Ah the memories, sigh. I was the co-director of several casts all over the country. I must have “dated” about half a dozen girls who played Janet. I saw them playing the part as kind of a preview.
Speaking of, the first time I saw Rocky Horror was a performance by a young actors troupe. By young, I mean high school. Because it wasn’t awkward enough before, now I’m watching a 17 year old Frank n’ Furter!
I’m probably of the small minority that enjoys the movie straight w/o the participation. It’s a fun flick.
I used to go both to the much-beloved T.L.A. on South Street in Philly and at the Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey. It was a staple with my crowd. Yes, the props and the lines but not every line in the movie had a shout-back.
About 3 years ago my now- Dearly Beloved™ and I went to see it at the… Criterion Cinemas in Chelsea on W 23rd st in NYC. There was punk music before the screening and we were dancing in the aisles. About 5 rows from the back of house. An usher- who was less than half our age- stopped by to scold us and informed us that dancing was prohibited unless we were down under the screen in front.
We got scolded. For dancing !!! I mean please.
The screening was a lot of fun. Yeah, too many lines shouted over the dialogue but what the hell. Every generation gets to make this thing their own.
Someone wrote something pretty on-point about RHPS a while back. Going and participating in a midnight show was where the mis-fits got to go to be themselves. They weren’t jocks or braniacs. They were mis-fits. Of all the kids in HS, those kids are the most marginalized and alone. Here was a place to go where you’d be surrounded by your own kind of person, and you’d get to be loud and laugh and sing along and be silly. And rebellious. And throw rice. And toast. And water.
It ain’t art, but it also ain’t pointless. We had a blast. The production value is for shit, of course. At 18 I didn’t see that. Now I do. It didn’t ruin it one darned bit.
I’m curious about the demographic that goes to it nowadays. Still mostly young people?
Maybe I’ll go see for myself.
In Kansas City at the Bijou, they played those two as well as Meatloaf’s Paradise By The Dashboard Light. I would pull girls out of the audience to play Karla Di Vito.
My Rocky experience was in 79 - still pretty early.
Bleagh! Kids today! How wild was it back then? I lost my virginity there. No, not in the “person who hadn’t seen Rocky Horror in the theater” sense, my actual virginity.
At the Criterion or the TLA ???
1979 for me as well.
I saw a live performance of the Rocky Horror Show a few years ago in another city.
No lighters, no squirt guns, and no confetti, we were told before the show began. But we were allowed to dance the Time Warp in the aisles, if we wished.
I was the only one who did. 
At the Bijou in Kansas City.
Went with my hubby in '79. It was our first date! We joke that Sweet Transvestite is ‘our song’.
Universal Studios here in Orlando does a midnight showing every weekend. My wife and I have contemplated in the past going (both having seen it 15+ years ago in college, she as “cast”) just to see how sanitized the audience participation is. Neither of us has been quite willing to pull that trigger though.
I have the soundtrack on my ipod and I still occasionally listen to it all the way through. It’s a lot of fun, and surprisingly touching.
I used to go to see it sometimes in the 80’s in Houston. I wasn’t a regular, but I knew enough to play along. My memories of it are that the floor show was still open-ended and playful. It wasn’t a mandatory set of lines that had to be repeated by rote. That sounds like No Fun At All.
There’s a kid’s show on right now called Shake It Up and the two main characters are named Cece and Rocky. Sometimes my daughter watches it, and whenever I hear someone on the show say “Rocky!” it’s all I can do not to yell “Ug!”
BTW, Richard O’Brien (Riff Raff) is now the voice of Phineas and Ferb’s dad … .
On the screen it was pretty tame. The stuff that went on in the audience when I was a teenager and went to see it in Houston would have given John Waters the vapors.
That could very well be true–when I saw it on TV, I thought, “*this *is supposed to be raunchy and naughty?”
I’m not a fanatic by any means but I have seen it in at least 6 different theaters* over a period from 1982ish to around 1993ish. It was great in some and awful in others. It really boils down to the audience and how hard they are trying. When I saw it in 1989 in a place that had been showing it since 1977 or so it was putrid as the vibe was really pathetic losers without a life with regimented way of watching it. Seriously it was awful. Most of the people were over 30 already doing the parts.
Then a few years later I took my wife to a little place in Red Bank and the crowd was mostly young with just a few of us pushing 30 and it alive and full with energy and great fun. I’m glad that is my final memory of going to see* Rocky Horror*, I got to leave it on a high note.
- Hey it was a midnight show that was often viewed on the spur-of-the-moment and probably with alcohol and/or some other stuff involved. I can’t be expected to keep straight where I saw it vs. lets say the *Wall *or Wizards.
I was in a cast in the early 90s while in college. I also performed it as a stage production at a sci-fi convention. I must have seen it over 300 times by now. We even watch it when it comes on TV, hubby loves to hear me shout the AP back at the screen, although I’ve forgotten the proper timing (or the line altogether) in many cases. He still thinks it’s hilarious.
It wasn’t always so scripted, and when I first saw it I could follow along with the plot, but it really is satisfying to say the line at precisely the right moment for the best laugh. And the whole “neck” bit was supposed to be like that – an absurd amount of neck jokes all in the space of 1 minute is what makes that particular scene funny.
Went back to see it a couple of Halloweens in a theater maybe a decade later. Now it’s all 15 year old goth kids more interested in pretending they have a clue what they’re even doing there. Most would just hang out in the lobby and not even go in to watch the show. I’m not going back anymore - I’m old enough to be their parent.
I played Janet by the way. Still have the costumes. Still know every word and every song by heart. And there is still a cast that does it at Dragon*Con every year but they are notoriously bad for starting not at midnight but more like 3 in the morning and I’m too old for that shit.
Did your father have a neck?
Utterly awful movie. Utterly brilliant soundtrack. Still can’t believe that Richard O’Brien only met Jim Steinman after writing it. He deserves a cut of several decades of hot record success.
Agreed. I still enjoy it straight up, with audience participation, and the play version.
I think it depends on where you see it. I rarely find the AP to be overwhelming.
There’s been a kind of trend lately to make REPO the spiritual successor which I was excited about, until I saw it. Bloody horrible, boring film, with a terrible soundtrack. Blech. Even Anthony Stewart Head couldn’t redeem it.
I would agree. I had never seen the film and in the early 80’s, I was visiting NYC and heard they were showing the film at a local Gay bar - I figured that would be a fun place to see it.
Went there, the place was packed, and when the film started, everyone joined in the fun.
I was bored out of my mind after about 20 minutes and left.
I sort of watched it again on TV one time and lost interest.
John Waters films, on the other hand, are far more fun to see with a huge crazy group of people. I recall a marathon of his films being shown in a Berlin movie theater, starting at midnight and going through to about 5:00 AM - and not only was the theater packed, they were insane! Granted, you got a contact high just walking into the theater, but it was a fun night!