Stuff You Should Know - The Rocky Horror Picture Show Podcast Episode

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

This one goes out to the SYSK Army as a special request. Let's do the time warp again!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Just a skyline drive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too and it's a super awesome, amazing last episode of the year episode. I can't think of one that could have been better than this, Chuck. I guess people, it's a spoiler of what the show is about already because you've seen the title as a listener.

But this is courtesy of the Stuff You Should Know Army. Came straight from them. We got emails that said, hey, the Stuff You Should Know Army is chattering about Rocky Horror Picture show. They have been shivering with anticipation. Very nice. This is it, Stuff You Should Know Army. Yeah.

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 are the last few days of the year. And our pledge drive, our fun drive, I don't know what you call it, our awesome drive. Yeah, the D is in parentheses and on January 1st or December 31st at 11.59 p.m., who knows. But you can go to cooperative4education.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 year is winding down. So in real time, 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 going to say how long we have all from recording, but it's a nice unprecedented break. It's a chunk of change. And we love doing the show, but that Christmas, December downtime is a wonderful thing for us.

Yeah, we work hard throughout the year. So hard. So you better treat us right. So let's go start talking about Rocky Horror Picture Show. 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. 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 took a long time. It wasn't like one of those that was just always out there. Oh, I remember movies like that. Yeah. Yeah. So there was 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 at home probably six or eight times. Oh, okay, yeah. So I am technically a virgin, but I'm going to 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. 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 have to go to a live screening of it to not be a virgin any longer. So yeah, I've seen it a bunch of times too. I love the soundtrack. Soundtrack is really good to clean the house too, I have to say.

Like you will be dancing with your Swiffer very quickly. 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 just doesn't jive with that. I watched quite a bit of it today too, not all of it, but I kind of wanted 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. Yeah. I mean, you know, the time warp is the second number, well, third, I guess, if you count the beginning song, which we're going to talk about in a second. But yeah, you got to, you know, and then, you know, Tim Curry's legendary sweet transvestite song and that entrance and that performance, just believably great. 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 is the character he plays. So let's get into this. Okay. For people who've never seen Rocky Horror Picture Show, it is a bizarre musical camp fest that Dave, who helps us out with this one, describes as a send up, which I know intuitively what send up means, but I've never seen like an actual definition of it. Oh yeah?

Yeah. So I think it's, I made up my own if you don't mind me sharing it. Okay. Affectionate Mockery. Yeah. It's like an affectionate homage slash mockery, I think. Right. So it's a send up of 50s sci-fi and horror movies, like B movies, things like Forbidden

Planet, The Day of the Earth Stood Still, all of the Canon of Ed Wood, all that stuff. 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 1975 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 sort of same weird rock opera thing as Tommy, where when you look

at Tommy, it looks sort of dated in old fashioned, but also somehow still sort of of its time in futuristic or of today's time in 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. So the plot, if we can talk about the plot, right?

Yeah. I mean, I don't necessarily think we should give everything away. No, definitely not. I think we can nutshell it. But the idea is that there are these two characters, Brad and Janet, who are very straight laced, sort of maybe rubes, but sort of two young naive characters that 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 tropey 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 ensue. 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 corsets. Yeah. Like 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, you know, writing about subtext and all that stuff. This has always struck me as one of those movies 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 castle is Dr. Frank N. Furter, who is the Tim Curry character, who in that great song Sweet Transvestite, the lyrics are Sweet Transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania. As we learn in the film, and it's just sort of goofy that they did the sci-fi element in there, which is really fun. But Transsexual is the home planet of Frank N. Furter, and Transylvania is the galaxy. And so he's sort of Frankenstein this ubermensch on the slab. And that's kind of the plot.

I mean, all kinds of 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, it was a movie ahead of its time in a lot of ways in that respect, and since has become obviously a huge movie in the LGTBQ community. Yeah, for sure. So that's the movie. And it didn't actually start out a movie.

It started out a stage play in London, actually. So the guy who plays Riff Raff is named Richard O'Brien. Riff Raff is Dr. Frankenfurter's like eagle or like assistant. He has a huge hunchback and like stringy hair and like dark circles under his eyes. And he was 31 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, looked today with more of a critical eye, I was like,

he doesn't look old old, but the circles under his eyes, it kind of made him to look a little creepier. He just, I never pictured that guy as being in his early 30s. No, and actually, if you see later interviews with them, he stayed basically the same looking the same from that point on. 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.

And I believe he played Riff Raff in the stage production too, right? Yeah. But he was a New Zealander who moved to London in the 70s, in the early 70s, and, you know, didn't have great prospects for jobs. He was a stuntman 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 crossword was me writing these songs, these sort of kind of fun and funny songs about those sci-fi

B-movie city love from the 1950s. This was before Netflix, by the way. It's before Netflix. So the whole thing that kicked this off was really auspicious. He was friends with some people who were musicians and there was an EMI 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 EMI 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 science fiction double feature, which is the song that sung during the opening credits of the movie, Rocky Horror Picture Show, where even if you haven't seen the movie, I'm sure you're familiar with the iconic disembodied bright red lips against white teeth on a black background. Yeah. That comes from the intro of the movie. And when he played this song, 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 them 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 Denton 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 is not a great title and the name of the Frankenstein like, 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 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 and above it was an experimental theater that I think sat 63 or 68 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 63 or 68 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 and in very short order, they started touring. They sent a touring company to cities all over Europe showing people this thing and

everybody was going nuts for it. Yeah. And then another turn of fate, I guess you could say, Tim Curry was an actor at the Royal Court Theater, obviously not some huge name at the time and was cast because of that association with the Royal Court as Dr. Frank Inferter, who was originally going to, he was going to play at German because Frank Inferter obviously is a German word. But I think in the interview, he talked about it and said that he was experimenting around with accents and he found the posh British thing really worked and said the character

should sound like the Queen. Yeah, I saw that too. And was originally also supposed to be more of a classic mad scientist, white lab coat kind of doctor. And then another wonderful twist of fate, they hired a woman named Sue Blaine to do the costumes because 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 and came up with these idea 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 of course it. So if it hadn't been for all those sort of weird things coming together, it might have been a German mad scientist in a white lab coat, which is really hard to imagine once you know Frankenferder. This movie wouldn't be, we wouldn't be talking about it right now if there had been a white lab coat. I'm sure of it.

You know, 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 costuming budget for the original stage version was $400, which is peanuts even back in 1973. Was it 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 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 and 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 fan-centric pieces of entertainment where I'm sure there are people out there 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. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it.

So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too.

Find the Skyline Drive and the iHeartRadioApple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles, stuff you should know. All right. 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-ins in LA when I lived there. And when I got my cat, Loran, who was dearly departed, I found Loran 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 feet from me. Well, 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 seems so larger than life. Well, he was wearing 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. And I went to write a check to pay for it and I was holding Loran and I said, would you mind holding my kitten? And he was like, absolutely. And Loran was really funny looking. He had these huge ears.

He had a gray back and the rest of them was black and he eventually grew in all black hair. So it was kind of a silver back, but he picked him up. That's why LA is so great. Man, the weirdest things happen in the most unlikely places. He stared at him and said, Loran, you have very dramatic ears. And he went, look at your back. You look like a baboon.

And he held Loran while I wrote the check and I had like skipped out of there. It was like one of the great days. So that's why Tim Curry- I've never heard that story, man. Really? I don't know if you've told it before. Oh, I don't see how I couldn't have held on to that one for 15 years. Like I really, it rings zero bells whatsoever and there's enough dimensions to it that something

should be like, oh yeah, I've heard that one. 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 run in you had? Well, I know I've talked about that I was friends with Meatloaf's daughter for a little while in LA. Oh yes, sweet potato.

I can't believe you're laughing like that at that one. That's funny. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, I was sort of friends with her and her boyfriend for a very short time in LA. It was just a weird crossover where my friend's girlfriend worked for Meat's ex-wife 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 and he had a TB 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 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 where did we leave off? Oh, the stage play is on fire. It's on fire. And they toured it and Tim Curry played Frank Inverter everywhere except Australia, I think. Oh, really? Okay. So the original cast toured 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 by 1974, 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, including Tim Curry, but one of the people

they added in Los Angeles was Meatloaf. I never realized, but you know, Meatloaf 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 was a really weird choice for him, but he did it and he stuck to it. And it was a really good move, too, because he's got this whole other legend that his actual other fan base probably couldn't care less about. And then he has the Rocky Horror fans, two separate fan bases, because he made this very

smart choice back in 1974. I would argue three fan bases, because he's got a bunch of creepy guys who only know him as the guy from Fight Club. Oh, yeah. Robert Paulson. Yeah. We have a friend who listens with that name. I know.

And he's heard it all. Yeah, I know. I'm not going to say it again. All right. So they go to LA, Meat Comes On Board. It's a big hit everywhere they go. So of course, the movie industry comes sticking their nose into it, and they say, well, why don't you make 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 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 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 1.4 million. And even today, this was Fox, 20th Century Fox, that would be like 20th Century Fox giving somebody six and a half million dollars to make a movie today. It's not bad. Like it was a shoestring budget. I mean, so shoestring. And poor Sue Blaine, she had a $400 budget for the stage play originally. She had like a $15, $1600 budget for the movie.

Well, use 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. All right. So they have their meager budget. They make the film. It's released in September of 1975 as an unlimited release in some test markets.

Reviews weren't great. It is a very weird, I mean, 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, or if he was just prescient about it. But yeah, I think by 1976, April 1st, 1976, the tradition of showing Rocky Horror pictures show at midnight started in Greenwich Village, actually, at the Waverly Theater. That's right. And this is the thing about Rocky Horror pictures show. Up to this point, we've been talking about a stage play, a movie, and it's been following a pretty standard trajectory. 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 pictures show differs is what happens at the midnight showings. And that is the audience participation that Roger Ebert said would really kind of make the movie better. And it's what makes Rocky Horror pictures show, Rocky Horror pictures show, or at the very least, it's what has made it continue on all these years, I think. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think it's grossed over $120 million now total.

Yeah. Over the years. And this is a movie that did never get a nationwide release, which is remarkable. And I think it's also the longest running theatrical film release in movie history, too. It's got to 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. And I'm not going to go tomorrow because Emily's birthday party is tomorrow night, but I'm going to go soon and they mercifully started at 11 o'clock because when I was thinking about it, I was like, am I really going to go somewhere at midnight? Listeners that aren't 50 years old yet may not understand. You don't go somewhere at midnight anymore when you're 50 years old.

You've been asleep for a couple of hours by then. On many nights. That is true. And even the thought of it makes me tired, like I can't do that. I'm going to pick out a nice time though when my daughter is like staying at my mom's and I'm going to make sure I do this. That's awesome. Because I did watch 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 you would experience when you went to a Rocky Horror Picture Show live screening today, just kind of happened organically little bit by little bit. People around the country and around the world started kind of contributing and those ideas would just spread and burgeon and become part of the Rocky Horror Picture Show experience. And the whole thing started because the Waverly showed this movie enough times and 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 memorized the lyrics generally because they're pretty catchy lyrics. And that kind of created this idea of 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. And by the way, big thanks to 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, rockyhorror.com, founded by

Sal Pirro, just a wealth of information and a love letter to the film. 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 1976, Labor Day weekend, there was a Staten Island kindergarten teacher named, I guess it's Louis or Louis Farees. 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 Sarandon gets out in the rain at the beginning of the film,

puts a newspaper overhead, attacked as an umbrella. And supposedly he yelled out, buy 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 a live showing. You can pick out the exact moment. Like the people who made this movie knew 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 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 just the fact that that was left in and triggered that guy to say that, it's almost like the movie, they encouraged it itself. I think that's so fascinating. Yeah, it just definitely seems like a movie where just fate had so many little hands in it, 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 in 1976, 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 as 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, you have people in costume, people shouting back at the screen at various well-timed points, and then you have these props.

Right. And all of this is happening mostly at the Waverly Theater, but there's theaters in other cities that are showing the movie as well. 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 Yorker is just schooling the San Francisco Rocky Horror fans and it just spread very quickly like that. And again, 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, 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 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 reenactment 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 Michael Wolfson is credited for coming up with the Rocky Horror Review, the first organized shadow cast back in 1976-77. 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. People are in full costume, full makeup. I think that depending on riffraff changes costumes.

So some people come as Igor Riffraff, other people come as Syfy Riffraff. So they'll be like they'll alternate who's doing what depending on the scene. And by the way, there is a Syfy Riffraff statue in Richard O'Brien's hometown in New Zealand. Oh wow. I love that. Yeah, it's pretty cool looking too. I'm curious how the hierarchy of this, because it's obviously all pre-cast 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 does that evolve like in a local place? Like clearly in Atlanta it's organized, there's like a group that does it. But I mean like how do you join that group? I don't know.

I guess, you know, you get on their mailing list, you show up at their meetings, and you start agitating for a role. Man, I foresee Chuck's future here. Oh, I look good in a corset too. So Richard O'Brien gets wind of this in the 70s that what's going on and is just obviously as you would expect, completely knocked out and flattered. And it was like, you know, this movie has it all. It's fun.

It's campy. You got the audience up there. You've got the movie playing. You've got these people acting it out. I'm three for three and not in a haughty way, but just super proud I think. And then shadow casting spread. There's all kinds of midnight movies now where people shadow cast and one 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 film. Oh God, so good. So if you go, like we said, you are a virgin and at the very beginning of the show, somebody will come out with a microphone and 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's the worst thing that's going to happen. Yeah. Just say yes is what I recommend. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a great way to put it, Chuck. The thing to remember throughout all this is 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. And there's some things that you can expect and can prepare yourself ahead of time. There's tons of off-color jokes, mostly sex jokes. They're almost exclusively sex jokes, 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, remember, I can't remember what concert it was on The Simpsons, but everybody else is standing up and Otto's sitting down, you know, the rocker, bus driver, and he goes, sit down, sit down. You're ruining it for the rest of us. I can just imagine somebody going to a midnight screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show and just expecting to sit there and watch the movie, you know? Yeah.

I mean, if you have hangups 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. But again, my recommendation, this is what I'm going to do, is just go and say yes to everything. And they may drag you up there and teach you the time warp during that point in the movie.

You might get sprayed 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 though. Yeah. But just, again, if you're not up for sort of a fun interactive multimedia experience, then maybe just don't go. Right. 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. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology.

And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Patrick curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good.

There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Like the Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles, stuff you should know. 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. This is 45, almost 50 years before, right? So I think that the popularity and the iconicness of the movie has actually kind of given it a pass that no one's offended by the use of transvestite or transsexual 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 Frank Inferter, 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 mistaken.

Yeah. 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 mainstream society. And these are the people who got dressed up and who went down there and were so creative and sort of building this cult around it. Like it is a very and always has been a very safe space for, for that to occur. And so it's just a great movie for a lot of reasons and that's certainly one of them. Yeah.

Imagine how many kids in like Indiana and Iowa and Kansas and Georgia were 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, it created an excuse to put on the corset

and the high heels. Although, do you really need an excuse? But if you were someone struggling with, you know, in the 1970s, especially 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'Brien have both received, you know, just hundreds and thousands of letters 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, for the creators and the actors. Yeah. For sure. And again, one of the other reasons that it gets a pass is because that show is so reaffirming that one of Tim Curry's lines is actually in one of the songs is don't dream it, be it.

And people just latch on to that because if you just stop and think about what it's saying, like that's kind of all you need to know. It's almost like the campy version of Yoda's, 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 for sure.

No, it is. It is a super empowering statement. And, you know, 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 and, you know, kind of a fun side story that we didn't get to earlier. But Tim Curry lived near the Waverly 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's socks off and called ahead to the theater, even showed up.

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. Wow. 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, you come back in and he was like, I wouldn't dream of it. And he left.

Oh, really? Yes. Wow. That's how you show them, Curry. I guess so. He's like, I've got a kitten to hold in Los Angeles. That's right. There's some other pretty neat little things about the movie too.

One of the ones that I love is Easter eggs. There are actual Easter eggs hidden in the movie unintentionally because apparently they had a Easter egg hunt on the set and they didn't find them all. So if you really know what to look for, I didn't see them, but you can find three different Easter eggs throughout the movie. And that's not actually where the term Easter egg comes from, strangely enough. Apparently that was from an Atari game developer from 1980 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. Oh, okay. I think the first Easter egg was an adventure though, but maybe someone else coined the term. I got you. I got you. I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What else, Chuck? Well, Susan Sarandon, who was, they were all very young. They're all in their sort of late 20s, early 30s when they were making this. She got pneumonia not too long after she got there and they shot this movie 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. So they shoot it 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, she's like, you have to get me some heated place 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 Usherette, 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 synced it. She was really mad about that. She had basically joined the cast originally for the stage show 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 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 definitely, like you said with Meatloaf, was he had been in hair right before this. He had a duo album with this woman. And he was sort of around, but he definitely was not a big star at all. And Rocky Horror, his role as Eddie, and especially the great, great song, Hot Petuity, Bless My Soul, such a good song.

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

Frankenford. That could have been pretty good, actually. Yeah, but yeah, no. 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'd be fascinating to go see for sure. So the one that does seem to be actually legitimate, that the producers actually did float was

Elvis as Eddie, replacing Meatloaf with Elvis. 76 Elvis? Wow. Yeah. That was an Eddie end. Yeah. 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 upheaval that would have thrown that production into? Oh yeah. I mean, it would have completely imbalanced the movie too. Yeah, absolutely. 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 yet? The Elvis movie? No. Another Boz Lerman one? Yeah.

No, I haven't seen it. It's worth seeing. I think I might have even mentioned it before. It's a bit much, but the actor does such a great job in recreating those performances. It's worth it for that. There's also a little known sequel to Rocky Horror Picture Show. I did not know this until a couple 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, did not catch on, obviously like Rocky Horror did at all. It was basically a big flop. Yeah.

I just remember seeing, when I worked at the video store in Athens at Vision Video, I remember seeing the cover of Shock Treatment and I was like, what is this even? And then found out later that it was a sequel. Gotcha. You got anything else? I got nothing else. I'm going to go. I encourage everyone else to go.

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, rockyhorror.com 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. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope it was worth it. Stuff you should know are me. Thanks for the idea. 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 I believe your lovely wife has a birthday coming up too, right? Yeah. When this comes out, it'll be right around Yumi's birthday, happy birthday, and really coolly, in real time, it's right around Emily's birthday, so happy birthday to Emily too. That's right, her birthday is in a few days. So thanks everyone. You know, it's been a rough few years, but I think 2022 has shown a little light on us all and we hope that continues.

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 had to do a stop listening and we're gone. You should stop putting ideas in people's heads, Chuck. 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 of, that's my new favorite episode. Oh yeah? I loved that episode, I thought it was so fascinating, it was just a really good episode. Awesome.

I love that. Hey guys, enjoyed the podcast. I have to admit I am an Oxfordian believer that the 17th Earl of Oxford was the real Shakespeare. Oh wow. 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 plays. I had the bad form when visiting Stratford upon Avon, the Shakespeare family home there having a discussion with another visitor about Edward Devere possibly being the true Shakespeare. Oh boy. And the tour guide was rushing us out. Wow. Thanks for the fun discussion, that is from Dana B. Goward. Dana 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 stuffpodcastatihartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable

happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.