Rob Reiner’s directorial debut, the cult classic 1984 comedy This Is Spinal Tap, succeeded because the fake British band of the title — singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), and a rotating cast of doomed drummers — was a dead ringer for any number of popular hard rock acts. How perfect a spoof of hard rock’s clichés and personalities was it? Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler told Rolling Stone in 1990, “That movie was way too close, way too real.… Spinal Tap did Stonehenge, and our album cover [for 1982’s Rock in a Hard Place] looked exactly like that. I freaked. I took Spinal Tap real personal.”

The film was presented as a documentary in which Reiner’s character, Marty DiBergi, followed the band during their tour to promote a new album. Already veterans of the music industry, Spinal Tap’s best days were behind them. They failed to draw crowds, lost the support of their record company, and got caught stuffing their trousers with cucumbers. The improvised dialogue made the band’s vapid and pretentious answers to DiBergi’s questions fresh and convincing. And because the actors are also good musicians, they sounded like a real rock band as they parodied the conventions of different eras in rock history.