Page 7 - Pop History: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

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Time is fleeting. This takes its toll. But listen closely. Not from very much longer. I've got to keep control. I'll stop. We should start the episode. Because I'll keep going.

You want me to keep doing? I'll see the whole fucking movie if you dare me to. Oh, hell yeah, dude. It's just a jump into pop history. How rebald of you! Welcome to pop history, guys. We are doing Rocky Horror Picture Show today, and I am excited about it.

I might be like titulated by it. Ooh, you're nice use of the word tit. Touch me. I want to be dirty. I'm not going to lie. Susan Sarandon really makes me riled up in this movie. She is like so my type. this movie. Of course.

Oh, like the goody two shoes that's like going to be, oops, naughty with the monster man. I'm way more of a magenta meatloaf type. Oh, man, I think I'd have sex with most people in that movie. Well, I mean, that is a obvious. Obviously for sure. I don't know if I'd have sex with the professor guy. I forget his name. The old man.

Dunder Scott. Dr. Scott. Yeah, of course. Dr. though he's he's got great legs yeah you can flannel him around i don't know i wasn't into his legs to be honest yeah i said it wow brave wow today we are doing rocky art picture show

and i'm just going to be out with it right now y'all i have a confession to make okay oh no i am even though i've seen the movie several times i am what one would call a virgin when it comes to rocky hard picture show and i and that's why i'm here to talk to the dungeon mistress for Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is Natalie, is that a thing? Well, considering I went a lot when I was underage, I don't think it's appropriate to call me the dungeon mistress. Probably shouldn't be a dungeon mistress.

But you can also call me a virgin as well. I have seen the movie countless times. I've seen the musical many times. I'm absolutely obsessed from the theater side of it. and I've never gone to one of the midnight showings before. I do think that this does call for us to go to one. Yes. And when you get to L.A. hold in.

Yes. As soon as anything ever is open, ever, forever. At the time of this recording, everything's not. It's really hard to socially distance at a Rocky Horror Picture show screening because there's a lot of dancing, a lot of people French in the bathrooms who just met each other. French and in the bathroom? Oh, yeah. Why haven't I been there?

But I'm still very, very excited to talk about this today. See, the thing is that I've always wanted to go to one of the midnight screenings. And I know so much about the midnight screenings because I had so many friends that were obsessed with it. And I think it was just all the years of the combination of working really early in a bakery versus having late night comedy shows that usually if I didn't have to be out, late at night. I wasn't. Totally. Yeah. The reason that I end up going so much as a kid

is it was your first foray into rebellion where you could go somewhere that started at midnight, but it was still at a movie theater. So it was like enough that the parents would just be like they would be resigned to it. It wasn't like we were

going to a house party. We were going to a movie theater. So at 13 or so when we started to like venture out in the world that was like our big excitement in in really our little deviant children's minds this was the first foray into punk and everything which of course we'll get into today but it was actually a really safe place to start doing rebellion stuff because everybody there you know it's mostly just theater nerds and stuff who go it's not like a dangerous place but you know it's a lot of stuff about

fucking and drugs and all the fun stuff that happens after midnight. I definitely wasn't cool enough to go to them in high school. I remember people that did it too. And I was like, oh, no, no, I don't. I was like, you know, just so awkward in my big fat body that I was like, I can't. Oh, no, they make me do what? And that's what would scare me so much was the idea of having to go. Because when you go as a virgin to one of these shows, you do have to be in your underwear, right?

Well, yeah, there's different, it just varies, but usually they ask for versions. They would like say, who's a version, who's version? Then you come up and you have to do a thing usually. But you could just always just lie and say, unless your friends betray you. I think that they would. Yeah, probably. For me, it was this like indie sketch comedy group that had their own space called The Perch, and it was a bunch of old couches and you could chain smoke in there.

And their shows were at like 11 p.m. and midnight. And I only say that because, like, that was my version. version of Rocky Horror. And I feel like I agree with you so much, Natalie, that we all needed as kids a place. We aren't allowed to go to the bars just yet. And thank God, because we just make horrible mistakes if we did. Oh, God. So we needed these types of things culturally to, like, let loose a little bit, get a little raunchy, but we still had to be on rails because we're still just kids. And so it's awesome. Like, it's such an awesome thing that I feel like I totally missed out on back in the day. And I totally want to go for real, for sure.

especially after doing the research for this episode. Yeah, totally. And it's very interesting, too, Jackie, that you say it felt like cool kids went because I guess that is not a way I've ever looked at it. And I'm sure a lot of people do. But where I grew up, it was where misfits went. It was the way where weirdo losers went to be like around other people who also were kind of weird and losery.

But that was the group I always wanted to be welcomed by, but they never wanted me. And I think it's because I was a little too extroverted. I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand. I'm really fucked up. Don't you want me in your group? I'll be your fun, weirdo friend. Come on, let me in. But I just remember I was so obsessed with the musical Rocky Horror Show

because of the song, to touch me, because it was a song that made me, especially in the musical world. I loved musical theater. But there's not a whole lot. of strong feminine sexuality at that time period that I was listening to, which is why I think I was so into rent and stuff like that, that just thinking of the idea of a sexual, musical I was so into. And also, like you were saying, Holden as well, of having a very, a very, quote, unquote,

normal character become a bad girl, which was in my brain what I always wanted to. be. So in the meantime, I was just smoking weed on the beach. Now looking back, realizing I guess that was a technically cool thing to do if you're 16 years old. Well, I think maybe you had this similar thing as me, maybe not, but I think I was definitely, I think I could have used these really to help me get over some sexual hangups and stuff that I had in. You know, I think I was very much afraid of sex and breasts and lips. Well, good thing you got over that. All you do is talk about breasts.

Oh, yeah, I fucking wish I could live in a set of them. Good Lord. Just milk, milk, lemonade. All right, but either way, let's stop talking about milk, milk, and lemonade. Let's go around the corner where the Rocky Horror Picture Show was made. Yeah, no, that sounds like it's shit, but really it's just butts. No, it's pert butts. That's what Rocky Horror Picture Show is.

I do want to say this about the musical. And I even said this live on stream and almost immediately had people like, go fuck yourself. But I want to clarify when I say this. Like, Rocky Hard Picture Show is kind of a mess. It's like, it's very imperfect. It's very, it's, you know, it's like, in a lot of ways it shouldn't exist. In a lot of ways, even the composer himself is like, it takes this energy nose dive like halfway through. That's part of why they think the audience interaction came to be.

Yes. But I think that's why it's so perfect for exactly what you describe Natalie, which is a film for people who feel like misfit toys, for people who feel imperfect, for people who feel like they don't fit in correctly into society. It as a film in comparison to other films feels the similar way where it's not just like that it brought on this whole aesthetic. We'll talk about how it was such a huge foundation for the punk movement and all that stuff. But I think that it can't be this like absolute. It's imperfections... It can't be polished. Yeah, it's imperfections are what

make it so perfect for the movement that ended up forming around it. It was part of why it was so difficult for it to go from being a niche small thing in the UK to L.A. where it became more polished and it was getting more polished

and that was why it stopped gaining as much attention as the original production had because it wasn't as gritty. And that's really what they were looking for in the small, budget and that's what they got. It's punk before punk because even people

in the cast, like, there were little like snarky comments from the composer and stuff saying like they had to work around bad vocalists. You know what I mean? Like in that original cat. I'm not talking about the movie. I mean, the movie actually. I'm talking about how you dare you insult punk. How dare you?

Well punk, but a lot of especially early punk was predicated on people who sang that didn't have classically good singing voices. People playing guitar that did not know how to play guitar. Totally. And it actually really wasn't even before punk. It was during the

first rise of, well, it's like usually called proto punk at that era, but it was really happening simultaneously in the UK. Yes. With Rocky Horror. Totally. Which is so amazing. And just learning about this was so great. I guess let's just let's get into. We have so much

I have so much information to get through on this because it just has gone through so many iterations. So I'll just start with the synopsis about 11 minutes. into the episode because that's how I roll. The Rocky Horror Pitcher Show is a 1975 musical comedy horror film based on a musical called The Rocky Horror Show about a newly engaged and very innocent couple who end up stranded on a cold and rainy night due to a flat tire who end up being taken in into the home

of Dr. Frankenfurter, a self-proclaimed sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania and shenanigans ensue. The music, lyrics, and book were all written by a man named Richard O'Brien who were about to get into his life in just a second. and the original musical was produced and directed by a guy named Jim Charmin, who ends up, they both end up being a part of the film directing and being in and yada, yada, yada. The film was co-written by Charmin and O'Brien, directed by Charmin, and I'm not talking about the toilet paper. The toilet paper.

Charmin. But there is toilet paper involved in this thing. There is. There is. So let's talk about very briefly Richard O'Brien. He was born in Gloucestershire. He would move to New Zealand with his family at the age of 10 as his father had purchased a sheep farm. He went to Taranga Boys College where he learned how to ride horses and boys, which got him, I'm just kidding, that's not in there, which got him into the film industry later as a stunt man, Natalie.

I didn't actually know that. He had a big love for comic books and horror films growing up. He ends up moving back to England at the age of 22 and takes a bunch of method acting classes and working in small theater productions until he gets a role. in a touring production of hair in 1970. And hair almost seems like the proto-rocky horror in a lot of ways. Just in terms of even when we get to meatloaf in a little bit. A good predecessor for it for sure. To bring like rock and roll into the music scene for sure.

And counterculture, like we'll get to meatloaf. He ends up in a separate production of hair. But either way, he in 1972, he meets Jim Sharman, who cast him as an apostle and leper in a luster. London production of Jesus Christ Superstar. I love both of those. Both. Great. Yeah, I love being an apostle. I love being a leper.

Oh, my God. If I could pay a million souls to be a leper. Man, my fingers are always falling off. What are you talking about? What are we talking about? A million souls to anyone who wishes to grant me lepership. Either way, O'Brien had this to say about around this time and getting into writing the musical. I'd been in Jesus Christ Superstar and hair and was starting to think I wouldn't mind sing a musical that appealed to me. An eternal adolescent.

I loved B movies, rock and roll, and glam. So thought I'd do a parody or homage to all those things. And it was Charmin who cast O'Brien in a production of Sam Shepard's The Unseen Hand was hanging out at O'Brien's place one night where he played for him just a couple songs. working on, including science. Science fiction. Double feature. And I do think it's fun that a lot of places that I was reading about the original creation of the Rocky Horror Show really brings it home that O'Brien

wrote this in a period of unemployment for him as an actor. And I think that it's like it really was just keeping him busy. And then he eventually just wrote the entire musical in six months. I feel like that's half of how anything in Hollywood is made, just nobody's hiring you. So you write something. Just had a pure desperation is exactly how I ended up with the podcast and everything that I'm doing at this point. So Sharman later gets back to O'Brien and says, They've asked me to do another play at the royal court and I've agreed.

As long as they let me have three weeks fun upstairs afterwards, which I think is a lot. It's pretty fun. O'Brien goes off. He writes more songs and he writes 20 pages of dialogue. O'Brien said it grew a lot in rehearsals. I'd written science fiction double feature without a musical in mind. But it has the line, see Androids fighting Brad and Janet.

Those names seem to exemplify a clean cut boy girl relationship. Brad and Janet needed their own songs. So damn it, Janet went in. I think their sexual awakening is something we can all relate to. But it's not just a sexual rite of passage. When their car breaks down and they arrive at the castle, they're leaving the American dream and walking into an uncertain future. I'm watching Jackie.

I'm both doing, as you're talking, just mouthing the words to the songs. It's hard to pay attention. You just want to like do the musical. There's a light. I just want to sit and sing through all of it. You'll just hear the faint singing in the background and just know it's Natalie and I. I will say, by the way, that song was a big upbeat opener in the musical, in the original musical.

And it became this dreamy, like, because it's like this alluring just the lips opening, the way it's sung in that slower pace. is a way better way to bring you into a movie. I love that song. It's beautiful. Yeah. But it's weird to think of that song as like a big, punchy, yeah.

Show tune thing. With a coral background. Yeah, it's much bigger. Did they do that when you saw the play? I have not seen the live play there. I'm the least of the Rocky Horrors in this Rocky Horror group right now, but was it upbeat in the original? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I think it's fun that I have the front half of it, and Natalie's got the back half of it. Oh, I always got the back half, baby. Yeah. All right. There we go. Come on. What's going on? Touch me. All right. Apparently, he based the character, Frankenfurter, on Alice Cooper, which makes a lot of sense.

In his original handwritten notes published in the 1979 playbook, the Rocky Horror scrapbook, he described Frankenfur as an Alice Cooper type Frankenstein. And this is, I would also note that this was, when this was being done, so the The first time the play went to stage was 1973, and that was right during, and that was in the UK, and that was when the proto-punk scene was really firing up. And there were bands like the Pink Ferrys and Third World War, who were like the OGs of this, leaving the hippie culture into another place. And the Third World War is kind of known as the first punk band in the UK in a lot of ways.

and their recording engineer back in 1971, excuse me, wrote them as saying, I want a no bullshit working class band. I've had enough of this pseudo piece crap. And due to that attitude, the band's rock of sound and its revolutionary lyrics as they were described as England's first punk band. And it is a lot of that energy that goes into the Rocky Horror Show and the sentiment behind it. And it is also what sort of plays into that disheveled.

mish-mash look of everybody, because that's also what punk is about, just sort of dismantling this image of what middle class is supposed to be in the hypocrisy of it a lot of the time. Which is exactly what happens in this movie. It's bringing the, you know, quote, unquote, normal Midwestern couple and just being like, yeah, but what if we made you glam rock instead? And really addressing a lot of the hypocrisy that comes along with portraying a certain clean-cut image, but having all these desires and wants. And when you kind of closet, though, sometimes you become a shitty person. And sometimes you want to just, you're happier when you open up and express them and wear, you know, die-high fish nets. Be three, baby.

Rips up, though, please. They've got to be a little ripped up. You got to shred them. And yes, so it's the punk movement. and a lot of the aesthetic was like, I think the attitude was punk, definitely some of the, plenty of the aesthetic.

And then the other element is the glam rock era, which developed in the UK in the early 70s and incorporated a lot of the costumes, make up wild hairstyles, glitter, and platform shoes into the rock and roll scene. O'Brien said, glam rock allowed me to be myself more. And of course, that's Bowie.

Even Rolling Stones has their glam rock era. Iggy, of course, the Stooges, the New York dolls, all of that coming in, sort of taking a little bit more of an androgynous tone. There was a little bit of that in the hippie movement, but they really like kicked it up and just sort of started playing with gender roles and stuff very early on. And that really went into the punk movement as well, image-wise. And it's sort of a, everything I've read about this time period, it's sort of which came first, chicken or the egg. But Rocky Horror, the wardrobe really played a lot into punk.

fashion and probably a little bit in reverse too. So they kind of gave to each other. But they were really important to each other. Hell yeah. So now we have a script. We've got a director. Now we need everybody else. And one of the first people to jump on board was Tim Curry,

who said, I'd heard about the play. I love him so much. Yeah, we can get a gush about Tim Curry for sure. I'd heard about the play because I lived on Paddington Street off Baker Street. And there was an old gym a few doors away. I saw Richard O'Brien in the street, and he said he'd just been to the gym to see if he could find a muscle man who could sing.

I said, why do you need him to sing? And he told me that this musical was going to be done, and I should talk to Jim Sharman. He gave me the script, and I thought, boy, if this works, it's going to be a smash. He had also just worked with the costume designer Sue Blaine on a stage production of the maids. And so that's how Sue Blaine knew that he was no stranger to corsets,

because the corset that he wears in the original production of Rocky Horror Show was the same one he wore in the maids. Same with the thigh-high fishnets. So he was already used to performing in that outfit. So she said, luckily Tim had worked in a corset before. So he took to it like a duck takes to water. It's funny too because Sue Blaine, of course, is one of the hugest impacts in the look of the movie and the stage. play. And so she's credited with creating a lot of punk fashion, including like torn fishnacks, torn fishnet stockings in like bright hair colors and spiky hair and stuff like that. And also,

I found a quote on Wiki Zero that said, although the film is both a parody of and tribute to many kitsch science fiction and horror films, costume designer Sue Blaine conducted no research for her designs. Because she really didn't. She kind of just, even though it is a tribute to these older things, that she just made it very modern for the time. She sort of made like, Brad and Janet were just sort of like her idea of what Americans were. Yeah. Totally.

She also, even before that, she was super reluctant. She felt like it was like too silly of a project and that it didn't pay enough. And Jim Sharman actually sat down with her and had to convince her to take this on. They got hammered together. She originally said, she's like, she said, I had no desire to design a lot of drag costumes for no money. I had enough work at the time not to have to take on something unless it paid a lot or it was great fun. And from what I imagined, Rocky didn't promise to be fun at all. But then Jim Sharman got hammered with her and she's like, oh, we got on like a house on fire.

While he was outlining the plot, we got incredibly drunk and went around to the Royal Court Theater. When I realized that Tim Curry and some other friends of mine were going to be in it, thought, oh, this is beginning to sound like a wonderful idea. By 3 o'clock in the morning, with the start of a terrible hangover, I was doing Rocky. They also pulled in scene designer Brian Thompson, who would later win a Tony for a scene design of a Broadway production of The King and I. This is also when they bring in musical director Richard Hartley, who really set all of the lyrics done by O'Brien to actual music. Hartley said, Richard and I listened to the same records when we were growing up. So we just put all the things we loved in. You can hear the influences,

a bit of Chuck Berry and a bit of Rolling Stones and sweet transvestite. It's self-indulgent, but the songs aren't pastiche like the ones in Greece. Oh, Greece shade. Dude, people shade on Greece. I mean, it's nonsense. I love grease. It's a bop-de-bop-bop-to-bop-boop. Ooh, I beat the bot. What do you type of? That doesn't, that's a bullshit in comparison to this pure sex of a movie. It is. Pop to the beep to the oopsie dopsy whooops. Also, like, greaser culture was much darker than that. But hey, I really like the bubble gum version of it.

So it's fine. We'll remake it. Oh, yeah. Now Campbell joined the cast early on when the production team heard about her dancing for customers while working as a soda jerk. I also, as the first, I heard the phrase soda jerk before. That is the person who sells sodas and ice cream at a soda fountain. They offered a role, they offered her the role when they went

to go pay her a visit and she did her dance for them. And she was like, she must play Columbia. Yeah. So they wrote the, they actually wrote the role for her. And also a big part of the reason why they included the time warp in the movie was because she has the tap dance solo, but also because they needed to flesh out the movie a little bit more. So they wanted a big dance number.

But that was really for Lil Nell. That's why I used to dress like her when we went because I had tap. costumes that look like hers. That makes so much sense. Yeah, and originally the play like in rehearsals was 40 minutes long. Yes, it was 40 minutes long. They're like, we've got to make it longer.

I also what I did love is that as they were gathering everyone to work on this, how did Sherman get everybody on the same page when it came to the style of what the musical was going to be? He took him to go see the camp classic film beyond the Valley of the

Dolls, which was playing in London midnight as a cult hit and told them that this was to be their stylistic inspiration. On the other hand, Charmin made it very clear that the character should be played completely sincerely, that the stakes had to be high, and it was a fight of good versus evil. So he wanted it to be as big and overdramatic as possible, but also very weirdly grounded. And that's why you get this insane, just all over the place vibe to this. The chaos. The key is the chaos.

You also had Patricia Quinn, who started out in the theatrical production. As Magenta, she will go on to play that role in the film. Richard O'Brien actually originally wanted to play Eddie, but Jim Sharman had to be like, bra. You ain't no Eddie, bra. You're a riffraff, bra. You're a riffraff. You already have the emaciated, hunched leering body. What are you going to do with it?

It's so funny. But either way, and... Julie Covington played the original Janet. She would later be known for the original recording of Don't Cry for Me, Argentina. Very similar to Rocky Harrow. Very similar. So originally the title was they came from Denton

up until right before previews. You already talked about the time warp. The show premiered at the Royal Court's 63 seat theater upstairs in June of 1973, and it ran for just one month. So you have to remember, they had a four, even just for costumes, $400 budget for costumes.

This was a rag-tag team of people that just kind of fell in with each other and were like, oh, yeah, let's make this really avant-garde glam rock performance in this very, you have to think, 63-seat theater, that's small. So they're in your face. This is not only just, it's not just going to see a musical. This is an experience. So it starts off as an experience, and then it comes. back around later on with the midnight showings.

It's where it always meant to be. Yeah. And that makes complete sense to me why it was a flop when it first went to screen because it is a visceral experience. It is highly sexual. There's an entire scene in the movie where they're just crawling all over each other in a pool. It's all about sex and being dirty. And yeah, and just free, exactly. So it's not, it doesn't really fit in a sterile environment.

It just doesn't work. No, and I do, down to the fact that I do think just the idea of this is so much fun, that Princess Die was a huge Rocky Horror fan. Hell yeah. And so the Princess requested a meeting with Tim Curry. And in an interview, Curry remembers she told him with a wicked smile that Rocky horror, quote, quite completed my education. Oh, that's awesome.

I love her. That's awesome. So they get attention pretty quickly. A record producer named Jonathan King saw the second night of the run and signed the cast to make the original cast recording, which was rushed over a long weekend. King would become heavily involved in the promotion of the show and became a minority backer of it as well. After the two-month run, the show moves to the 230-seat Chelsea Classic Cinema, where it runs for another two months, then transferred to the 500-seat Kings Road Theater, which was another cinema house. So it's already getting like married to a cinema house Even before it was a film

The show ran at the King's Road Theater From the end of 1973 All the way until 1979 Then it moves to the comedy theater At which it ran until the end of 1980 But how does it get to America? Let's talk about it because that's the real weird game changer Is this bizarre British entity

That becomes weirdly tied to America as well I mean from the beginning it is with Brett the characters of Brad and Janet, but still, it's a man named Lou Adler who ends up catching a production of the musical back in the winter of 1973. Lou Adler is an American record producer, music exact, talent manager,

song director, film director, film producer, and co-owner of the Roxy Theater in West Hollywood, California. Still there. He produced Carol, right? I really want to go. He produced Carol King, The Mamas and the Pappas, Cheech and Chong.

He was known to take big, risks like back in 1967 when he helped produce the Monterey International Pop Festival. By the way, one of my favorite music documentaries is that is that one. It's so fucking good. And it was this crazy thing that just miraculously came together. And after Adler saw the show, he met backstage with producers and secured the American theatrical rights within 36 hours because he knew he had a hit on his hands. The show ends up premiering at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles in March of 1974.

it runs for nine months with all new cast except for Tim Curry, this is where 20th Century Fox makes a deal for a film. As the show is a huge hit and an exec from Fox saw it named Gordon Stolberg, who invests $1 million into the film. And I will say this is around the time that many of the artists involved with the original production of Rocky Horror said in many different interviews that they believe that the American productions in L.A. and then in New York and the film version lost much of what's important about the show. It's grit, it's rawness, it's confrontational directness, its relationship with

its audience, which is a relationship quite different than what the film has with its audience. But what I will say, take a listen. You can listen to the original London cast recording of the Rocky Horror Show on Spotify. You can listen to that and then listen to the film version and listen to the difference because both of them are amazing in their own right. But the original London cast recording, it really, like you can feel, like, I feel like I could, like, feel the energy of this tiny play location just from listening to it. It's not even, it is not a polished recording whatsoever. But then you can hear the differences in the songs between the productions. I feel like, too, this mirrors at this point, going

back to the Roxy Run. This mirrors peewee in a lot of ways. Yes. Because it now becomes this cool place for cool people. In fact, a lot of celebrities came by. Meatloaf recalls meeting Elvis Presley at a performance. Wait, did you say, ma-ma,

meatloaf? That's right. That's where, this is where Meatloaf joins the cast. Before this, he was in a band that was renamed a couple of times from Meatloaf Soul. By the way, that was the nickname. What we're going to do, Meatloaf's going to get his own episode. Oh, yes. But I will say that Meatloaf is the nickname given to him by his football coach due to his weight.

He changes the name then to Popcorn Buzzard and then to Floating Circus. And the band has some regional success. They're a really good opener for really big names. And but it was really, his launch pad to fame really came with the Los Angeles production of hair. Hair comes back in, which eventually made it to Broadway before he was cast in the Rocky Ritch. The Rocky Horror Show, rather, at the L.A. Roxy. He played the parts of Eddie and Dr. Everett Scott in that original or in that production. And also, apparently, he hadn't read the script before the rehearsals.

He had just worked on the songs. So he had no idea what he was getting into until Tim Curry showed up to rehearsal in his full costume while singing the song Sweet Transvestite. Meatloaf said he was so shocked that he walked out of the theater in the middle of the production and even trying to try. running away from the theater only to get a ticket for jaywalking. Yeah, good. You deserve it. That's so weird. That's so cartoonish. Like, whoa,

what? A man. And I'll co-courced. Jackie, you win this week's episode of funnest facttoids. You have the funnest factoids. Yeah, you got factoids. You guys did the work. I got the facttoids. Is that like hemorrhoids? Oh, God. Oh, that's why my butt hurts. Oh, Lord.

I'm still, I'm still held up about you saying Elvis was at one, because to me Elvis is such a person out of time. I forget that he existed like around other human beings. Like he went to a Rocky show. Yeah, he was wearing a disguise and he said, Meatloaf, hey, uh, huh, huh, I'm faked to my death. So, uh, don't you don't tell nobody right.

I'll sandalvary and I don't want all that. And he just started saying. I need a peanut butter banana sandwich. Yeah, that's what he sounds like, great. Those were two the most flawless Elvis embersinations I've ever. Thank you. He's actually, yeah, he is here with us today. Oh, he's in the studio.

And now I get to recommend a documentary that I saw in high school and super loved. And that's called The Burger and the King. And it's all about Elvis's eating habits because you brought up the peanut butter and banana sandwiches. An entire movie about his eating habits? Well, you know, the woman who made him those, she was like a housekeeper person. And I believe she melted four sticks of butter into the pan before she put the bread in. Did they make kiss on each other in the butter? Yeah, he had a pretty wild fucking eating habits.

Like, it's pretty insane. Like, the food people would make for him and the his... Okay, I'll get into it. He had like a monster metabolism until obviously the switch happened. And then he just became like other Elvis, essentially. But either way... Did he ever accidentally eat a person? Oh, oh, yes, that's how it ends.

He's like, oh, my God. I ate a homeless man. He was sitting there and I was feeling tan. I was feeling tan. I couldn't follow through. Either way, after a 10-month run, Adler, closes the show at the Roxy to allow the actors to return to the UK for a movie. A movie, baby.

Are you horny for a movie, baby? They were definitely worried about how America was going to handle a film version of this gritty, very sexual story. And even I just, I was very intrigued by this line that the disillusion of gender roles was one of the things straight America feared the most. Frank's lack of clear gender is his real monstrosity, which is why it's always a mistake for productions to reimagine Frank as anything other than a glam rocker. And that does, unfortunately at this time period,

that does make a lot of sense of where they're like, but we don't understand. But what is he? But then he can hide behind. He's like, no, no, no, darling, he's a glam rocker. You don't have to worry. Don't be worried. He's not going to come.

into your bedrooms at night and make you kiss him or he might. Well, you know who gets my goat chirping that Liberacee? Oh, baby. The ladies love him. Well, I wanted to quickly touch on that. I wanted to talk a little bit about the queerness aspect of it. And I found a really amazing article by this guy named Evan Peterson, who himself is queer and talked a lot about what he grew up with it.

But I thought he had really good points about, he says, Although Brad and Janet remain POV characters within the movie, Brad quickly stops acting as protagonist and becomes a lesser observer while Janet continues to make decisions, takes action, and becomes sexually empowered. They're white, straight, middle class, boo, comfort zone burns down around them, yay! Leaving Brad sexually dysphoric, it's beyond me, help me, mom, I'll be good. You'll see. take this dream away

Yeah so the working class punk philosophy Behind the film is inseparable from the queerness It shouldn't be separated at all Early punk often embraced queer sex and gender As yet another fuck you to the snooty class's status quo A Rocky Horror is what Waters we call Gayly Incorrect It is not concerned with being sensitive

Or presenting queer people in so-called admirable light It's concerned with shaking up the rigid mainstream and having a blast doing it. And queerness really is such an integral important part of this movie. And again, like you were just saying, it made people uncomfortable. So they tried to take that out of it. But it is, as this writer says, it's gender-fucking. And it's really important to a lot of those kids growing up in feeling this way and needing

this sort of imagery. And also adults who had never felt themselves being represented before in any way, shape, or form. and I think that that is part of what's so beautiful, even though that's not what this is about, but it is, which is why it's so important to the changing and the shift of ideology, especially in America,

that to look at Tim Curry in this, it is, I mean, just owning where it's like, it doesn't matter about what he's got. What does it matter? Yeah, he's being him. Yeah. Well, let's talk about Tim Curry. Tim Curry and get more into the cast.

I have a little brief rundown for the folks we haven't already talked about, such as meatloaf. Tim Curry moved to South London with his family after his father's untimely death from pneumonia at the age of 12. He attended a boarding school in Bath, where he grew a talent as a boy soprano and directed, rather decided to go into acting, which took him to University of Birmingham,

where he graduated with a degree in both English and drama. His first full-time role was in the original London cast of Hair! In 1968, which is a very much. where he met Richard O'Brien and the rest is history. This was Tim Curry's first feature film. And I thought that this was a lot of fun. So originally when Tim Curry was figuring out the voice for Frankenfooter, he wanted

to do a German accent. And Richard O'Brien originally described him as Vlad the Impaler and Cruella DeVille mixed into one. But what Tim Curry ended up doing with his voice was he said it was actually a mixture of a very posh lady like Queen Elizabeth and his mother's accent. Susan Sarandon comes into the picture for the film, and that's actually because of a stipulation

for 20th Century Fox. Richard O'Brien, who said, it's astonishing the U.S. movie industry bought into it, said that the only imperative from 20th Century Fox was that we include some American actors. That's why Barry Boswick and Susan Sarandan play Brad and Janet. They were actually an item during filming, too.

And also, So originally, they, that Fox wanted them to use musicians and get rid of the original cast. And they offered them like five times the amount of money that they were given. Because originally Mick Jagger wanted to play Tim Curry's role in the movie. And then Richard O'Brien was like, no, I'd like to keep the original cast. So then they gave him like a fifth of the budget that they were going to originally give him. Mick Jagger could have pulled it off, I think, but I'm so glad Tim Curry was instead.

Yeah, I don't think it would have been the iconic thing that it is. It would have been like, oh, weird, Mick Jagger's in a movie. But either way, Susan Sarando was born in NYC. She was the eldest of nine children. Her father was an ad-exact TV producer and at one point a nightclub singer. She too graduated from college with a degree in drama. And in 1969, she went with her then-husband to a casting call for a film called Joe, which weirdly enough, we talked to.

out in the Young Frankenstein episode. So that weird movie I've never seen is coming back up. And she ends up landing a major role as a disaffected teen who disappears into a seedy underworld. And by the way, her then-husband didn't get a part in it. That's got to be fun. After that, she got some work on soap operas until she landed the Rocky Horror gig. And Barry Bostwick's father was an actor, so he too followed in his footsteps by majoring and acting in college, after which he did local theater and even worked as a circus performer,

which led to him being a member of a pop group called The Clowns, but spelled with a K, and they were created by Ringling Brothers, Spartum, and Bailey Circus, and I'm sure they were, oh, not annoying in any way. I'm sure a boy band of clowns is a great idea. I'm pretty sure. I actually want to see that kind of. I kind of, yeah, I want to check it out.

I would like to see a clown boy band. I meant to YouTube it, but got lost in the research. but I am going to go look up the clowns after this. Either way, he did musical theater gigs after being in the clowns. Clown boys back, honk, honk! Get back in the car! There's too many in there.

We don't want to be. All of them get back in the car. I'm suffocating in there. Yeah, but they're so dreamy. They're all squished together and it's sexy. I like the one with the animal face. Which one do you like? I like the annoying one. Oh, shut up, silly.

They're all the annoying. I like the one that looks like an old lady. Yeah, I want to have sex with the old lady clown. I made he's a good kisser. After that, he does a bunch of musical theater gigs, including the part of Danny Zucco in Greece. Again with the grease. Oops, oops, oops, oopsie doopsie doopsie doops.

And that earns him a Tony nomination. And then he got cast in the Rocky Heart Picture Show. Either way, moving along. Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, and Nell Campbell, they all return to play. Riff Raff, Magenta, and Columbia. I can't imagine the movie without those people.

And I think that's why the movie does feel so like well-worn for them. Tim Curry, like you can feel the They know those characters. The amount of time they put into those characters. Jonathan Adams played the narrator in the original production and Dr. Everett

V. Scott in the film version, which is actually something Meatloaf didn't like. He wished he could have gotten to play both parts. Also, apparently Vincent Price wanted to play the part in the movie because Vincent Price was, speaking of another one, like an Elvis type thing, saw the original production of Rocky Horror and wanted to play the narrator after he found that it was being turned into a film, but he just wasn't able to figure it out with his schedule. That would have been fucking wonderful. Also, Meatloaf, if you want to play Dr. Scott, I thought, oh, it's so scary to see a man wearing tights and heels because Dr. Scott wears them. Yes. So what were you going to do?

Figured out meatloaf. Also, oh, you can't drive the motorcycle? Oh, you're too scared of the motorcycle, meatloaf? Yeah, well, guess what? You're going to get eaten. Yeah. You are meatloaf. I actually do have a pull quote from Vincent Price who said,

it's not actually Vincent Price. It's me, Elvis in a Vincent Price costume. Elvis, get out of here. Oh, sorry, I'm leaving now. Oh, no. And I try to get the play, and I try to do the movie today. That would be great if Elvis trying to go into public. by dressing as Vincent Price.

Like that's somehow less conspicuous. The most iconic voice like in horror and it just sounds like Elvis. Is that Elvis dressed as Vincent Price walking down the street? Not in any way sounding like Vincent Price. Like not even making an effort to sound like Vincent Price. Either way, Peter Hinwood. Peter Hinwood played Rocky Horror, the monster. Peter Hinwood was a photographer and a professional model who was acting on the side.

But his singing voice is actually dubbed in by Australian. singer Trevor White. Yeah, he doesn't really, he doesn't really do that much. I don't think that guy also acted much other than that. He was supposed to, he actually had lines and everything was cut because he was such a horrible actor. Like, he couldn't even speak. And now he deals in antiques instead.

He realized that there wasn't for him. Oh, that's nice. He, uh, you know what, though? He had to work pretty hard probably to hide that boner during the Susan Sarandon, uh, dirty scenes and that's got that's got to be a lot of work or the you don't know or the uh or any of the scenes because they also have very true oh no wait they don't they don't have a sex scene well they do they do they have an almost kiss they have a meat cute yeah they do have me cute oh does he still have the uh is he still have the rock hard abs does he show him oh yeah uh-huh mm-hmm yeah he definitely

does i'm sure everyone knows that once very assured of yourself and well that was about at this point what, 40-something years ago? So if he still has those rock-hard abs, you know what, good on him. So the film was shot at two different film studios in England. Bray Studios, and what's important about Bray Studios, is it is known

for the Hammer B-movie horror films. We actually talked a lot about this. I did an episode on Christopher Lee for Wizard and the Bruiser, and he was like the Hammer Horror, Dracula, iconic. This is essentially the British version of almost trauma

in a sense, but like a lot classier. Yeah, a lot classier. But they really did just, it was a lot of schlocky B horror though and they purposely wanted to shoot there so they could A, use old set pieces from old Hammer horror films. The tank and dummy used for Rocky's birth

also appeared in the Revenge of Frankenstein in 1958 and there were other various pieces. Which is just so fucking, that's such badass. Yeah, super cool. They wanted to change from, so the stage show is called the Rocky Horror Show, and then it becomes the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the film. And they really wanted to change it from the stage version was a lot more punk than the movie version is. So the movie version is a way more goth horror based is really what Jim Sharman and the designer Brian Thompson were looking to get because they had made another small movie together called Shirley Thompson versus the end. aliens and they wanted to like capture the feeling that they had of that set.

So they brought it more into that, which is also why they shot it inside of Oakley Court. Yes. Yeah, it does give it a little bit of a more vampire appearance, which is I think perfectly fitting. O'Brien said it was an old Victorian Gothic revival house, a paddock away from the studios that had been used for other films, including the horror movie The Innocents, listed gloomy and semi-derlecked with its owner living abroad. It was perfect for us. It had no heat and no bathrooms.

Yeah, even if we did have to carry all our lights and technical stuff across the paddock to get to it. Which is why Susan Surinanin got pneumonia onset. Got pneumonia. It was in terrible shape, this place. Awful, awful. But I mean, I also think it's fitting. I think it makes sometimes when you're doing, especially horror, it almost. is better if you're not comfortable, sadly.

Susan got really ill, said O'Brien, at the end, when she sings wild and untamed thing in the pool, she should have been under medical supervision. She'd had a shocking cold and was shaking with fever. But still, she went on. She went on. It is things like this when you hear about it. Everyone always does think, oh, the lives of an actor is so,

it's so pampered. Of course, you know, they make a lot of money. I mean, they definitely didn't make a lot of money in this. But they, it seems like such an easy job. But there are times like that where it's like, there is no, they didn't have time and they didn't have money for her to be sick. So it didn't really fucking matter. Sometimes you just have to keep going.

I'm going to go ahead and say if anybody thinks that maybe, you know, when you're a big deal celebrity, you get a really nice trailer and stuff. So maybe it's different. Leonardo DiCaprio only got hypothermia on the resident. You know, it's like there's things like that would. Nothing makes me more exhausted than being on a film set. I'm just going to throw it out there. Nothing gives me a fatigue like that.

It's hard work. Once you get past a certain point, though, your every whim is catered to, which is fine. I will say when I worked on Men in Black 3, Will Smith's trailer took up an entire New York City block and he had his own gym inside of it. And it caused catastrophic traffic in Manhattan. Where else is he supposed to put his horses? He has to have his horses on set or else who's going to say action, nay. You need the nay part. And where else is he going to kiss his secret men?

Whoa. Where is he going to do it? One of the many bathrooms inside of a city block long trailer, I guess. Yep. So the reaction upon the discovery of Eddie's corpse in the film was actually genuine. I love that. And Jim directing played pranks on us throughout the film. When Eddie's corpse was revealed under the dining table, it came as a real shock.

None of us had been aware of that, that it was there, apart from Tim Curry, playing Dr. Frankenfurter, because he was the one who had to whip the tablecloth off. Jim wanted a natural reaction. Speaking of other natural reactions that in the beginning during the time warp, when there is the skeleton inside of the coffin clock, that the look of horror on the actress' faces were real because they didn't know that there was a skeleton inside, and also that coffin clock came with the skeleton inside.

So they don't know where it came from. Weird. Also, natural reactions was the name of my post. post-punk band back when I went through my like sad boy fans did it have a Z at the end yes absolutely did it have a skeleton yes and no one know where it came from cool that is scary shooting took six weeks without actually ever going over budget I'm kind of surprised they got this in the way that they got this in hardly said for the film we wanted things to be more gothic so we got two musicians in from pro coal harem it was sweetened for Hollywood with strings and a brass band too

We recorded the backing tracks in four days and the vocals in a week. We pre-recorded every song except science fiction. So what you see is all mined. It would have been easier and cheaper if they'd sung live, but the whole film still costs less than $1 million. And if you never heard of Procol Haram before, it is they're an English rock band and they're best known for an amazing song called A Wider Shade of Pale, which is very well...

From the Big Chill soundtrack, everybody. I wanted to do Big Chill, by the way. I love that movie, and that would be a great pop history one of these days. think. Now let's talk about costumes and makeup, shall we? Yes! Because now the costume budget is four times the amount than the $400, but then if you think about it, look at how many people are in the cast. $1,600 is really not that much money to outfit all of those people for an entire movie. But that's what Susan Blaine was working with. Yeah, she felt the costumes had a major influence on the Pugmibit, which we already talked about, that was soon to follow, and yes,

this includes the glitter, the colored hair, all that. Blaine said, when I decided Rocky, I never looked at any science fiction movies or comic books. One just automatically knows what spacesuits look like, the same way one intuitively knows how Americans dress. I had never been to the United States, but I had this fixed idea of how people looked there. Americans wore polyester, so their clothes would increase, and their trousers were a bit too short. Since they're very keen on sports, white socks and white t-shirts played an integral part in their wardrobe keen on sports.

Of course, since doing Rocky, I have been to the United States, and I admit it was a bit of a generalization, but my ideas worked perfectly for Brad and Janet. They really did. I also, what's awesome is that she says that probably about 90% of the costumes for Rocky Harer were custom made by her. She said only the clothing and the wedding scene and various undergarments were bought. Totally. I mean, there wasn't really anything like that before she did it. So I don't know where she would have, like, you know, bought these costumes. She definitely pieced them together, which really plays into the ability to interact with the movie later on

because people could piece their own costumes together. That same kid, actually, Evan Peterson, I don't know if he's a kid. The man Evan Peterson, who I quoted before, he writes, The transformation of Brad and Janet happens at the hands of the Ochle characters who, despite living in a castle where threadbare costumes fit more for carnies than the silver screen. Frank Infurter is the queen of this castle and yet his outfits are disintegrating before our eyes. The middle class goody goodies are seduced and transformed into thrift store glamour bombs by a cadre of genderqueer sex punks. And this is how the class issue is of the film really gets worked out visually. And so, again, another way that the audience can really connect to the movie.

Oh, yeah. And so that's why Blaine is really credited with starting the trends like brightly colored hair and ripped fishnet tights and using corsets as part of everyday fashion on the outside of her clothes. Underpants on the outside. But she's very blasé about creating these fashion trends. She's very much just like, I mean, it was the beginning of glitter rock. It's just, I could see, you could see where it was going. I just, you know, punched it up a bit.

I really loved learning about the makeup end because I never knew who created such iconic looks as we're about to discuss and that it was actually Pierre La Roche who was pulled in to do makeup. But he originally was a makeup artist for Elizabeth Arden in the 60s, but he left after five years as they tried to get him to be more conservative. And then he ends up working with rock stars including David Bowie, does the iconic Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin's

Lanes. As well as going on tour with the Rolling Stones is their makeup artist. And he did those iconic looks for the film. The actors did their own makeup in the stage show. He was brought in just for the movie. He was raised in Algiers before moving to France and England. In Algiers, he was inspired by the Arab women in his homeland who heavily painted their eyes with a coal, K-O-H-L, a dark ancient eye shadow. And he incorporated that a lot in the looks for Rocky Horror. But apparently it took him so long to apply Tim Curry's makeup that Tim Curry eventually was just like, just teach me what you're doing and how you're doing it because it would take him four hours a day to put his makeup on. So as much as it, it was beautiful and awesome and fucking rock and roll, it's still like, I will say it doesn't look like it took four hours to put on. But, you know, if you're adding in a bunch of eyebrows and eyelashes and stuff like that, it does take some time.

But four hours is a lot. Yes. 100%. And I also think it really does fit in, too, that the mantra of the show, of course, is don't dream it, be it. And the mantra of the show actually comes from a vintage Fredericks of Hollywood magazine ad that the slogan was, don't dream it, be it. Perfect.

Originally nothing more than a manipulative cashing in on the desperate sexual dreams of isolated suburban housewives, which really weirdly plays in very well with the rest of. of the movie. It does. I also think it makes a lot of sense with the clothing and the makeup

and everything too that of course came one from a Fredericks of Hollywood. It's funny because there was almost right across from the Rock Sea on sunset there was a Fredericks of Hollywood store for years

that's now I think a bank but it was maybe why I was always drawn to the sunset strip because it is the embodiment of this movie essentially.

So I want to talk about the title sequence, just very briefly, to immediately set the tone of androgyny and playfulness. The title sequence consists of a set of female lips, which were Patricia Quinn's, who played Magenta, with a male voice overdubbed singing science fiction double feature. And who was that male voice? Richard O'Brien. Factoids, facttoids.

Yeah, she's got factoid, factoid, factored. You're going to need a factoid's donut. Oh, no, my hemorrhoids. Yeah, because it's a venereal disease. Either way. The film debuts in 1975 and really is not a success. It only was successful at the UA Westwood in Los Angeles. The film was withdrawn from its eight opening cities

due to small audiences with a planned NYC opening getting canceled, which is hilarious because that's where it becomes this giant cult fascination. It wasn't until April Fool's Day in 1976, the Tim Deegan, a young advertising exec at 20th Century Fox, would convince a man named Bill Quigley to replace the midnight show at the Waverly Theater with Rocky Horror Picture Show that it became the legendary cult film it is today.

And yeah, this is where we get into the whole midnight movie success, the audience interaction stuff. We're going to give a breakdown of all this because this is really where the whole thing takes form. Well, and like you just said, it really got its life as a midnight movie where it got,

turned over to, which the Midnight movie has its own history going all the way back to the 30s whenever they started rating movies and grading them in a sense of, you know, R and all those. And by the way, just real quick, we super go into this as well. This is our second time talking about how fucking badass midnight movies were because we did the John Waters episode. And talked about the Hays Code, which in a lot of ways is like, oh, man, they put all of these restrictions, but it makes the midnight movies more exciting in a lot of ways because you're going

to see a naughty movie. And that is where a lot of people would get, uh, would become cult members of these movies. It's where they developed a following. And that's really, I think, where Rocky Horror should have always been. It was always going to survive there. Yeah, Susan Blaine. I think it's so funny in watching like the, the, where it ends up getting like the cycle of it is that she said, I just love this quote. She said, what I found fascinating is that the film is a parody of the cinema turned into a parody of the cinema for film. But the kids in watching the movie are treating it like a live performance.

We're back to the original in a sense. The kids are getting their costumes from junk shops and antique clothing stores. Some are even making them themselves. And the funny thing is that that's what we did at the beginning. It's all come full circle. How strange? I also, I'm pretty sure I mentioned. mentioned this in the John Waters episode, but if you are interested in that history, there's a

really fun documentary called American Grind House that's obviously about the American side of it, but it's on YouTube right now for rent, and it's a really fun watch. I need to check that out, actually, because I am super fascinated with all of this stuff, and I'm jealous. I'm like, oh, I just wish I had this growing up, this crazy midnight movie situation, because I would so be there. Jim Sharman has had this to say about the cult success with the audience, participation, there were aspects inbuilt into the film that helped trigger this response, including a few considered moments where characters acknowledge the audience's presence,

which is rare in a film, and where the camera becomes part of the action. I'm sure the producers were relieved when the audience participation started happening, and Lou, referring to Lou Adler, was quick to see that this was the way it would find its audience. There's little point in theorizing about how and why it happened, but my feeling is that the most, the mostly young non-mainstream audiences simply got it. They found the combo of the film and the music, the masquerade and the party atmosphere, allowed them to deal with difficult things in their lives, especially their sexuality,

in a light, liberating way. The mainstream audience only saw the surface, and they turned away. But the late night audience picked up on what was under that surface, and it spoke to them. And there's also a few people who are actually credited with starting the callback stuff. And I don't know, you know, it might just be. lore at this point. Who knows how it really started, but according to J. Huberman, author of Midnight

Movies, it was after five months into the film's midnight run when Lions began to be shouted by the audience. Louis Friese Jr., a normally quiet teacher upon seeing the character Janet place a newspaper over her head to protect herself from the rain, yelled, buy an umbrella, you cheap bitch.

This is, by the way, a mousy kindergarten teacher from, like, Staten Island, who like is super shy and was one of the first big callouts. There's other people as well, Amy Lazarus, Teresa, Krakoskas, and Bill O'Brien, among others. And they all would always, they actually got a permanent spot in the front row balcony of the midnight showing every single week and just started creating these shoutouts.

Some would they would drop, but others they would keep and they slowly just started building this thing that I think the most fascinating thing about this entire story, this entire episode to me, is that these things, these people. were creating in this one particular movie theater in New York City eventually became things that were being shouted out at movie screens in the South, in the West, in the Midwest, everywhere, these specific lines. It's really cool, too, because you kind of, at least I get very interested in how things spread before social media. Like, when we were kids, when we would all know the same little games and stuff. And it is really. Or like fact toys, like how fact toys spread from the penis to the vagina.

Or like on my grundle up into my my butt hole. Yeah. Like how did it hop, skipping a jump up there? How did you catch factoids? Yeah. Yeah. We peed after sex. How did I get these factoids?

Wait, do women not have good? Do I not have a grundle? I do have a grundle, right? Yeah, it goes, oh, Jackie feed me. Quiet down. Quiet down, Jackie's grondle. You were saying, Natalie? Yeah, a lot of the, I'm sure a lot of the callbacks

did get transmitted genital to genital over the years. But there was a couple other ways that it happened, one of which was a showing of the film at the 76 World Science Fiction Convention helped spread a lot of these trends and little... Counterpoint's dialogue is what they call specifically... Yeah, a lot of these scripts that the audiences were making. And it is one of the ways that stuff used to spread. still does. We still love conventions in our society, especially now, but it reminds me of

like the world's fair is how we got on, like, technology and inventions got spread, and it's, it's really one of the ways that Rocky Horror spread. And also, I found a very fun little factoid of my own. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Have you been in my hotel room? There were a few different, yeah, I don't, I'm sorry, you didn't see me there. I was behind the curtains. Weird. Weird. There was a... You're coming here, Jack Grundel?

Not right now. A lot. The shadow casts were a different phenomenon that happened simultaneously, which is when you go to the live shows, the audience is doing callbacks, but there's usually a cast sort of acting, miming out the parts in front of the screen. And so that started happening at the same time.

One of those places, was in New York, of course, but at the same time, there were actually costume fans doing this in Pittsburgh at a place called the Kings Court Theater. And that, interestingly, later on in the 90s and early 2000s, the Kings Court Theater became a punk venue and coffee shop, which is a place I used to cut school and go to. That's awesome, sirs.

Yeah. That's so cool. It was actually two, also audience members showing up in costume, happened in Halloween of 1976. They started showing up in costume which is separate from the people acting it out. I believe too

there was some discussion for at least the New York side that these actouts were happening not during the show but before the show to get people in the mood they would play the entire soundtrack of the film

and people just started getting up and just like lip syncing to it but they didn't not during the actual showing of the movie so that was maybe something to that also creating that act out element. So that's so many elements we just talked about that completely transforms this way away from being any sort of normal film-going experience.

Oh, another thing that I thought was really funny about the counterpoint dialogue, there's a guy who does a really good history of the whole audience participation thing on the actual Rocky Horror fan site, which still exists and is still thriving. and he talked about how he even would go to midnight showings like in states in the south like if he was visiting from away from New York and he would just be like yelling that shit at the theater and people were like what the fuck are you doing?

And like completely the owner of the theater got mad at him the first time and he said when he went back to that theater he was like oh you actually were starting a thing that now is a mainstay of this of this midnight movie actually thank you for bringing that down here because we didn't have that yet. So they were literally like pioneering it all over the country.

You know, they like, they would bring it to L.A. They would bring it. And that's how, because it's not just that people yell stuff out of the film that blows my mind. It's that people all over the country are yelling the same shit. And it's before the internet too. So it's like, so it has to be word of mouth. Yeah. Which makes it even cooler.

It is. And I have noticed there are regional differences sometimes. But there are mostly the hugest ones are the same everywhere. You know, everybody develops their own little bits. What are some of the mainstays, Natalie, if you can remember? Oh, my God, there's so many. I was blown away. Well, that exactly is why I asked, and it's all good if you can't remember any because...

Well, Holden, what do you call your grundle? Because that's my West Coast word. Oh, I call it my Scroogie. Oh, that's East Coast Scroogies get to watch out. They are covered in slime. And he talks like this. And my dogs are like more like this. I guess it's a West Coast thing.

I was blown away by the sheer amount. of callout stuff. It doesn't end. I mean, it's the whole movie, including, I mean, it starts within the title sequence. There's already like 50 in there. Yeah. There's so many just to begin it.

Anyway, so you can actually look up a script on that fan site, and it'll give you the full rundown of all of the more uniform callouts that are said throughout the country. It is pretty mind-blowing how much stuff there is. And a virgin like me would never catch up. No, you would. You would easily. A lot of it is just doing opposing lyrics over, that are dirtier than the actual lyrics.

That are dirtier. But there's also all of the props that you bring to, you bring toast, you bring toilet paper, you bring newspapers and umbrellas. Water guns too. Water guns, yeah. Yes. And card to playing cards. Here's an example. At one point, and it has to be timed really well.

It's like right before I believe touch it touched me, you go, hey, Janet. And she like looks at the screen. And then you go, want to fuck? Yeah. Stuff like that. Then there's one, yeah, there's one that's like, first the eyes, then the Twitch, then the screaming little bitch. And it's like calling out the stuff that's happening on the screen.

Yes. And you also call her a slut every time she comes on screen, right? I believe so, yeah. And Dick for. Asshole slut. Yeah, that's what it is. Asshole slut. So funny.

And yeah, you mentioned the props. I mean, that all again happened super organically. I'm just surprised theaters were cool with it. I mean, it sounds to me like throwing rice. A nightmare, if you were. worked there. Can you imagine working having a feed up? Oh, yeah, for sure. I also do think it's funny because it's almost like a little mini prediction that apparently

so when the film originally came out and Roger Ebert put out his review of it, he had said, he gave it two and a half stars and he said the Rocky Horror Picture Show would be more fun, I suspect, if it weren't a picture show. It belongs on a stage with the performers and audience joining in a collective send-up. And he was spot on. Super right. And now it has the longest theatrical run of any movie of all time. Because still, I mean, you know, when the movie theaters are open, you can.

But also, in thinking about this, though, in our new world, will we be able to do this show again? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. In the scheme of, long scheme of pandemics, this is a pretty tame one. We'll be okay. I love that you brought up Roger Ebert because we brought up beyond the valley of the dolls earlier. and he totally wrote that screenplay.

And also touching on the, I don't know why the theaters let them do that stuff. Back in the 70s especially, a lot of these were at sex theaters. So they're like, at least it's not jazz. At least it's not, you don't,

it's not much as much. As much jazz, yeah. But either way, water guns, newspapers on the head, that sort of thing, rice, streamer toilet paper,

confetti, all of these things were brought into the theater. When he says it, I think probably the hardest one to clean up is when they say, when Frankenfurter says a toast, you throw toast in the air which I imagine just gets crunched

under everybody's feet. And I was reading something about how some people really, they debate over whether or not the toast has to be buttered or not. They say no butter. They say no butter because it makes too much of a mess. Yeah, you'd be slipping and sliding all over the place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's why it's good that the Jizz is in the theater, because the Jizz, you'll slip into the Jiz and then get caught on the jills. You're like, oh, thank God that jizz saved my life. Thank you, old man. Oh, yeah, I got a dirtiest trick for you. Oh, so I'll say, that jizz saved my life tonight. I'm always singing that.

By mid-1978, the film played in 50 locations on Fridays and Saturdays at midnight, and by the end of 1979, there were twice-weekly showings at over 230 theaters. Dang. All I got left is talk about the sequel. Do you have anything else before? we, uh, before we get into that. No, I did just have, I thought it was very interesting because, you know, in thinking of just the, the phrase sweet transvestite, I was reading a lot into, they had put Rocky Horror Picture show, they did a live version of it a couple of years ago,

and Laverne Cox played Frankenfurter. And Laverne Cox in an interview was asked about how she felt about the phrase sweet transvestite and how did you feel singing it and did you feel that it was something that would you wish it could have been changed? And she says, it's well-meaning but just a very antiquated term. As Coxu plays the role in the new version described it,

she said the phrase now plays as a self-conscious throwback, one of many in the movie. She even goes on to say, I mean, the whole premise of the film is that Brad and Janet, their car is broken down and they need to use a phone, she said with a laugh,

In 2016, they'd have a cell phone and they'd just call AAA. So, like, in laughing it off of like, yeah, it's, it is a, it's set in the 70s. It is a different time period. I can't even imagine what the, I'm sure they could change the song Sweet Transvestite, but that is, it's part of it. I mean, I don't know if we want to, like, rewrite those sorts of things because I don't, it's not, there are, of course, there's certain points where you do want to do that. But I think this was coming from a place of gender.

queer people, and this is how they were expressing that in the 70s. And maybe you wouldn't do that now. Yes. Maybe you wouldn't do that now, but I don't know that it's necessary to change that. It's in my opinion, at least. Yeah, I agree. My gross, straight opinion. Ew.

Ew. Yuck, my grundle doesn't like you anymore. I'm mad at about the opinion. I did it. Not now. Scroo. Scroo. I say we should watch.

Let's do an episode on the English patient. It's running Oscar. No, that's not weird. You're talking as my, Grondo. Grando, what are you talking about? It's a very good film. We don't care about the English patient. You know this about us.

It's about a patient, and the patient is English. And it's very English. I love it. I sleep during it. Go to sleep. You go to sleep now. I'm closing my legs. There we go.

All right, now we can talk about the sequel. Now we can talk about the sequel. Attempts at the sequel and then the spiritual is the sequel. It's the sequel. Okay. I'll go with that. O'Brien wrote a sequel in 1979 called Rocky Horror Shows His Heels, which would bring back all the characters

from the original film. However, Sharman didn't want to do it like that, and Tim Curry didn't want to reprise his role. So instead, in 1981, Charmin O'Brien did, and O'Brien did shock treatment, which is a standalone and more of a spiritual sequel that used most of the songs from Show His Heels, although they did repurpose a lot of the lyrics.

I need to say what this movie is about. so I have not seen shock treatment. I can't find it. I'm so pissed. I wanted to watch it last night in preparation for this. I also have never watched it. Have none of us seen this movie? No.

My friend Jeff, who I do my cocktail stream with, he loves it. He says it's really fucking good. I've had, because, yeah, I got panned, but I've had a lot of, I've read a lot of things of Rocky fans who say it's actually not, it's not bad. It's just not, wait, it's not really sequel to Rocky.

So if you're going in for that, It might be bummed out about it. Right. This plot apparently, the Brad and Janet show was devised. And it went through a few. Originally, it was also at one point called the Brad and Janet show. So we find Brad and Janet married and in Denton, USA, which has been turned into a TV studio where its residence lives are documented in various

photo reality shows. The couple appear on marriage maze, hosted by Bert Schnick, who is Barry Humphrey's best known for his Dame Edna character, but Brad winds up transferred to Denton Vale, a soap opera set in a psychiatric hospital to be cured by sibling doctors,

Cosmo, and Nation McKinley. Janet is groomed to be a singer. Thanks to the actions of Farley Flavors, a fast food mogul who runs the town. We soon learn that it's all part of Flavors scheme to get Brad, who's also

his twin brother, out of the way so he could have Janet on his own. It's up to two other characters, Betty Hapschat and Judge Oliver Wright, to reunite the couple so that all four can escape Denton. That sounds insane. But isn't it crazy how ahead of its time it was? Because reality TV wasn't in existence then when he made this movie.

He really predicted reality TV. True, true, true, true, true. Also, it's important to note that Brad and Janet are played by different actors, but a lot of the cast from Rocky Horror is in it playing different characters. So Brad and Janet are in it as different people, and the cast is in it as different characters. It's weird. And Tim Curry is not in it. No.

Tim Curry is not in it. Yeah, it's very, very weird. And it did not do very well. It's super failed. and I think that's kind of what affected there ever being a proper sequel after that because you also have Revenge of the Old Queen which was another attempt at a direct sequel done by O'Brien

however it stopped short during pre-production when the head of Fox left and was replaced in 1993 there were bootleg copies though or there still are rather of the script in circulation as well as the original demo tape of the music so you can mentally piece the show together in your mind Grendel Grondul whatever

Oh. Lastly, back in 2000, O'Brien worked on another sequel called Rocky Horror, the second coming, which didn't make it past a first draft. And there you have it. That's all I've got, dang it. That's my factoids have been removed from my body. I just got tested positive for the factoid antibodies. I have stopped the spread.

Congratulations. Oh, so you can rub your taint on people again? Absolutely. I can't wait to do that while telling them facts. I'm excited about that. Thank you guys so much for joining us. This was so much fun. And now I need the world to open so I can go to my first.

Yeah, we got to go. I'm ready to be a virgin. You got to do it. I want to be a virgin again too. If it's been in well over a decade, maybe you become a virgin again. Like my hymen's grown back over. My Rocky Hyman. Yeah, Rocky Hyman.

Hi. Also, we need to all watch the, we got to find the sequel because I want to watch it. Oh, yeah. Yes, we must find it. And also this is kicking off. Welcome the rest of pop histories for the month of October. Are going to be spooky sco-oh. And I'm very excited.

This is our little tiptoe into doing our spooky topics. And y'all know I'm a little bit of a got girl. And I am excited for it. Hell yeah, you witches. It's going to be a good one. My name is Jackie. My name's Holden. My name is Adalie.

And together we're the fun bunch. Fun bunch Fun bunch Fun bunch Fun bunch More like fun gunch Yeah Natalie We're like naked lunch

No I like the other one better More like the clowns of the K But either way We have to leave All right we gotta go Check us out Check me out Twitch.tvon tv forward slash

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