Dave Thompson - The Rocky Horror Picture Show FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the Campy Cult Classic

Copyright 2016 by Dave Thompson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2016 by Applause Theatre and Cinema Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

All photos are from the authors collection unless otherwise noted.
Every reasonable effort has been made to contact copyright holders and secure permission. Omissions can be remedied in future editions.

The FAQ series was conceived by Robert Rodriguez and developed with Stuart Shea.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Snow Creative Services

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Thompson, Dave, 1960 January 3
Title: The Rocky Horror picture show FAQ : everything left to know about the campy cult classic / Dave Thompson.
Description: Milwaukee, WI : Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015043284 | ISBN 9781495007477 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Rocky Horror picture show (Motion picture)
Classification: LCC PN1997.R57547 T57 2016 | DDC 791.43/72dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043284

www.applausebooks.com

To Laurel, too soon

Contents

First and foremost, a closet of corsets full of fishnet-clad thanks to all the family and friends who joined me on that dark and stormy night, and offered to let me use their phone.

Especially to Chloe Mortenson, fearless research assistant and photo-finder supreme; this books bristles with her priceless contributions and enthusiasm.

To Amy Hanson, who would happily watch the Picture Show every night of the week, but draws an uncrossable line with even annual glimpses at Shock Treatment .

To Jen, Magenta in those magical days when you couldnt simply rent the outfit from the costumiers down the road; and who agrees that Richard OBriens Disaster was a lot better than any other history book has ever let on.

To Chrissie Bentley, for wonderful words and some appropriate weirdness; and to everyone else with whom I spoke, both as this book took shape and in the years beforehand. Including: Gary Glitter, Jonathan King, TV Smith, Tom Woodger, Michael DesBarres, Tony Zanetta, Jayne County, Judy Dyble, Andrew John Mitchell, Gary Weightman, Christopher Malcolm, Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker, Mick Ronson, Malcolm McLaren and Leee Black Childers.

And to all the others whose memories, thoughts and laughter resound through these pages.

To all at FAQ Central Headquarters, but most especially John Cerullo, Marybeth Keating, Wes Seeley, and Gary Morris.

To Jo-Ann Greene, Captain Blue Hen in Newark, Oliver, Trevor and Toby; Karen and Todd; Linda and Larry; Betsy, Steve and family; Dave and Sue; Barb East; Bateerz and family; the gremlins who live in the heat pump; and to John the Superstar, the demon of the dry well.

And to everyone else who is present when the master has one of his affairs. Lucky old him.

Introduction
Lets Not Do the Time Warp. Yet.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?

T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland

The eel, says author James Proesk in his jaw-dropping study of that magnificent beast, the aptly titled Eels , is not an easy fish to love. It does not have the beauty of the trout or the colors of the sunfish.

Very much the same thing can be said for The Rocky Horror Show . It is not an easy production to love.

It does not have the beauty of Cabaret or the colors of Cats ; it does not have the melody of South Pacific or the style of Chicago .

It is not The Lion King .

Saw the movie, bought the button: a vintage 70s Rocky souvenir.

Authors collection

It does have laser guns, but only briefly toward the end, and it does have sex, albeit in silhouette. It has humor, of course, and pathos too, and those are good things. And it has songs, which generally are immensely wonderful, but they do need to be handled with care, as singer Maxine Peake reminds us midway through the Eccentronic Research Councils 2014 festive offering Black Christ-Mass.

Peake is bemoaning the average drones mandatory indulgence in that most ghastly of rituals, the corporate office Christmas party. It is packed, as always, with groping management, sycophantic secretaries and wage-slave wastrels, and the only reason shes there is because The beer is free [and] Im a cheapskate....

But even so, I will never do the time warp again.

Because its astounding how many people you wouldnt normally want to associate with (Traci from Accounts; the boy with BO from Shipping) think its the height of liberated entertainment to do that particular dance.

Badly.

While getting the words wrong.

And mixing up their lefts and their rights, their jumps and their thrusts, their blackness and their void.

It really is rather sad.

But its also an indication of just how firmly, and how deeply, The Rocky Horror Show (on stage and screen, on CD and DVD, on every available platform of merchandising possibility) has entrenched itself into our lives. Or at least upon our culture.

Everything you need for your own Rocky Horror Show: the complete make-up set, including glitter gel.

Authors collection

Forty-plus years on from its debut in a tiny London theater; four decades, too, from its transition to the silver screen, Rocky Horror stands among the 1970s most lasting, and successful, contributions to modern culture.

It has outlived pet rocks, it has outlasted disco.

It has shaken off its Daisy Dukes and pinged Pong back into the Stone Age.

It might even be better known than Randy Mantooth.

None of which is at all shabby for something that many people still regard as a quaint, if kinky, cult.

Not that Rocky Horror itself would be dismayed at that assumption. Indeed, that quaintness and kinkiness might well be among the productions most lasting attributes.

It does not matter that the imagery within which The Rocky Horror Show so archly cavorts, and the shocks that it once so gamely delivered, have long since been overtaken by events. The Rocky Horror Show lives on despite all the slings and arrows that outrageous time and culture can throw at it, to establish itself as an integral part of every subsequent generations cultural DNA... and possibly even a factor within the very development of that DNA.

A popular meme circulating the Internet in the sorrowful aftermath of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey depicts the titular Grey himself, with his whips and chains and similar silliness, all decked out for a night of torment... and Doctor Frank-N-Furter, Mr. Rocky Horror himself, looking over at him with penis-deflating disdain. And shrugging, simply, Bitch. Please.

Because its true. No matter how big and bold pop culture may think it has grown in the last four decades, it still hasnt truly out-rocked Rocky. And it probably never will. Which is why The Rocky Horror Show remains as popular today, among an audience that discovered it for the first time via a Blu-ray disc in 2014, or the following years (admittedly overblown) televised anniversary performance, as among those whose initial contact was made before VHS was even available.