Bugsy Malone - Legacy

Legacy

In 2003, Bugsy Malone was voted #19 on a list of the 100 greatest musicals, as chosen by viewers of Channel 4 in the UK, placing it higher than The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, and The King and I. Bugsy Malone ranks 353rd on Empire Magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.

Bugsy Malone has been adapted into a stage show. A TV documentary called Bugsy Malone: After They Were Famous features a reunion and interviews with Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, John Cassisi and Florrie Dugger. The British actors who played Fat Sam's gang are also reunited at Pinewood Studios. It was aired in December 2004 on ITV in the UK.

In 2007 during the Super Bowl XLI, an animated Coca-Cola commercial was based around the song "You Give a Little Love" from Bugsy Malone. It was animated to resemble the action computer game Grand Theft Auto. But the character's typical actions of anger and crime were replaced with opposite redeeming actions. The version of the song in the commercial features vocals by Moses Patrou.

An episode of Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson's British sitcom Spaced pays a subtle and brief homage to Bugsy Malone. A cake fight occurs during Daisy's birthday dinner. The waiter signals angrily to the pianist to end the fight. The brief piano piece heard at the end of the film's final splurge gun fight and as an incidental throughout the film is played.

The 13th track on British rapper Dizzee Rascal's 2007 album, Maths + English, entitled 'Wanna Be' references the Bugsy Malone track 'So You Wanna be a Boxer'. The song "Ordinary Fool" has been performed on recordings by Karen Carpenter, Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Tormé.

The Swedish EBM band Spetsnaz performed a cover of "Down and Out", which was released as an extra track on the "Hardcore Hooligans" single. The Newcastle-based band Moira Stewart (named after the British newsreader) included a cover of "You Give a Little Love" (with a slight change of title to simply "Give a Little Love") on their début album "Sweetness, Yes!".

In the 2009 comedy In the Loop, Judy Molloy (Gina McKee) remarks, after seeing that most of the top positions in D.C. are staffed by young college graduates, "They're all kids in Washington. It's like Bugsy Malone, but with real guns."

In 2010, UK band Silvery included a cover of "You Give a Little Love" on their second album 'Railway Architecture', and Olly Murs, runner up in the 2009 UK series of The X Factor, sampled "So You Wanna Be a Boxer" in his song "Hold On" that can be found on his debut album.

Tampa Bay Lightning player Ryan Malone's locker room nickname is Bugsy, a homage to this film.

In 2011, the film was the most screened film in secondary schools in the United Kingdom.