Bergi' in the Special Features on the DVD release. In the film, the cap appears to say "USS Coral Sea OV-48". It should say "USS Coral Sea CV-43". The USS Coral Sea was an aircraft carrier in the US Navy from 1946-90, the second ship to bear that name. In the special features, the cap is from the USS Wadsworth FG-9, a guided missile frigate in the US Navy from 1978-2002. The Wadsworth was transferred to Poland in 2002 and renamed the General Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

While David and Nigel normally play guitar, they both play bass during Big Bottom, because that's what the song requires. It's a musical joke.

Before the Jazz Odyssey, David and Viv discuss the set list. David, running down the list says "Heavy, Hole." He's referring to two other Spinal Tap songs, "Heavy Duty" and "Hell Hole", in a sort of shorthand.

At the time, it was common for British rock stars to be "fake Americans". That would explain Nigel's pronunciation of "semi" and Derek's "zipper". Jeanine says "airplane" and not "aeroplane", and pronounces exit 'egg-sit' instead of the British 'ex-it'.

In a likely intentional mistake, the Spinal Tap logo has an umlaut (two dots) over the "n" in Spinal. Umlauts are only used over vowels. The film's creators probably did this because the band members thought the Germanic/Scandinavian aspect would be cool... and metal.

On Elvis Presley's tombstone, his middle name is spelled Aaron, just as it was on his birth certificate. Although he used the spelling "Aron" for most of his life, he adopted the more conventional version shortly before his death.

During "Rock and Roll Creation", when Derek is trapped inside the pod, a roadie hammers on it at one point, but clearly doesn't make contact.

Throughout the film, whenever the band is interviewed in front of the castle, two by fours are visible through the windows, revealing that it's just a façade.

Just after Duke Fame walks away from the band, the shadow of the boom mic appears 3 or 4 times.

When the band goes to the recording industry convention, the subtitles say they're in Atlanta. However, the building in the background is the famous Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, and an old RTD (now MTA) bus drives by.

The band's tour goes from the Eastern USA to the Western USA. The scene of the band discussing the "zodiac" dress style at an airport is supposed to be set with the band somewhere in midwestern USA (since it is supposedly two hours to Colorado from there and they are touring from west to east), but it is clear they are at the Los Angeles airport (identifiably by the "Theme Building" visible outside the terminal windows).

The limo driver talks about Sammy Davis Jr. coming out of the Copacabana about three in the morning and seeing Frank Sinatra walking down Broadway. The Copa was on 60th Street east of 5th Avenue -- more than half-a-mile from Broadway.