One could; but, it would be an asinine and invalid comparison.
Always good to meet another back-rower. We yelled the same thing from the back row of the Roxy in Toronto, and most likely during the same years, too.
Was it really that long ago? It’s astounding, time is fleeting…
Mid to late 80’s as a teen we would go to see Rocky every Friday night and The Wall on Saturdays. They played side by side in a bad econobox theater. During quiet moments you would hear music from one show or the other through the walls.
My Mom got a kick out of the goofy stuff we told her about and would buy extra rice and other props for us. Dad always threatened to show up one night and see what the fuss was all about. He was a movie theater manager as a teen in the 50’s and would have probably had a stroke seeing the stuff thrown around and evreybody smoking and talking during the film!
I saw it in another state two or three times and was embarassed at a few things I shouted out, or was out of synch with. Talking with others about it we a re convinced there are huge regional differences in the ad-libs.
Other than silly amounts of dope and beer, it was relatively harmless fun. Every once in a while my friends and I will automaticly throw a line back to the other when a catch phrase is said. Like a pavlovian response.
Another former player chiming in. (Magenta, 1990-1995, various casts.) Love the movie more than life, some days. My husband has never been, has no interest in going, and rolls his eyes practically out of his head if he catches me looking at my old pictures or humming the music. He’s kind of uptight, though, so I forgive him.
Anyhow … I liked RHPS because it was a place where I could hang out with other dorks like myself (and I admit that a lot of us WERE dorks) and just have a good time. I didn’t drink or smoke or do drugs, but nobody cared. It was nice to feel cool, if only for two hours, even if it was only other dorks who thought you were. A lot of my best friends in high school and college had RHPS in common with me - and sometimes that was ALL we had in common. It was enough.
I miss my player days. It closed at all the theaters around me. 
I still have a button that my former college RA made for me to wear on my Magenta costume that says “I’m a slut - ask me how!” I wore it on my gown at graduation. And even my uptight husband did the Time Warp with me at our wedding.
Oh - and all the back rows I’ve ever seen have said “That’s what we’re here for!”
A few weeks ago, I was in the fabric store looking for non-nauseating (read: no pastel teddy bear) fabrics for making maternity clothes. When I went to the cutting table, there was a child (OK, a teenager. But still) there with her mom, buying her first red sequined stretch favric for her first Columbia-inspired RHPS outfit for her first night at the theater.
I seriously got teary.
When she left, I said something to the grandmotherly looking woman behind the cutting counter about how precious it was that kids today are still doing the Timewarp, just like I was in high school.
“Yes,” the sweet little old lady said, “but I always preferred playing the Magenta role myself.”
:eek:
Truly intergenerational theater. Who could ask for anything more?
Stay sane inside insanity! 
Actually, they made a bad stage musical and got lucky.
And toast…
And playing cards…
/hijack
Your presumptions of superiority carry a little more weight when you aren’t a participant.
/hijack
Otto, thanks for sharing.
The stage musical and subsequent movie were campy, knowing send-ups of old horror and sci-fi movie tropes, overlaid with the sensibility of seventies glam rock, which was at its peak then, with all its attendant androgyny. Given that creator Richard O’Brien was intending the campiness, talk of “bad” is irrelevant. As a movie, it looks quite well done technically. The direction knows just when to hold you and when to cut away, when to come in tight for the closeup or pull back for the ensemble shot; the art direction serves the plot very well; the photography (lighting) moves fluently from one style to another according to the scene; Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick were and are professional actors, and Tim Curry is beyond criticism. (The low-budget John Waters movies from this same period are nearly unwatchable to me, despite their similarly campy intentions.)
For the movie antecedents, see Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, The Most Dangerous Game, King Kong, and Bride of Frankenstein; maybe toss in a few episodes of TV’s The Addams Family too. For musical influence, well, David Bowie, David Bowie, and David Bowie.
My “presumption of superiority” lies in the fact that I knew I was there for no other reason than to earn a dollar and help put my wife through vet school. My “presumption of superiority” for the great majority of the other customers lies in that they were there for no other reason than to have a good time and amuse themselves. Those who were there free of illusions and delusions were superior to those who were not.
I pitied them along with loathing them. Pity only goes so far, though, after you’ve paid for a microphone that one of them threw to the floor screaming “I can’t work under these conditions!” Pity only goes so far after you’ve dealt with pouting and tantrums because somebody else “stole his number.” If a fantasy land, whether it’s Rocky Horror or Role Playing Games or Karaoke becomes the focus of your life, I’ll feel bad for you. Feeling bad for you doesn’t mean I’ll like you, though.
I saw it several times in the cinema, but not hundreds like a lot of folks. The first time was at the Roxy in Toronto back in the early eighties some time (hey Spoons). Great crowd, lots of fun, and everyone seemed to know what the deal was, so no one freaked out.
Then, years later, I caught wind of a midnight showing at a local screen and gathered up some friends to go with. Several of them had only ever seen it on video, and one girl had never seen it all.
What a dissapointment. The audience participation was unfocused, overly loud, obnoxious and dominated by a large number of incredibly drunk idiots. It was nothing like the more respectful homage I’d seen at other screenings.
As for the merits of the film itself, what’s often overlooked is the number of grade-A send-ups of old campy sci-fi and horror films. The most obvious is the Rocky:Frank::King Kong:Faye Wray thing, but there’s tons of references in there.
thwartme
Having been in a small handful of productions (staged versions, not acting-before-the-screen versions), I’ve got to say it’s one of the most fun bits of musical theatre to put on. It’s incrediably silly, with some wonderful music, and it comes with a built-in audience who generally loves the show as much as you do. Who could ask for more, really?
That said, I’ve seen one or two really horrid renditions, which were patently not fun. Camp done poorly has almost no redeeming qualities, as it quickly becomes the bad parts of all of the things it’s trying to send up.
I never got involved in the get-dressed-up-and-use-props aspect of it, but when I was 12, someone gave me the Rocky Horror Picture Book, which had the whole script plus the “Official” adlib lines. Over time I memorized the thing. My aunt was the manager of the local revival theater that had midnight screenings of it (this was 1980), so I went to the theater sometimes when I was supposed to be sleeping over at my aunt’s house. One night it was just me and about 10 other people, and apparently the other people were there to just watch the movie, because I was the only person in there shouting at the screen and singing along and sometimes I would hear “shut up, you asshole! We’re trying to watch the movie!” from another part of the theater. Talk about a tough room!
I enjoyed the movie a lot when I was that age, but soon I outgrew it.
Now, looking back, I think:
Story: Blech. Dumb.
Music: Good. Not great, but I’ll take it over Andrew Llloyd Weber any day.
Acting: Bad script, not much to work with. Tim Curry makes that movie, though. He was stellar.
Overall, even without the ad-libbing, it’s worth seeing for Tim Curry. The ad-libbing transforms it from a so-so movie musical into an event.
http://cjonline.com/images/062201/wkd.horror.jpg
The above link is to a photo of the guy who played Frank-n-Furter in the production of the Rocky Horror Show here in Topeka Kansas. He was great. I spoke to him after the show and teased “Your mother must be so proud of you!” He replied “sure! She’s right over there!” Mom came to all six performances he told me.
One may have to register to view the picture, it’s from our newspaper. If you can’t see it I’m sorry. The guy was fantastic.
I attended a midnight showing here in Cleveland with two friends (one of whom was a priest). We were told what props to bring, but not why. It didn’t take long to really get into it, especially the priest.
It’s the only time I’ve ever been more afraid of the audience than the movie.
And by the way, the newspaper should properly be the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as in the film. A few years ago, I went to a showing in Paris, and sold some Plain Dealers to people in the audience.
Ahhh, Rocky Horror! I saw it many times at the local repertory theatre in the '70s (often with the now Mrs B), and managed to see the stage show in London on a visit to Britain in '78. We eventually got turned off by overenthusiastic audience participation, but still watch the video from time to time. Our daughter later became a fan also, and did the whole dress up business, which we had never bothered with.
Very much a cult film, as you either love it or hate it, but not badly done and with good music (YMMV). It made me a Tim Curry fan (confirmed by seeing him as Shakespeare in a contemporary BBC TV series) and agree that he made the film, it wouldn’t have been the same without him. It’s interesting to see how far Susan Sarandon has gone from her early days in the film.
Why is it assumed that us RHPS fans spend every waking minute thinking about it? It’s a catchy musical, with goofy, outrageous dialogue which isn’t hard to have mostly memorized after a few viewings, and as for the audience participation, any smartass can come up with some good lines on the fly.
Scumpupy don’t worry noone beleives that RHPS has anything to do with reality. It’s just a hobby like ballroom dancing, or historical reinactment. Maybe people do take their hobbies too far on occasions, but unless it is somehow dammaging their life within the real world it is nothing to worry about or look down on. I personally am more worried about people who never get out of their shell, who are so self concious that they fear to be seen or heard, such people could well benifit from dressing up for a RHPS event from time to time. Now your problem people at the Karioke seem very differnet from the RHPS crowd, they are the prima-donnas that are hugely self concious and need to lighten up, which is what the RHPS and many other things help people to do.
It really doesn’t take anything more than a couple of hours every other weekend with friends for a few months to get into the swing of it and memorize almost all the lines. No one I knew “back in the day” actually studied the stuff, as I hear of some folks doing now. And most of the people who dressed up just did it as a lark with clothes they ran across in thrift shops or old things from their closets.
I only dressed up once, for a Halloween show (as Riff), and didn’t need to buy anything. (Yeah, I had the long Duane Allman stringy blonde hair back then).
It’s like a weekly poker game, just good fun.
Favorite memory – a new theater on the north side started running it as a midnight show, so I went with a pal for the debut. They had no idea what they were doing, and neither did anyone else in the audience (which was sparse, to say the least). We were giving it the routine treatment, and were actually thrown out for being loud! 