Say What?

VH-1 shows music-themed movies every so often, and today one of the offerings was what folks in Chicago sometimes call "Da Flick," or The Blues Brothers.

Released in 1980, the movie tells the story of orphans Jake and Elwood Blues, two black-suited musicians who try to reunite their band after Jake is released from a prison stint. Their goal is to stage a concert and raise enough money to pay the property tax assessment on the orphanage where they grew up, saving the homes and jobs of the "only family we got," Sr. Mary "The Penguin" Stigmata and Curtis the janitor.

VH-1 shows the censored version, which is hilarious because of the poor quality of the dubbing. John Belushi, Jake, was probably dubbed by his brother Jim since he had passed away in 1982. The brothers do not sound alike; Jim's voice is notably deeper on the frequent occasions where he is called upon to save VH-1 viewers from Jake Blues' free-range vocabulary. The scene in which the brothers run a group of Illinois Nazis off a bridge is truncated to leave out Henry Gibson's racially-inflammatory remarks and the first line of the group's pledge to German dictator Adolf Hitler. Cab Calloway's Curtis scoffs at the brothers' hope he could survive the sale of the orphanage by saying "Shoot! What's one more old person to the Board of Education," only of course he did not say "shoot" or "person."

The dubbing is also funny because VH-1 is the network that has already infected the world with The Surreal Life, Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, I Love New York, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Sex Rehab with Doctor Drew, Charm School, Scott Baio Is 45...and Single, Scott Baio is 46...and Pregnant and so on. I'm pretty sure that after all of that swill they've vomited into American homes, balking at the four-letter Anglo-Saxon word for fecal matter is a textbook example of straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel.