One of the most famous Mouseketeers ever, Annette Funicello offering Ozzy Osbourne some Skippy peanut butter.
 
As documented in the 1992 book by super-groovy groupie Pamela Des Barres Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up, Des Barres brought the unlikely coupling of Ozzy Osbourne and Annette Funicello together for an interview and photoshoot in 1989. The wild concept for the bizarre meeting was the idea of publisher and entrepreneur Quay Hayes—a friend of Des Barres who was getting ready to launch Twist Magazine. Sadly, the magazine never saw the light of day, though the images from the photo session did as well as a few juicy tidbits from the interview between Ozz and Annette.

According to Des Barres, the two traded questions during which Funicello drilled Ozzy on his drug use and issues with addiction—something most rock journalists steered clear of back in the day. In what was perhaps a way to throw Funicello off of her game, Ozzy countered by asking the then 47-year-old former Mouseketeer if her beloved Walt Disney had really been frozen which made Funicello cry. Interestingly, a year later Funicello would defend Ozzy’s misunderstood 1980 classic “Suicide Solution” in an interview with her beach-blanket buddy, Frankie Avalon saying that the song didn’t advocate suicide but was instead trying to convey situations or “conditions” under which a teenager might take their own lives.

The other weird thing I dug up about Ozzy and Annette’s get-together are the claims of a man who says he’s Funicello’s son. J.P. Moss (also known as Jason Paul Moss) wrote the 2105 book Beyond Magic Gates: An Unauthorized Biography of Annette Funicello which details his allegation that he was abducted in 1970 from the hospital after Funicello gave birth to him, and it’s a typo-riddled read, I’ll just say that much. As it relates to this post, Moss uploaded a video on YouTube where he tries to debunk Funicello and Ozzy’s meeting calling it a “conspiracy.” The “conspiracy” in question involved the Mafia and Sharon Osbourne’s father, the infamous Don Arden. Moss says that Funicello deliberately lied about the timeframe about meeting Ozzy in her own 1995 autobiography, A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: My Story because Don Arden told her to. I’ve posted Moss’ video below as well as a few photos that support the fact that Ozzy and Annette were in the same room together at the same time and that Annette’s favorite peanut butter, Skippy, was involved.
 

Funicello and a shirtless Ozzy Osbourne.
 

 
More after the jump…

 
Pamela Des Barres was the original rock and roll groupie, a founding member of the GTOs (which, as Stanley Booth wrote, could stand for “Girls Together Outrageously or Orally or anything else starting with O”), and lover to Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Gram Parsons, Waylon Jennings, and many others.

The woman can obviously spin a tale, what with several books to her name; her 1987 memoir I’m with the Band is essential reading for anyone interested in the sex lives of major 1960s and 1970s rock stars. (Kirkus called it “a classic account of rampant narcissism among guitar egomaniacs,” which seems about right.)

In this amusing short animated by Evan York, Des Barres tells stories of her sexual adventures as a groupie, including encountering a naked Mick Jagger (she was still a virgin at the time), coaxing Waylon Jennings into his long-haired outlaw phase, and watching as Keith Moon perpetrated an epic prank on a major hotel.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Cynthia Plaster Caster, Pamela Des Barres & others in the fascinating 1970 doc ‘Groupies’

The lovely Miss Cynthia Plaster Caster
 
The 1970 documentary Groupies does not portray the lives of its subjects as particularly appealing. There are some famous faces—namely Pamela Des Barres (billed as “Miss Pamela”), and Cynthia Plaster Caster (listed as “Cynthia P. Caster”), but the most interesting people on screen aren’t the rock stars of the groupie world, as it were. From the very start of the film, testimonies from young, bleary-eyed, often chemically altered girls express at least as much ambivalence and regret as revelry. The girls often look a little haggard, arguing among themselves, gossiping about this or that groupie’s age or laughing off some rock star’s wife or serious girlfriend. The sexual competition produces no culture of sisterhood, that’s for sure.

With artists like Joe Cocker, Ten Years After, Terry Reid, Spooky Tooth, and Cat Mother, you’re not looking at the most “elite” of their class, which frankly makes for a more interesting documentary. A girl recounts the tale of being grabbed by the throat by a random bar patron who was under the impression that she was for the taking—luckily, she had mace on hand. In another scene, a musician asks a girl if she has the clap. Plainly, she says that she did, but recently cleared it up with penicillin. Unflappable, her potential partner asks if she has any more left. Adventure is never without risk, but both groupies and musicians are fearless.

Fascinatingly, the doc also covers male groupies—about whom there is very little discourse out there. Chaz, a young gay man, is desperate to get to Terry Reid, but he’s out of his mind on drugs, barely able to speak or stay awake. This doesn’t stop him from throwing himself at musicians, but it’s utterly tragic, even when everyone manages to let him down easy. In a less merciful scene, a runaway named Iris calls home—she’s terrified of her father’s response, even though she’s only a teenager. Later, Ten Years After (with whom she’d been traveling) drop her, while other artists try to get her to join their own caravan. It’s as if she’s being shuffled around by the men of the scene.

The film is truly brutal, but well worth a watch—an intense look at the seedy underbelly of an often-glamorized scene.
 

“Miss Pamela” AKA Pamela Des Barres
 
Tonight’s gourmet fare at Cinefamily (and temperatures in the mid-70s!) once again sees me in my “Los Angeles civic booster” mode. Where else would you be able to watch a new documentary about the great groupies of the Sixties and Seventies, featuring Miss Pamela (Des Barres) of the GTOs and then hang out for a reception afterwards to meet several of the film’s subjects, the director and the still very divine Miss Pamela, too?

Take an emotional journey back to the early Seventies, the Golden Age of Groupies! Some were in it for love, some for the music, and some for their art—and four decades later, these passionate women share their stories of sexual conquest and bitter heartbreak, and finally reveal whether it was all worth it. Told through the eyes of rock and roll historian and super groupie Pamela Des Barres (author of the famous 1987 tell-all “I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie” and the brand-new book “Let’s Spend the Night Together”) this ninety-minute documentary offers memories of her sexual exploits and longtime escapades with such notorious rockers as Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison and Jimmy Page—and chronicles her cross-country journey to reconnect with the iconic women who loved and inspired the great rock stars of our time. Join moderator Michael Des Barres as he Q&As (schedule permitting) with Pamela Des Barres, Lori Mattix, Michele Overman, Catherine James and the film’s director Jenna Rosher on the Cinefamily stage after the film—and stick around for a reception on our Spanish patio after the show! Plus, DJ Andrew Sandoval will be spinning tunes both before and after the show!

The Cinefamily / 611 N Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, 90036, 8pm, $10
 

 
Let’s Spend The Night Together: Confessions of Rock’s Greatest Groupies premieres Wednesday December 15 on Vh1.