FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
‘The Ronnie Horror Picture Show’: Amazing 1980 spoof with a Reagan impersonator as Frank N. Furter!
01.22.2016
10:37 am
Topics:
Tags:


 
The ‘80s actually started in November of 1980, when doddering, happy-talking lawbreaker Ronald Reagan rather brutally defeated Jimmy Carter’s bid for re-election. Culturally, that event was the final nail in the coffin of what remained of late ‘60s counterculture (they put a lot of those nails there themselves, to be fair), and politically it marked the dawn of the vulgarian/reactionary empowerment that still poses an existential threat to the country.

They were far from the only ones to see Reagan’s rise as doom for the left and the man himself as the fourth horseman of the twilight of the hippies, but ABC’s live late night sketch show Fridays did a spectacularly hilarious job of addressing it.

Fridays, it its day, was seen as a weak attempt at catching the lightning in a bottle that was Saturday Night Live—sort of an early ‘80s Mad TV, except Fridays was actually funny. In the rear-view it holds up pretty admirably, as it often went even edgier than classic SNL. In three seasons starting in the spring of 1980, Fridays kicked off the careers of Rich Hall, Larry David, and—you can’t win ‘em all—Michael Richards. And in the wake of the Reagan election, the show’s writers and cast pulled of an extraordinary stunt: an ambitious 20 minute sketch, performed live, parodying both the incoming Reagan administration AND The Rocky Horror Picture Show!

The sketch stars Richards as Brad, and Janet duties fell to the wonderful Melanie Chartoff, who’s best known now for voice acting in kid’s cartoons. It imports VP-elect George H.W. Bush into the Riff Raff role, played by Mark Blankfield, who was the show’s breakout star at the time. John Roarke handles Reagan/Frank N. Furter duties, and Larry David…well, if you don’t know, I’m not going to ruin that one for you, it’s pretty fucking great. Paralleling Dr. Furter’s creation of ultimate sexual boy-toy Rocky, Reagan here endeavors to create the perfect conservative, but it doesn’t go as planned. The sketch was well-written and pretty superbly executed for a 20-minute live extravaganza with musical numbers, and it nails all of its marks but one—it ends optimistically. But it does offer a prescient warning to posterity in this dialogue exchange between Richards and Chartoff:

Janet: Oh Brad! Don’t you see what these people are doing? These people are…

Brad: Janet, relax! This is a great chance to have an intelligent conversation with these right wingers!

Janet: Brad, please, let’s get out of here!

Janet was truly wise.

Continues after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Ron Kretsch
|
01.22.2016
10:37 am
|
Teenage Michael Stipe attends ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ in Frank-N-Furter drag, late 1970s


 
A local St. Louis news broadcast from the late 1970s about the fans of the then almost controversial horror-musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the city’s Varsity Theater.

At around the 1:25 mark, you’ll see future R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe, in his best Frank-N-Furter drag, talking to the camera about the film.

“We’re all quite normal, really” sez the young Mister Stipe…

The clip is not dated, but seems likely to have been taped around the period while Stipe was living nearby with his family, across the Mississippi River in Collinsville, IL (home of the world’s largest catsup bottle) before moving to Athens, GA where he would meet the other members of what would become R.E.M. at the University of Georgia.

Win a Blu-ray of the new documentary R.E.M. by MTV from Rhino here.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
06.03.2015
02:25 pm
|
‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ Commodore 64 computer game, 1985
10.21.2013
12:13 pm
Topics:
Tags:

Rocky Horror Game splash screen
 
In 1985 CRL Group PLC (whoever that is) released a game for the Commodore 64 system based on the classic midnight movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
 
adahfa
Do you wish to be the “asshole” or the “slut”?
 
In the game, the player can play as Brad or Janet. It’s a bit difficult to follow, but the task seems to be to construct a machine that will counteract the effects of the Medusa Transducer, pieces of which (and keys to open various portals) are scattered all over the castle, in order to free your partner from stone and escape the castle before it blasts off for the planet Transsexual, in the galaxy of Transylvania. The castle’s freaky denizens attempt to block your progress by stealing your clothes and your inventory (but more interestingly, your clothes—your character spends big chunks of the game “starkers”). Riff-Raff has a deadly laser gun, and Eddie can run the player over with his motorcycle, and so on.
 
Naked Janet in the Rocky Horror castle
Janet in the Rocky Horror castle

Considering that six years had passed since the introduction of Adventure for the Atari 2600 system (in which the player runs around a series of rooms avoiding dragon and picking up keys etc.), the gameplay of The Rocky Horror Show Computer Game is disappointingly crude.

The presence of Richard O’Brien’s name in the title—the actual name of the game appears to be “Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show Computer Game”—certainly lends the proceedings a veneer of credibility, but the slight alteration in the title prompts the speculation that perhaps this game was not officially licensed? Or maybe they were playing with the fact that since this was not a movie version, it can’t be a “picture show”?

Here’s a brief video showing some of the dysfunctional gameplay, complete with Max Von Sydow soundalike commentary:

 
This video is longer and presents a more thorough exploration of successful gameplay—however, no amusing commentary:

 
via William Caxton Fan Club (a.k.a. John Darnielle’s Tumblr)

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
70s Michael Stipe in drag at ‘Rocky Horror’
On Location With ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ from 1975

Posted by Martin Schneider
|
10.21.2013
12:13 pm
|