The Rocky Horror Picture Show Podcast Episode

Should Know Army. Came straight from them. We got emails they said, hey, the stuff you should Army is chattering about about Rocky Horror Picture show. Uh. They they have been shivering with Antissa patient, very nice and so uh this is it Stuff you should Know Army. Yeah. Um oh and also in return, you guys, if you haven't already, go donate to co ED because we're running out of time. These the last few days of the and uh our pledge drive, our fun drive, I don't know what you

call it, are awesome drive drive. Yeah, the d is in parentheses. Um it ends on January one or December thirty one pm, who knows. But you can go to Cooperative for Education dot org slash s y s K donate and we're going to reach that million dollar goal. I just know it. I totally agree, and I'm super

excited for this episode. Our years winding down. Yeah, just so you know in real time, you know, Josh and I always take a nice long extended Christmas break from recording, and it has gotten bigger and bigger every year, and this year, I'm not gonna say how long we have all from recording, but it's a nice, unprecedented break. It's a chunk of change, and we're we love doing the show, but that Christmas December downtime is a wonderful thing for us. Yeah.

We worked hard throughout the year, so hard, so you better treat us right. So, UM, let's go start talking about Rocky Horror Picture Show. UM, quick question, are you a virgin? Yeah? So I guess I should quickly go over we should both kind of go over our history with this. UM. I have never been to a live in the movie theater Rocky Horror Picture Show showing, which includes, as you will see, the shadow cast, all the fun of the audience participation. I have seen it. I remember

when it finally came to home video. It was it took a long time. It wasn't like one of those. It was just always out there. Oh I remember movies like that. Yeah. Yeah, So there was like a lot of fanfare when Rocky Horror finally came to home video, and I really got into it for a while there, watching it with friends and watching it at home. To the tune of seeing it. I've probably seen the movie on at home probably six or eight times. Okay, yeah,

so I am technically a virgin. Uh, but I'm gonna go now, like I have to go now because Atlanta has one of the great sort of legendary theaters that still do this twice a month. Yeah. I think the group that puts on the shadow cast is called Lips Down on Dixie the Plaza Theater. Um. Yeah, it sounds like a good time for sure. What's your deal? I have not ever been either, and I thought that I wasn't a virgin. I thought if you had seen the movie,

you were not a virgin. No, you're right, if you you have to go to a live screening of it, um to to not be a virgin any longer. Um. So, yeah, I've seen it a bunch of times to I love the soundtrack soundtrack is really good. To clean the house too, I have to say, um, like you will be dancing with your swiffer very quickly. Um. But yeah, it's a great movie. I watched it again this morning. It was really bizarre to watch it in the morning. You know,

it's not it just doesn't jibe with that. I watched uh, quite a bit of it today too, not all of it, but I kind of want to make sure I saw the musical numbers because I just love those. And I also, as many times as I've seen it, it's been a long long time, so I couldn't exactly remember the third act as well. I think it's one of those films that the first two acts are a little more famous

than the third act. I mean, you know, the time worp is the second number, well, the third, I guess if you count the beginning song, which we're gonna talk about the second but yeah, you got you know, and then uh, you know Tim Curry's legendary sweet transvestite song and that entrance in that performance gat Yeah, come up to the lab, see what's on the slab. I mean, like he's just he couldn't have been more perfect. And

as we'll see in a second. He was also not an obvious choice to cast as Dr Frankenfurter as the character you play. So let's get into this. Okay. For people who have never seen Rocky Horror Picture Show, it is a bizarre musical um camp fest that uh. Dave, who helps us out with this one, describes as a send up, which I I know intuitively what send up means, but I've never seen like an actual definition of it. Yeah, so I think it's I I made, I made up my own if I if you don't mind me sharing

affectionate mockery. Yeah, it's like an affectionate homage slash mockery, I think, right. So it's a send up of fifties sci fi in horror movies like b movies, UM, things like Forbidden Planet, um, The Day of the Earth Stood Still, all of the canon of ed Wood, um, all that stuff. Uh. And it's so it's kind of a tribute to that. But it's also, like I said, super camp and it's definitely its own thing, so much so that it was made in and it does not seem like something from

the past. It has a timeless quality to it weirdly enough. Yeah, I would agree with that it's sort of in that um sort of same weird rock opera thing is Tommy, where when you look at Tommy, it looks um, sort of dated and old fashioned but also also somehow still sort of of its time and futuristic or of today's time and futuristic, but not at all anywhere near as serious or not serious at all, Like Tommy took Itself. It's not serious, it's just neat. Yeah, I guess Tommy

took itself fairly seriously. Um, so, uh, the plot, if we can talk about the plot, right, yeah, I mean I don't necessarily think we should give everything away, definitely, I think we can nutshell it. But the idea is that there are these two characters, Brandon Janet, who are very straight laced, um sort of uh maybe Rubes but sort of too young, naive characters that are had been to a wedding and are talking about getting married themselves. And they go on a little road trip and it's

a very sort of classic trophy thing. You know. The car gets a flat and the only thing around is this creepy castle in the rain, and they knock on the door and all sorts of crazy, funny, fun sexual hijinks, sci fi hijinks and sue. Yeah. So they start out as just as white bread as you can be, and then by the end of the movie they're like they're they're both wearing garter belts and stockings and bikini briefs and courses. Yeah, um, like they they've just gone through

the sexual transformation. But also, you know, I think a life transformation, I guess, and I want to say also there's plenty of analysis and like, um, you know, writing about subtexts and all that stuff. This has always struck me as one of those movie is that like it's just not meant for that. You're not supposed to like try to look too deep into it. You're just supposed

to enjoy it on its face. I totally agree. So again, not to give too much away if you haven't seen it, but the the head of this uh castle is Dr Frank In Further, who is the Tim Curry character who in that great song Sweet Transvestite. The lyrics are sweet Transvestite from trans Sexual Transylvania, as we learn in the film, and it's it's just sort of goofy that they threw the sci fi element in there, which is really fun.

But trans Sexual is the home planet of Franken further and Transylvania is the galaxy, and so he's sort of Frankenstein, this ubermanch uh on on the slab. And uh, that's kind of the plot. I mean, all kinds of u seductions take place over the course of the movie at various times, different characters seducing one another. There's a lot

of gender fluidity and sort of. Um, it was a movie ahead of its time in a lot of ways in that respect, and since it's become obviously a huge movie in the l g t b Q community, Yeah for sure. Um, so that's the movie. Uh, and it didn't actually start out a movie. It started out of stage play um in London actually. So the guy who plays riff Raff is named Richard O'Brien. Riff Raff is Dr Frankenforter's like eagle or like assistant. He has a huge hunchback and like stringy hair and like dark circles

under his eyes. And um, he was thirty one years old by the way when this got kicked off. Oh really, he always just struck me as looking super old. But then when I kind of you know, look today, with more of a critical I was like, he doesn't look old old, but the circles under his eyes it kind of made him up to to look a little creepier. But he just I never pictured that guys being in

his early thirties. No, And actually, if you see later interview with them, he stayed basically the same, looking the same from that point on. Um, not dark circles under his eyes, but he didn't seem to age at all. But that guy was named Richard, or is named Richard O'Brien. He was the creator of the whole thing and played

a pretty big role in the movie as well. Um, and I believe he played riff raff in the stage production too, right, Yeah, so he was a New Zealander who moved to London in the seventies in the early seventies and you know, didn't have great prospects for jobs. He was a stunt man for a little while. He got some gigs acting on stage, but not a lot of them and was basically bored, like he's been on record saying like this was sort of like me doing

the cross word, was me writing these uh songs. He's sort of um, kind of fun and funny songs about uh, those sci fi B movies that he loved from the nineteen fifties. This was before Netflix, by the way. This is before Netflix. So the whole thing that kicked this off was really auspicious. Um. There there he was friends with some people who were musicians, and there was an

E m I party. The record label had a big party, and his musician friends said, Hey, do you want to record a song to play at this E m I party. This is like a truck driver stuntman actor that they're asking, But I guess he had developed enough of a reputation

for writing cool songs that they asked him. And he wrote UM Science Fiction Double Feature, which is the song that sung uh during the opening credits of the movie Rocky Horror Picture Show UM, where, even if you haven't seen the movie, I'm sure you're familiar with the iconic um disembodied bright red lips against white teeth on a

black background that comes from the intro of the movie. UM. And when he played this song, uh, he I guess he got enough of a response to it that he decided to kind of take that song and some of his other songs and cobble him together into like a loose plot that really never got more fleshed out and ended up writing a stage play out of the whole thing. Yeah, it was called the Rocky Horror Show after I think the working title was they came Is it Denton High

or Dent High School? Denton High? Okay, they came from Denton High, which I guess the idea was that Brad and Janet were from Denton because the church at the beginning is Denton Episcopalian Church. Yeah, okay, so they changed the title. I think his friend was stage director. He showed it to Jim Sharman said, they came from Denton High. It is not a great title. Uh. And the name of the uh Frankenstein like um, you know model with perfect abs that Frankenfurter has built is named Rocky Horror.

So that's got a ring to it. Let's call it the Rocky Horror Show. And they did. Apparently it was just in time for previews, so they were able to change the name at the last minute. And that was Man, that was a close call if you really stop and

think about it. So Jim Sharman and Richard O'Brien um managed to talk their way into like a space above the Royal Court Theater in London, and the Royal Court Theater was like a serious, legitimate playhouse UM, and above it was an experimental theater that I think sat sixty three or sixty eight people. And they started performing this thing and within weeks it was like the thing to see in London. They sold out. And again it's not that tough to sell out sixty three or sixty eight seats.

It was more like the buzz around. It was just so just so gripping, and it happened so quickly that it just took off like a rocket. In very short order. They started touring. They they sent a touring company to cities all over Europe UM showing people this thing, and

everybody was going nuts for Yeah. And in another turn of fate, I guess you could say Tim Curry was an actor at the Royal Court Theater UM obviously not some you know, huge name at the time, and was cast because of that association with the Royal Court as Dr Frank and Further, who was originally going to uh he was going to play it German because Frankenfurther obviously

is a German uh German word. But I think in the interview, he talked about it and said that he he was experimenting around with accents and he found this the posh British thing really worked and said the character should sound like the Queen. Yeah, and UH was originally also supposed to be more of a classic mad scientists, white lab coat kind of doctor. Uh. And in another wonderful twist of fate, Uh, they hired a woman named Sue Blaine to do the costumes because you know, they

needed to bring this. They didn't have a lot of money at first. We'll talk about the movie budget too, but Sue Blaine basically said, you know, I got almost nothing in Uh. Came up with these ideas for the ripped fishnet hose. And I think she had worked with Tim Curry before on a play in Scotland where he played a character in drag and she was like, you

look good in heels and a corset. So if it hadn't have been for all those sort of weird things coming together, Uh, it might have been a German mad scientists in a white lab coat, which is really hard to imagine. Once you know Frankenfurter, this movie wouldn't be we wouldn't be talking about it right now, if they if they had been a white lab coat, I'm sure

of it. No, really, I don't. I think Tim Curry's character was such a huge part of the popularity of it that, yeah, it just wouldn't have been the same. And by the way, Sue Blaine's um uh costuming budget for the original stage version was four dollars, which is peanuts even back in nine pounds or dollars, let's say pounds, all right, so maybe a few extra shekels. Yeah, that's another thing too. We should say there's a lot of made up information about Rocky Horror and its origins and

like the real story of it. So it's all fun, but um, you have to like really kind of wade through it. And if something sounds like no way, you may want to stop and say, probably no way. But it's still fun. So we'll mention things here there. But I think we should kind of give like a little

caveat to them like that, how about that? Yeah, And this is one of those fans centric, uh pieces of entertainment where I'm sure there are people out there will be that will be fact checking us, right, that's the kindest way to say it. I'm literally sweating because I'm so nervous about that. I think we should take a break and then very quickly when we come back, I will retell my Tim Curry story from Los Angeles. Sorry, Georsh, all right, Uh, we're back. No, I've said this before,

but I think I can't not say it again. I actually had two rocky horror sort of run INDs in l A when I lived there, and when I got my cat, Lauren, who was dearly departed. I found Lauren in a dumpster behind my apartment, took him in, took him to the vet, and as I was checking out at my vet, I look over and there's Tim Curry. And when I say look over, he was like two ft from me. Wow, was he staring at you? I

don't know if he was or not. He was shorter than I thought, which was kind of surprising because I don't know. This character just seemed so larger than life. Well, he was whearing like six inch platform heels. Yeah, that as well, But when Tim Curry is like I think he's listed at five nine, and that's usually fudging a little bit. Like he was shorter than I was. Uh. And I went to write a check to pay for it. And I was holding Ran and I said, would you

mind holding my kitten? And he was like absolutely. And Lauren was really funny looking. He had these huge ears. He had a a gray back, uh, and the rest of him was black and he eventually grew in all black hair. I have no idea. It was kind of a silver back. But he picked him up. That's why l A is so great man. The weirdest things happened in the most unlikely places. He stared at him and said, Lauren, you have very dramatic ears. And he went and look

at your back. You look like a baboon. And he held Lauren while I wrote the check and I had like skipped out of there. It was like one of the great days. So that's what I don't really, I don't know if you've told it before. Oh I don't see how I couldn't have held onto that one for fifteen years, Like I really, it rings zero belt whatsoever. And there's enough dimentions to it that something should be like, oh, yeah, I've heard that one. This this story has not been

told before, and it is a fantastic story. All right, Well there's my Tim Curry story. What's the other rocky horror running you had. Well, I know I've talked about um that I was friends with Meat Loaf's daughter for a little while in l A. Oh, yes, sweet Potato, I can't believe you're laughing like that. That's funny. Oh that's a good one. Um. Yeah, I was sort of friends with her and her boyfriend for a very short time in l A. That was just a weird crossover

where my friend's girlfriend worked for meats ex wife. Uh. And he did want to be called meat by the way. But I never met him, but I hung out at his house a few times. Uh. And he had a TV that came out of a case at the foot of his bed. Oh, I've seen that before via remote control. You know. I was pretty astounded at the time. I should say I've never seen it in person. I've seen it like on on TV. Yeah. It was cool though, walking around his house like rock memorabilia and all kinds

of stuff. I wanted to meet him, but never got a chance. I like the Tim Curry story better. It's better for sure. So, uh, where did we leave off? Oh? The stage play is on Fire and they and they toured it and Tim Curry played Frank Inverter everywhere except Australia. I think, oh really, Okay, so the original cast tour it. They didn't have a traveling cast. That's amazing. No, they were pretty as you'll see when they went to make the movie. They were very loyal to that original cast

as much as they could be. Yeah, for sure. So um by four they moved it over to Los Angeles, and I guess then, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Most of the cast went over to Los Angeles, and including Tim Curry. But one of the people they added in Los Angeles was meat Loaf And I never realized, but you know, mel Off is pretty famous. He was not famous. He was maybe a rising star at the time,

but he really gained his fame after Rocky Horror. And this is a really weird choice for him, but he did it and he stuck to it, and uh, it was a really good move too, because he's got this whole other legend that, like his actual other fan base probably couldn't care less about um. And then he has, like the Rocky Horror fans, two separate fan bases because

he made this very smart choice back in four. I would argue three fan bases because he's got a bunch of like creepy guys who only know him as the guy from Fight Club. Oh yeah, Robert Paulson. Yeah, we we have a friend who listens with that name, I know, and he's he's heard it all. Yeah, I know. I'm not gonna say it again, all right. So the um they go to, l a Meat comes on board. It's

a big hit everywhere they go. So of course the movie industry comes a stick in their nose into it, and they say, well, why don't you make it this into a film? And so the Rocky Horror Show became the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And they did not have

a lot of money for a budget either. But the kind of the cool part of the story is they were offered more budget if they would put some sort of bigger rock and roll stars of the time in the major roles, and O'Brien said, no, I want to keep everybody like basically the same, and I'll do it for less money. And that's exactly what they did. Yeah, about one and a quarter million. I also saw one

point four million. Um and even today and this was Fox, twentieth century Fox, that would be like twentieth century Fox giving somebody six and a half million dollars to make a movie today, Like it was a shoe string budget. I mean, so shoe string. And poor Sue Blaine, she had a four hundred dollar budget for the stage play. Originally she had like a fifteen dollar budget for the movie. Well he's the same costume, so she had a leg up there. Yeah, but still you're not supposed to have

to recycle the stage plays costumes for the movie, you know. Yeah, alright, so they have their meager budget, they make the film. It's released in September nineteen seventy five as uh, in a limited release in some test markets. Reviews weren't great. Uh, it is a very weird I mean it's it's amazing, but it's a very weird movie that critics I could see not getting on board with right away before there's like a cult established around it. But then it's remarkable.

It never got a nationwide release, but even Roger Ebert back then gave it a lukewarm review, but said that it belongs on a stage with the performers and audience joining in and a collective send up. Because word had trickled out that this was starting a little bit here and there. Yeah. I don't know if he was aware of that or not, but or if he was just

prescient about it. But yeah, I think by venty six, Um, April first, nineteen seventy six, Uh, the tradition of showing Key Horror Picture Show at midnight started in Greenwich Village actually at the Waverley Theater. And um, this, this is the thing about Rocky Horror Picture Show. Up to this point, we've been talking about a stage play, a movie, and

it's been following a pretty standard trajectory. Um, the movie was just panned and it got shelved, but they were still showing it here there because it was weird enough that Greenwich Village would have gone crazy for it. Where Rocky Horror Picture Show differs is what happens at the midnight showings, and that is the audience participation that um, Roger Ebert said would really kind of make the movie better.

And it's just it's what makes Rocky Horror Picture Show Rocky Horror Picture Show, or at the very least it's what has made it continue on all these years. I think, yeah, I mean, I think it's grossed over a twenty million dollars now total Yeah, over the years, and this is a be that did never get a nationwide release, which is not remarkable. And I think it's also the longest running theatrical film release in movie history too, it's gotta be. Yeah, that's as far as I understand it is. Yeah, the

Plaza does it still twice a month. They're doing it tomorrow. Uh, And I'm not gonna go tomorrow because Emily's birthday parties tomorrow night. But I'm gonna I'm gonna go soon. And they mercifully started at eleven o'clock because when I was thinking about I was like, am I really gonna go somewhere at midnight? Like listeners that aren't fifty years old yet may not understand you don't go somewhere at midnight anymore.

When you're fifty years old. You you've been asleep for a couple of hours by it on many nights that it's true. Like even the thought of it makes me tired, like I I can't, I can't do that. I'm gonna pick out a nice time though, when my daughter is like staying at my mom's and I'm gonna I'm gonna make sure I do this because I did watch a lot of them, a lot of YouTube videos of the participation,

and it just looks like so much fun. So what's interesting about this is that audience participation and everything that kind of you that you would experience when you went to a Rocky Horror Picture Show live screening today just kind of happened organically. A little bit by little bit, people people around the country and around the world started kind of contributing, and those ideas would just spread and burgon and become part of the Rocky Horror Picture Show experience.

And the whole thing started because the Waverley showed this this movie enough times and UM the manager would get the crowd like ready for it by playing the soundtrack to the stage show. So by the time people had come a few times to see the movie, they have memorized the lyrics generally because they're pretty catchy lyrics. UM, and that kind of created like this idea of UM people who really kind of knew this movie and could sing along and talk along and just they just kind

of absorbed it into their cells. Yeah, so people are singing this song during the run up to the showing of the film. H And by the way, big thanks to UM Dave got a lot of this stuff, and we got a lot of our extra stuff from the official Rocky Horror Picture Show fan site Rocky Horror dot com UH, founded by Salpiro, just a wealth of information. UH in a love letter to the film. It's a it's a fun website, but they're pre showing it. They're

singing these songs. And then, according to the legend, on Labor Day of nineteen seventy six, Labor Day weekend, there was a Staten Island kindergarten teacher name I guess it's Louis or Lewis Freese, and this person was the first person, as far as the legend goes, to yell something back at the screen when something happened on the screen, And that was when Susan Surrandon gets out in the rain at the beginning of the film, puts a newspaper overhead

to act as an umbrella, and supposedly he yelled out by an umbrella, you cheap expletive, and supposedly that started the call outs. Yeah, and you can actually, if you're watching the movie, you don't even have to have gone to uh A live showing UM. You can pick out the exact moment, like the people who made this movie new enough to make a movie, but they also didn't know enough to make a movie that, like, you know,

moved along really quickly. There's there's this moment where you're watching Brad and Janet get out of the car and then walk around the car, just stuff that an editor normally would cut out, and so I think just the fact that that was left in and triggered that guy to say that it's almost like the movie, Um, they encouraged it itself. I just think that's so fascinating. Yeah, it just definitely seems like a movie where just fate had so many little hands in it. Uh, if you

believe that kind of thing. So people started dressing up a little more and more, and this was mainly in the lead up to Halloween ninety six. Then Halloween came and went and people were still dressing up, and people started bringing props. I think the original prop was they would tear up their programs to use his confetti in the wedding scene, and then they were like, why don't we just bring rice? And then all of a sudden they were bringing all kinds of props to use during

the film. So now you have people singing along, people in costume, people shouting back at the screen at various, um, well timed points, and then you have these props, right, and all of this is happening mostly at the Waverley Theater, but there's theaters and other cities that are showing the

movie as well. Um. And so somebody from New York might go see a midnight showing in San Francisco and all of a sudden, all the stuff that they've been developing in New York, this one New Yorkers just schooling the San Francisco rocky horror fans, and uh, it just spread very quickly like that, I mean like really quickly. And again, like I was saying earlier, it just became this cohesive whole that now if you go to one of these shows like, this is what's going to happen.

These are the props at these certain times, and all of it just happened organically, Yeah, which is really remarkable in a pre internet age that this can spread through word of mouth like that strongly. Uh, but that's exactly

what happened. And then so you've got all these people dressed up, you have people knowing all these songs and the movie by heart basically, and apparently in the balconies of some of these theaters people would sort of be acting out the movie and then they were like, why don't we just go down front under the screen, uh, or a lot of times there's a stage under the screen in front of the screen, and let's just do

it down there. And then the literal re enactment of the full film with full cast was born via something that was dubbed shadow casting. Yeah, I mean, like beat for beat, there are people acting out the movie in front of the movie screen. That is like the gist now of going to see Rocky Horror Picture Show in

the theater. And apparently, uh, Michael Wolfson is credited for coming up with the Rocky Horror Review the first organized shadow cast back in n UM and so he may have been the person who thought of this at least putting it on stage in front of the screen. But I mean it's not just people going in their street clothes like acting this out. Like people are in full costume, full makeup. Um. I think that depending on riff raff

changes um costumes. So some people come as igor riffraff, other people come as sci fi riff raff um, so they'll be like they'll alternate who's doing what depending on the scene. And by the way, uh, there is a sci fi riff raff um statue uh in Richard O'Brien's hometown in New Zealand. Oh wow, it's pretty cool looking. I'm curious how the hierarchy of this because it's obviously all precast for the shadow cast. Like, I don't think I could just show up as a virgin dressed like

Brad and be like I want to be Brad tonight. Yeah, I don't know. I have no idea. That's a fascinating question, Like how how does that evolve? Like in a local, local place, like clearly in Atlanta it's organized, there's like a group that does it. But I mean, like, how do you how do you join that group? I don't know. I guess you know, you get on their mailing list. You should if you show up at their meetings and you start agitating for a role. Man, I foresee Chuck's

future here. Oh not the goodn of course it too. Uh So Richard O'Brien gets wind of this um in the seventies that what's going on, and it's just obviously as you would expect, completely knocked out in flatter and it was like, you know, this movie has it all. It's fun, it's campy. You've got the audience up there, you've got the movie playing, you've got these people acting and out I'm three for three. Uh and not in a in a haughty way, but just super proud, I think. Uh.

And then shadow casting spread. There's all kinds of midnight movies now where people shadow cast, um, and one that that is a great one to check out if you ever can, and very heavily influenced music wise too. I think is Head Big in The Angry Inch. Yeah. They also do Clue apparently, which is another Tim Curry great him.

Oh god, it's so good. So if you go, like we said, you were a virgin, and at the very beginning of the show, somebody will come out with a microphone and um, get everybody pumped up and ask the virgins to all stand up. And once you stand up, people around you will probably put a V on your forehead with lipstick. That's the first thing that's probably going to happen to you. I love it. That'll that's the worst thing that's going to happen. Yeah, is what I yeah, so,

uh yeah, that's a great way to put it, Chuck. Um. The thing to remember throughout all this is, um Dave puts it really really well. They're not trying to scare you away. They want you to come back again. This is just part of like this ritual, this process that's developed over the decades. Um. And there's some things that you can expect, uh and can prepare yourself ahead of time. There's tons of off color jokes, UM, mostly sex jokes.

They're almost exclusively sex jokes, UM, sophomoric sex jokes. You can't expect to hear the movie. You're not going to sit down and watch a movie. That's not what you're

going to do. It reminds me of um, remember I can't remember what concert it was on The Simpsons, but everybody else is standing up and auto sitting down, you know, the Rocker bus driver and you go sit down, sit down, You're ruining it for the rest of I can just imagine somebody going to a midnight screening of Rocky horor Picture Show and just expecting to sit there and watch

the movie. You know. Yeah, I mean, if you have hang ups and if you're maybe a little prude about things like this may not be the experience for you because there will be people in various states of undress, like you mentioned, tons of body body sex jokes, and it's just a sort of a raucous good time. Um. But again, my recommendation, this is what I'm gonna do, is just go and say yes to everything. If you're a virgin, they may um drag you up there and

teach you the time warp during that point in the movie. Uh, they you might get sprayed when when it's the rain. I mean I think everyone kind of gets sprayed when it rains. I think they tend to aim for the virgins. Yeah, but just again, if you're not up for sort of a fun, interactive, uh multi media experience, then maybe just don't go right Yeah, and if you are a prude, this is your big chance to break out of your shell. Yeah, totally, so, Chuck, I say we take another break and we'll come back

with more on the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sorry, Um, we should probably say we've been using some antiquated terms for transgender people, but it's because it's part of the movie and I think the movie is so iconic and so in favor of gender fluidity. And this is decades before where we are today, when gender fluidity has really broken out, and I mean it's basically become mainstream in

a lot of ways. Um, this is forty five, almost fifty years before, right, Um, So, I think that the popularity and the iconic nous of the movie has actually kind of given a pass that no one's offended by by the use of transvestite or trans sexual in the context of that movie. Yeah, I think everyone understands these

were the terms of the time. When they did the remake with Laverne Cox, who is a new Laverne Cox from Orange is a new black but great transgender actress to play Frankenfurter, I think she was even like, oh, you know, should we update this a little bit, and then finally decided no, the song is so iconic. These were the terms of the day. And again, it's a

It is a blatant love letter. And I believe Richard O'Brien identifies as trans if I'm not mistake in Yeah, uh so, I mean it's a It is for this group of people, this group of people who felt like they were outsiders, who maybe didn't belong in uh, in mainstream society, and these are the people who got dressed up and we went down there and we're so creative and sort of building this culture around it, like it is a very and always has been a very safe

space for for that to occur. And so, um, it's just a great movie for a lot of reasons, and that's certainly one of them. Yeah, I can't imagine how many kids in like Indiana and Iowa and Kansas and Georgia. Uh, we're just had the opportunity to find themselves when they found like midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show and like the people who were there that were like them, that were and this was the only place in their life that they could go and just be themselves like that.

It's really sad to think of, but it's also really heartening to think that they finally did find that place, you know, absolutely, and you know what it did was it was like, um, it created an excuse to put on the corset and the high heels. Uh if although you really need an excuse, but if you were someone struggling with that, you know in the nineties seventies, especially with uh, with your gender fluidity and like just to have a reason like no, mom and dad, like it's

a movie thing. You wear these costumes, and like it gave them a reason to actually go and be themselves. And Tim Curry over the years and Richard O'Brian had both received you know, just hundreds and thousands of of letters and and shout outs from people that said, you know that confirm all of this. They said, like I was able to be myself and I was able to come out because of you and because of this film

and what it did. So it's been a really sort of heartwarming thing, I think, um, for the for the creators and the actors. Yeah, no, for sure. And what again, one of the other reasons that it gets it passes because that that show is so um reaffirming that one of Tim Curry's lines is actually in one of the songs is don't dream it be it, And um, people just latch onto that because if you just stop and think about what it's saying, like that's that's that's kind

of all you need to know. It's almost like the camp be version of uh Yoda's there do or do not? There is no try kind of thing. You know, if you build it, they will come. There are all sorts of classic movie lines there are, and that is one of them. No, it is. It is a super empowering statement, and uh, you know it's it's the kind of thing where I don't think Richard O'Brien really maybe thought about that specific line too much at the time, but it

ends up having so much meaning later on. Uh. And you know, kind of a fun side story that we didn't get too earlier, but Tim Curry lived near the Waverley UH in Greenwich Village in New York when this was going on, and apparently wanted to go and like make an appearance and just knock everyone sucks off and

called ahead to the theater. Um even showed up. Um they let him in, and then I guess it was a couple of It sounds like a couple of rogue theater attendants that hadn't let him in were like, no, this guy's a fake, Like let's get him out of here, and they literally threw Tim Curry out. He gets incensed, gets his passport and shows them, and I think it was like the manager or somebody who had the authority to let him back in was like, I'm so sorry he come back in and he was like, I wouldn't

dream of it, and he left. Yes, that's how you show him, Curry, so he's like, I've got a kitten to hold in Los Angeles. That's right. Uh. There's some other pretty neat little things about the movie to um. One of the ones that I love is Easter eggs. Um, there are actual Easter eggs and hidden in the movie unintentionally because apparently they had an Easter egg hunt on the set and um, they didn't find them all. So

if you really know what to look for. I I didn't see him, but you can find three different Easter eggs throughout the movie. And that's not actually the term or where the term Easter egg comes from. Strangely enough, apparently that was from an Atari game developer from nineteen eighty that that's who really coined that term and where

it came into use from. I think, if I'm not mistaken, from our Nintendo episode, that was Warren Robinette, who wrote the game Adventure and that had the first Easter egg. Oh is that right? I'm pretty sure I saw a guy named Steve Wright. Oh really, yeah, coined the term. Yeah, okay, I think the first Easter egg was an adventure though, but maybe I got you, I got you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, what else? Chuck Well, Susan Sarandon, who was uh, they

were all very young. They're on they're sort of late twenties, early thirties when they're making this. Um. She got pneumonia. Um not too long after she got there. And they shot this movie at at a real old English castle named Oakley Court, which is now a luxury hotel, even though I think at the time it was falling apart such that the owners wanted to raise the place. UM, So they shooted in this legit, drafty old castle. She gets there, she's got pneumonia. She's half undressed for half

the movie. There's a scene in a swimming pool. She's freezing to death and feverish. You know that's cold chills and apparently just had a pretty rough go but was like game through all of it, well even worse, and I saw this confirmed by her. Um, She's like, you have to get me some heated place to to like be sick in between takes. So they gave her a trailer and it did in fact have heat, there were space heaters in it, but they ended up burning the

trailer down. It was that kind of shoot. That's amazing. Another bit of trivia that all rocky horror fans know. But those disembodied lips at the beginning were the lips of Patricia Quinn, who played Magenta and u Hurette. But Uh and signed on with the idea that she was going to sing that song, and she said she loved it. I think she said it was like the most beautiful

song she'd ever heard at the time. But when it came time to actually sing the song, Richard O'Brien sang it, and Patricia Quinn I think, somewhat disappointedly lip syncd it. She was really mad about that. She had basically joined the cast originally UH for the stage show too, because of that song, and so she thought she would have

the opportunity to do it in the movie. And I guess he had her sing And she didn't find out until the movie was released, till she saw it that she she wasn't the one who was singing it at the beginning. Not cool, no, But I think it was a good move because if you listen, I don't think it would be the same with her singing yeah, And

I think it it definitely. Like you said with meat Loaf was he had been in Hair right before this, he had a duo album with this woman, Um, and he was sort of around, but he definitely was not a big star at all. And and Rocky horror his role as Eddie, and especially that the great great song uh Hotpituity Bless my Soul. Uh such a good song. Um. I think people saw that and they were like, there's something to this guy. Yeah, for sure, because he plays

the part really really well. I mean that's a great job. Um. There's a lot of lore around it too. Uh that those people that the producers offered a bigger budget to Richard O'Brien and Jim Sharman to make the movie. Another thing to Chuck that I found fascinating. Um, you mentioned before that the producers had wanted to kind of stack the film version with like rock stars. Um, there's tons of legends about who those were. Share David Bowie, Mick Jagger,

Um as Dr Frankfort would have been pretty good. Actually yeah, but yeah, know he's the only person I could see doing justice to that role. Let me just say that I'm not saying better than Tim Curry, but it would be fascinating to go see for sure. Yeah. Um, so the one that does seem to be actually legitimate that the producers actually did float was Elvis as Eddie replacing meat Loaf with Elvis seventies six Elvis. Wow, yeah, that was near the end. Yeah, and then it was basically

it would be a cool cameo for him. That would have been Oh man, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what that would have been. Like. I mean, he would have been great in that role and singing that number. But can you imagine what kind of like up people that would have thrown that production into Oh yeah, I mean completely imbalanced the movie too. Yeah. You know, you've got all these people who are doing this thing because they love it. And there's Elvis too, you know, yeah,

like Vegas Elvis. Yeah, exactly. Did you see that movie at the Elvis movie? Uh? No, another boss Lerman would Yeah, No, I haven't seen it. It's worth seeing. It's it's it was I think I might have even mentioned it before. It's a bit much, but the the actor does such a great job in recreating those performances. It's it's worth it for that. Um. There's also a little known sequel, the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I did not know this until a couple of days ago. Yeah, I knew about it.

I've never seen it. It's called Shock Treatment, right, Yeah, and it was sort of a loose sequel. Uh did not catch on obviously like Rocky Horror did at all. It was it was basically a big flop. I just remember seeing when I worked at the video store and Athens at Vision Video. I remember seeing the cover uh of Shock Treatment and Countain. I was like, what is this even and then found out later that it was a sequel. Got you, Um, you got anything else? I

got nothing else. I'm gonna go. I encourage uh, everyone else to go that maybe they'll be fun to get some stuff. You should know local listeners to all go on a certain night. That's a great idea. Also, if you want to find you know where you can see one by your house. The Rocky Horror site Rocky Horror dot com um actually has a pretty good list around the country and I think around the world too, because they do it in England. But I've heard they are

way more reserved than one you would go to in America. Yeah, I think so. So that's it for Rocky Horror Picture Show. I hope you enjoyed it, hope it was worth it. Stuff you should know, Army, thanks for the idea. Uh and since I said thanks for the idea, it's time for listener mail. Yeah. Before we get into that, though, we always like to give our end of the year well wishings to everyone who got us through another year. And uh, I believe your lovely wife has a birthday

coming up to right. Yeah, when this comes out, it will be right around Yumi's birthday. Happy birthday, and really coolly in real time, it's right around Emily's birthday, So happy birthday Emily too. It's right her birthdays in a few days. Yeah. Uh so thanks everyone. You know, it's been a rough few years, but I think two shown a little light on us all and uh we hope that continues. And and thanks for hanging in there and letting us keep our jobs again. Yeah, well said Chuck.

You could all fire us. Please don't, though I have to do. Stop listening and we're gone. You should stop putting ideas in people's heads, agreed. Yeah, well from us and from Jerry and all of the gang who work on stuff you should know. Happy New year. Everybody, all right, so we will do a listener mail from the Shakespeare episode about whether Shakespeare really wrote all that stuff? That is maybe one that's my new favorite episode. Oh yeah, I loved that episode. I thought it was so fascinating.

It was just a really a good episode. Aw I love that. Hey guys enjoyed the podcast. I have to admit I am an oxford Ian believer that the seventeenth Earl of Oxford was the real Shakespeare. Many facts about the Earl's life and its reflection in the plays are very convincing. But I also was intrigued by the Earl's own family crest being a lion brandishing a spear. The history of the Earl being a part of the Elizabethan court life, as well as his travels to Italy and

his family life mirror so much in the place. I had the bad form when visiting Stratford upon Avon h the Shakespeare family home. They're having a discussion with another visitor about Edward de Vere possibly being the truth. Shakespeare tour guide was rushing us out. Thanks for the fun discussion. That is from Dana B. Goward. Dania got booted from Stratford upon Avon, I love it. Run out of town. I could see that being a bad place to mention that. Yeah,

I was hoping we would hear from some Oxfordians though. Yeah, thanks a lot, Dana. Thanks for getting in touch, and if you want to be like Dana, everybody, you can get in touch with us as well. Send us an email to Stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.