Hello to all of you. Unconventional convention is out there. Welcome to Rocky Talkie. The show where we talk about anything and everything related to Rocky Horror. I'm Aaron. I'm and I am John. No, you're not. Stop telling people you're John. Well, we've got a great show lined up for you and to kick it off. Let's talk about a little something that we did this week. John. What have you been up to? I got a really big fucking rock of quartz. Quartz. Yeah. You know like, like the gem, the mineral. Yes. Yeah, I got, I got a big, yeah, like it's a big fucking rock and I'm talking like it, it's, it's big, it's not like one of those little like quartz things that you like put around your necklace or, or something like that. Like this shit's at least like five or £6 like Lethal Weapon Rock. And she's really pretty like, I'm not much of a rock ho you know, I'm not like one of those like gem ladies, you know that like, you know worships gems and stuff like that. Like I'm not that kind of person and no shade to anybody. Who is but like she's pretty as fuck. That's kind of been the highlight of my, my week. Is this fucking rock. What are you, what are you planning on doing with your rock? Is it just a looking at rock or she's kind of looking at? Like, I don't, I don't really know what quartz does, you know in like the grand scheme of like it rocks. Yeah. It, it does. My Discord community is gonna name her that. That's about it. Oh, John, was there, was there drama in your Discord this week? Drama in my Discord. I don't know. You posted a tiktok that was like someone joins my Discord. Oh. Oh, no, that happened like a month and a half ago I posted a tiktok about, no, I posted it recently because I was trying to figure out what content I wanted to do. But yeah, basically there was some Rando who like came into my streams for like three days straight and was super nice and everything. And then he just randomly joined the Discord and went into the general chat and just said use me like a toy and everyone was like, yeah, honestly, same. I'm not here to King shame. Yeah, I was gonna say that seems pretty appropriate for what I've seen from your Discord chat. Oh, well, that would sound fun. Have fun with your rock, John, uh, Nicky. What have you been up to you acquire any good minerals? No. But my weekend has been pretty Rocky. Oh, yeah. My show reopened on Friday. I'm really excited. It was so much fun. Like, I, I just forgot how great it feels to be up on that stage and to be a part of something so incredible, like Rocky and it was just so great and it was so fun and we all had such a great time and the audience had a great time and everybody's social distance and everything happy ever after. I was really happy. I'm still really happy, hardcore jealous over here. A lot of people actually because I posted all of my show photos to Facebook and a lot of people were like commenting like, oh I'm really jealous and I was like, come to New Jersey. We have Brazil and a lot of people like texted me and they were like, can you put me in contact with someone to, to guest perform with you? And I was like, damn, like F and S is the Rocky Horror Dealer of America right now just like sliding you a little performance under the table. $10. Get two hits. You want to do Jenny? You want to do Brad only 22 95. Yeah. Dead ass though. Like it's pretty dope. I'm really excited. I can't wait to go back on the 16th. That's awesome. That's awesome. Uh It's been a lot of work here for me this week. You look at me. Oh damn. Damn, it's a good song. Look it up. Uh, no, it's been a lot of work for me this week. Uh, real work. So, even my free time has been a little bit of real work. I've been playing around with some new programming stuff, uh, learning a few things and I'm gonna apply to some work related activities and otherwise not a whole lot else. Not a whole lot else except for rocky stuff. So let's get into it with that. Let's move over to our first segment. Uh Global News. That's the first segment. All right, it is. Mhm All right. So first up in Global News, we've got a new vinyl LP for you. Newbury Comics, an independently owned music and pop culture company based in New England. Just released an exclusive and very pretty Rocky horror vinyl. Uh Newberry's done a few Rocky Horror limited vinyl releases before. Uh this is in the same vein as their other releases. Those all look pretty damn good but good luck finding them. They are all out of print. Uh This album though contains of course the movie soundtrack and is a clear vinyl splattered with red, black and white. It's a limited edition exclusive to Newberry Comics and will be available for sale on April 9th. Only 1500 of these babies will be available for purchase. But if you're worried about snagging one fear not, they're currently available for preorder at Newberry comics dot com for the low, low price of only 29 99. I can only buy 1500 babies. No, but wow, like that's only 1, 1/100 of a frank jacket that my friends is a steal. And honestly, there are quite a few editions of the album on vinyl floating around. But I've got to say this one is by far the prettiest, all the color slashes on the clear bases that looks super cool and like, let's face it. It's 2021. Most people who buy records aren't actually listening to them. You know, we've got Alexa for that. Alexa play the Rocky Horror soundtrack. No, stop, stop, stop. Great. Nicky. Now, all of our listeners hate you. I hope I got one of them though. If I just got one, the joke was worth it anyway, despite Nicky being an asshole, I would imagine that the vast majority of these records are bought as display pieces because they look cool and out of all the ones that I've seen so far, this is definitely the one I most want on display in my house. I mean, we've got a wall of records over here. This one would fit in perfectly on that. But who knows? We might even get a cool clock out of it. Oh, yeah. Good call Barry. If you're listening, I would buy the hell out of this clock. Cock. No, I'm not, Jacob. Well, whether you're looking for a new clock or a new cock or you're interested in the record for, I don't know, actual listening purposes. We've got a link for you in our show notes. So, speaking of Uncle Barry, if you're in the mood to shop for fine jewelry, as well as high quality music. Well, we've got some great news. Barry Bostwick himself is doing a giveaway to promote some of his new merch on his official Facebook page. Barry has shared that his website is about to start selling unique. One of high necklaces constructed from high fire stoneware, glazed and engraved with the word asshole. Well, that's on brand, right? Yeah, I'd say so. So to help spread the word, Barry is currently holding a giveaway for one of the necklaces. If you'd like to enter the contest, you know what you gotta do. You gotta like share and comment on the post and follow Barry's Facebook page. Uh, contest winners will be declared on April 10th. So if you're listening to this episode on the day that it drops, you still have time to enter, go go. Now we're linking the post in the show notes for you. Wait, no. Hold on. This is a Barry announcement. Where's Jacob? Why isn't he here talking about it? Yeah, Megan. I asked him about it the other day but he said he'd gone on a road trip and didn't have any of his recording equipment. Oh, cool. Good for him. Where is he road tripping to uh I think he said Florida. What, what Aaron doesn't Barry live in Florida. Oh, no. Should we call someone? No, I'm sure it's fine. Uncle Barry's loaded. I'm sure he's got a great security team and they won't hesitate to tase a bitch in the balls. That's probably true. I'm sure it's fine. And by the way, if you're interested in keeping up with Uncle Barry, maybe in a less creepy way, he's gonna be part of a Galaxy Con spin city virtual experience on Saturday, April 10th at four PM. There's gonna be a live stream Q and A A one on one video chat with the cast and even a chance to snag a personalized autograph from Barry himself as well as Spin City cast members, Alan Ruck, Michael Boatman and the one and only Richard kind. We've got a link to that event too in our show notes. Show notes. No shows I like that. I think I might be more excited for that than any other Rocky Galaxy Con panels. What is Spin City? It was a very good show that Barry was part of the main cast for. It was Michael J Fox for the first bit of it. And then Charlie Sheen took over Barry plays the mayor of New York and it's exactly like you would imagine Barry playing the mayor of New York. Oh God, I wish that were me, the mayor of New York. No, Barry. So last up in global news. We've got an update from monster mask artist Russ Turk. Last week, we talked about the gorgeous and slightly horrifying Riff Raff mask. Russ had created and put up for sale in his Etsy shop. This week, we were really excited to learn that he's working on a second Rocky horror themed piece this time. It's our favorite Mad Scientist Do Franken Furter. This past Saturday. Russ posted a photo of his new project to the original Rocky horror picture show fans. Facebook group with the caption. Just thought I'd show the latest mask I'm making. This is the sculpture so far. It's got a lot more work to go into it, but the likeness is starting to come in at the moment. The piece is still in its early stages. I can't imagine sculpting a human face, let alone one is, shall we say interesting as Frank is even remotely an easy task, but Russ is doing a spectacular job. The sculpture's mouth and teeth are uncannily spot on your mouth and teeth are uncannily spot on. Spot on this dick. Yeah. High five John. Yeah. Uh We're gonna be keeping you all updated as Russ continues working on this project because we absolutely love fan projects like this one. In the meantime, Russ seems to be posting his own updates about his take on Frank to his Instagram, which is Russ underscore Turk. We'll be linking that for you in our show notes and really encouraging you all to go check it out. It is cool as hell. And I know we all love getting to support other artists and creators and speaking of other artists and creators, it's time for our next segment which is community news, more like community news. I'm over it, Seaman. First up in community news, we are thrilled to announce that time. Warp Radio. One of the five minute Rocky horror podcasts that has been producing content for the past several months has finally finished with their run through of the movie and will be starting up their next project. Shock treatment. Minute. Oh, shock treatment. That's right. Time Warp radio presents. Shock treatment is about to get you jumping like a real live wire with every five minutes of the Rocky horror sequel slash equal. So this podcast is going to be a deep dive, introspective of the 1981 follow up to the greatest cult film of all time. Who are these strange characters uncanny and familiar what is D TV? And the documentary being filmed in Denton USA is shock treatment. Really the sequel to Rocky horror picture show. We're gonna do it anyhow anyhow and just gotta keep going to find out. Shock treatment. Minute will be available on all major podcast platforms on April 28th man. Buy minute podcasts are so intense. I feel like there's so much stuff I don't know about this movie even after having seen it a million times as a performer. They dive so deep into all the smallest little details about the movie. Meanwhile, I just found out like a week ago that Eddie wasn't actually delivering pizza sushi. What? I don't get it. You really just said w a t, didn't you, you really just said wat, yeah, like, like the, like the A e that's like combined because it's like a special character. Is that why? Yeah. From a and other hit words. Yeah, there are a few by minute Rocky Horror podcasts right now and they're all doing the Lord's work. The two that we are really familiar with are time work radio and Rocky by minute. And both of those are great. But honestly, I'm sure there are even more than just that out there. I'm not aware of any shock treatment podcasts though, aside from this one starting at the end of the month, so that'll be some really original content that I know that we can't wait to check out. If you're interested in tuning in with us, you can visit Time Warp Radio on all social media and wherever you get your podcasts, we'll also have some links for you in our show notes. So while the ladies over at Time Warp Radio, take their minute, I've got to take a minute right here and let everyone know about the Rocky Horror quarantine show airing this Saturday the 10th at nine PM Eastern on R H P S live dot com. So This is a rebroadcast of the Junior Chamber of Commerce's virtual performance from last summer. From everyone's favorite Pittsburgh cast. Make sure to tune in this Saturday at nine on R H P S live dot com. And don't forget to follow J C C P online all at J C C P P G H guys, guys. Are you getting me excited about? No. Yes. Yes, I am. I absolutely lost my shit when I saw that post go up this week. I think everyone in the community is hella pump that we're going to have an event this year, especially us. All right, reel it back. So for those of you who may not have seen yet, uh Te Act is going to be hosting a virtual convention this summer. The event description that they just posted reads, the te rack players are excited to invite you to stay the fuck home and join us for te staycation. We're planning a weekend to thrill you, chill you and fulfill you with 100% virtual events including all star performances, zoom parties, panels, a virtual art gallery and more coming to a screen near you. Stay tuned for more info. There's not a whole lot of info yet, but it's more than enough to get us all really pumped. It's been so long since we've all gotten to hang out properly and I know that for us, at least the idea of a community hang sounds like a great time. Even if we got to keep it digital this year for all our listeners who are just as pumped as us, there's a te staycation Facebook group that we will link in our show notes. I'd imagine it's where all the convention updates will get posted by the con runners right now. It looks like they're crowdsourcing ideas from the community about what we all miss about conventions that might translate well to a virtual situation. Of course, there are so many things that only work in person, the parties, the themed events, getting all the newbies to drink. My Lord. What's oh God. Uh OK, Mellor is a wonderful brand of liquor that comes out of Chicago. Uh It's made by the Jepson's Moler Company. It tastes like a sweet, sweet combination of wormwood and assholes and it's a mainstay of every rocky convention. You'll see somebody from the Chicago cast who's brought way too many bottles and is trying to get you to drink gasoline. I myself particularly like it with a splash of red wine after having 15 other drinks in the evening. I had no idea that was like a con thing. I just thought that that was like a weird thing you and Meg were into because like they're going through a thing they'll age out of it. It's going to be fine. No, I fucking hate my Lord. The wife is the one that likes it. So you may have to get your own little bottles of the, I won't be able to share with you, but of course, there's tons of stuff that I'm sure would translate just fine or even better. Virtually, lots of the virtual performances casts have been putting on over the past year have been really wonderful and I think it'll be fun to see how it all culminates into what will hopefully be one of the last times we all have to do stuff online as a community. I'm pretty pumped for it. I mean, usually I miss a lot of the panels that go on at conventions. So the idea of having panels at a reasonable time while I can sit in front of my computer with a glass of whiskey in front of me. Sounds perfect like that. That'll get me going on that. Yeah, I feel like a lot of times when we start talking about cons, everyone usually goes to the con for like the shadow cast and the parties and as much as the panels are kind of what makes the con a con rather than just like a drunken escapade of shadow casters. I feel like now that we're going to actually be able to sit down and integrate these ideas and synthesize them ourselves is going to be actually like super fantastic. Yeah, I've obviously, I've never been to a con so I've never, I don't really have an experience to base this off of, but I'm really excited I feel like there's not many opportunities for me to just like sit down and get to know other people in the community other than like the events that we have, but we've only had one and even that didn't provide like a significant amount of discourse. So I'm really excited, I'm really, really, really looking forward to this and not to discount it. This is gonna be a great opportunity for people who are brand new to the community, right? Who may not want to lay out the hundreds of dollars that it takes to go to a regular convention or maybe even aren't over 18 or 21 because let's be real. If you're not over 21 a normal convention is gonna have a lot of events that you're not gonna be able to get into or you're just not gonna have fun going to. So this will be a great opportunity for all of those people as well. We are all very much looking forward to Staycation weekend, Nicky, we'll have to ship a couple of minis to your place so you can get the full experience. Well, we'll see about that. Well, that's enough about the future. Let's talk a little bit about what just happened in the community this last week. Oh, yeah. Once again, we have saved the best for last. We here at Rocky Talkie want to give a heartfelt brava to R K O Army Rowan and 13 for their spectacular once in a lifetime ego worthy performance. I am of course, referring to R K O presents Shadow Cats, which streamed on Twitch last Thursday. I really hope everyone listening knows exactly what we're talking about and was able to tune in because Jesus tap dancing, Christ, what an outstanding show, Rowan tib. I quite literally and without the slightest exaggeration, shit myself and came simultaneously and uncontrollably in my pants without even a moment's rest for the entire hour that you both graced us with your performance. All the while sobbing hysterically, both from sheer unbridled delight and the deep pitiful sorrow of knowing. I would never again experience something that brought my life so much meaning. I feel like I need to chime in here for a moment just to say that in spite of all the darkness that has befallen everyone I know and love this past year, TB and Rowan were able to more than make up for it with this show. Truly, you have both helped me to find spiritual enlightenment within my own mortal existence. Never before have I been believed so wholeheartedly that I was put onto this world for a specific purpose. And that purpose was to be alive on April the 1st 2021 at seven PM. So that I was able to witness the ultimate perfection that was shadow cats. I'm hesitant to even begin to try and recap this because how do you even start human language? Hasn't evolved to the point where we even have words to describe the unbridled magnificence that was this performance. But I suppose we can try. Ok. Well, all right, Rowan, of course, bestowed upon the world, the gift of their heart wrenching and devastatingly beautiful portrayal of Victoria, a gentle and trusting house cat who finds herself abandoned by her family to the cold streets of London. This of course is where a darling, her and is befriended by a host of other felines, Jenny Annie dots, Busto Jones, Mungo, Jerry Rumple teaser and America's heart throb the uncanny valley humanoid cat person who can make any human being spontaneously orgasm in five seconds flat. The Rum Tum Tugger, all these as well as a host of other thoroughly flushed out and well rounded characters were brought magically to life by the incomparable 13. The miracle of watching her breathe life into each and every single one of these characters can only be described as being gently and lovingly kissed on the forehead by God herself. These two magnificent actors unfurled the plot of this timeless classic in much the same way as a majestic golden pheasant might spread her delicate yet powerful wings before embarking on a long journey into the picturesque dawn of a new morning. The performance of course, culminated in a heart wrenching and awe inspiring crescendo of emotion that interwove Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's genius storytelling, a choir of felines that we as an audience had grown to love as we love our own families. And dare I say, as we love even ourselves and the cinematic classic, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, the film that has brought us all together with our shows and families from now on, it is my sole purpose in life to live in such a way that upon my death, I might be deemed worthy of heaven because there and only there will I ever stand a chance of one day experiencing anything even close to the bliss I found while experiencing the wonder that was shadow cats, I would be remiss if I didn't on behalf of our team here at Rocky Talky and indeed the entire human race. Thank Rowan and 13 from the bottom of my soul for bestowing upon us, the greatest gift all of humanity has ever seen. All right, I gotta say though, would it have really been that hard to draw butt holes on the leotards? Right? We were saying that the whole time too, even just little ones? I swear the missing butt holes is like the number one complaint about cats and it would have taken them like two seconds. Yeah, maybe next time. Great job though. We loved it. Thanks for putting in all that effort. It looked hella complicated and with that, let's move on to what is next stand? He asks a question. Hi. But before we do that, can we just briefly acknowledge that the butt hole cut is not real. It's an urban legend, please. No. Um You're not real. Moving on. Ok. You know that that's been disproved. Ok. Never mind. I, I try to tell meg this and she just smiles and laughs at me. So you want to talk about the butt hole cut? Let's talk about the Brad Riff. But fuck scene first. That's real. Ok. Nicky asks the question. All right, gentlemen, just last weekend as of recording about two weeks ago, for those of you listening in the future, we had a blast hosting community preshow night and I know I was totally blown away by all of the stuff that the community sent in. Tons of fantastic preshow and skits, all kinds of awesome rocky content. But that got me thinking a little bit. Why is the community so crazy about preshow and Big Dick performances? Have you met Rocky people? Yes, John, there's no disputing that Rocky draws in the theater crowd, tons of natural performers, fans of musicals, et cetera and so much content creation is video and photos these days that it certainly feels like doing stuff at Rocky. Like preshow fits in naturally, the pre shows were going on long before Buffalo was blowing up tiktok or Tessa was throwing an entirely virtual convention or well, even when the only people who made videos for fun were the guy who owned a V H S camcorder or the weird kid really into making movies. So What about that? Is it just that if you put 10 Rocky people in a room, they will naturally begin performing whatever musical most recently made a splash on Broadway. Is that an unwritten law of the universe or was there some kind of back story to why? Preshow and big performances are such a big part of the Rocky experience, at least for cast members. Yeah. Big on that last point. Pre shows are a big part of the cast experience since it's the thing that you're doing with your friends. But I feel like the audience half the time sees this open the show with a preshow and is like a little confused. They're wondering if they're gonna end up sitting through a lot of weird theater skits before they get to see the movie that they've paid to see. But that probably has a lot to do with New York getting a lot of tourists, you know, before, but outside of Halloween, big promoted theme nights, it's something that the audience doesn't really quite know how to expect when they come out to see Rocky. Yeah. Even though it's a huge part of the community, you got to remember how all of the earliest floor show casts were exactly that they were floor shows before the movie began shadow casting. Actually performing with the movie wasn't a thing until the very late seventies and into the eighties. But before we do a history lesson, I want to talk about some of our favorite pre shows. OK. So like Elephant In the Room, R K O is the greatest show from R K O, the most recent Archaeo Con. Like, how can that not be part of that list? It's absolutely fantastic and hectic and wild. The multiplicity of talents that were needed to put that on. Fucking everyone, shit their pants when they saw that everybody. Yeah, I mean, I know that I specifically made sure to come out to see greatest show even though we were on stage very quickly afterwards because me and I did uh Ralph and Betty, we made sure to get our asses out front so we could see the greatest show when it was going on because that, that was an absolutely batshit insane. Preshow. Hell, everybody stepped it up that year for R K O J C C P S Reefer Madness. They put a full length like one act play on stage for everyone. That thing had so many costume changes and just so much choreography going on with it. Like the greatest show was big but Reefer Madness was like complicated. You know, I really liked the For Madness. They submitted it to our community preshow night and I thought that it was incredible. I was like the whole time I was with my boyfriend and we were watching together and I could not keep my eyes off of Sally. I was glued to them the entire time. I was like, this is an incredible performer. Like, I don't know who it was, but I was like, this is what I want to be in a performer. Like they were just so cute. Uh Sally is the, the marijuana one. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That was Sierra. She's fantastic. I got to perform with her alongside for once more feeling. She was my, my opposite and I'll never tell. And she was so much fun to work with. I love Sierra. Well, shout out to you, Sierra. You rocked it. Oh Yeah. But some of my favorite pre shows have to be the ones that you do on a regular night at the theater, right? Ones that might be for a theme night or might be for, you know, just an average performance. I think the community has gotten so focused on doing big large pre shows that we kind of forget a lot about all of the smaller pre shows that everyone does at their shows every week or, you know, every couple of weeks. And in those, the focus is often on smaller concise, like little skits or things like that. Those are some of my absolute favorites. I think one of my favorites of all time is from J D uh who is a former Boston cast member who used to do a Eddie Columbia split version of Paradise by the dashboard lights where he would literally show up dressed in a costume where one half was Eddie and one half was Columbia and flip himself back and forth doing the different parts to paradise by the dashboard light. Absolutely. Loved. It. Always went over so funny. That costume is batch it hilarious. It's pretty old by this point. That sounds really, really cool. And, you know, I feel like a lot of people on N Y C know my love for like extremely complicated, like full out no holds barred. Preshow because I feel like ever since I took up the helm of like preshow theme night, director, all the pre shows have been like wildly complicated aside from like one or two of them. But I think my favorite preshow that I've ever seen was actually one that I mean, I wasn't even a part of it was our most recent Pride Preshow when we did low by Todger Hall, I legitimately like I welled up watching that rehearsal happen right before we went out for our first Pride Night because it was so it like, it was, it was really cool, really entertaining to watch, but it had layers. Like it was really cool to watch. It's a really fun bumping song. But it was based off of the idea that like, you know, in the beginning of the modern LGBT Q rights movement in the United States that gay people were being referred to as Friends of Dorothy and Lo is a song that uses Wizard of Oz imagery. So we kind of met them in this big bombastic pride. Preshow. That was like filled with like complicated dancing and a lot of movement on stage that anybody with like zero experience could have been able to hop on stage and pull off with it. You know, it was mind blowing and I could not believe that it came out as well as it did. And to this day, I'm still so mad that I don't have a recording of it. That's deep as shit, man. I had no idea. It just looked cool as hell. That's all I remember about it. Oh my God, I loved it so much and I'm so mad that nobody recorded it. If you're watching this and you have a recording of that. Preshow, please let me know immediately I will kiss you. I feel like it's very hard to follow that. Um But I love preshow and I love really stupid comedy. Like I love a preshow that just makes you like, feel bad after it's over and F N s has a lot of original because F N S used to do a preshow a week like before every show and they did, they uploaded a bunch to youtube and I love to like go back and watch them because I feel like it hits that level of comedy that my brain needs where it's like so stupid and so funny. Uh They have this one called Damn It Fran It and it's a prequel to the events of Rocky Heart. It takes place in Doctor Scott's refresher course. And it's totally like normal class, but then Janet's evil sister Fran shows up and it's just like a buff guy in a dress and it like, provides context for why Doctor Scott's in a wheelchair. And like, I don't know. It's so funny. It makes me very happy. It sparks joy and I think that I think of that would, that one's on youtube. Damn it Fran it if you want to check it out Friday Night specials. But yeah, I just, I love stupid sketch comedy and I love like taking something that has nothing to do with Rocky and just like putting Frank in it and being like it is a preshow. The first preshow that happened when I was elevated to the preshow and Theme Night director was something that had literally nothing to do with Rocky. And it was the same exact thing. It was like stupid humor. It was a video one. We filmed a horror movie trailer that parodied like a bunch of different like horror movie tropes. But it was about a man who just wore a Shrek mask and it was just called the reckoning. Oh God, I forgot about that. Yeah. And it was really funny because nobody had seen it before. And I remember Greg on our cast was the co-host, the first Halloween show that we had and he showed it and nobody had seen it and after it was over, everyone in the audience was like, it was a mix of like raucous laughter, extreme confusion, clapping and Greg came back on stage and looked up and went all right. Well, I don't know what the fuck that was. But are you all ready for some Rocky horror? It was the funniest thing. Uh And yeah, I mean, piggybacking off of what Nicky was saying too and, and a little bit of that, like, I think some of the most successful pre shows don't have to be those big crazy musical numbers, right? They can be stuff that's a little bit smaller in scope. It can be on actually. Great example. My favorite preshow of all time is something that was done by New York City, Alum Dre and Mike. They used to do this preshow to the internet is for porn where one of them would just put on a floppy wig and play Shrey Monster and the other one would do the rest of it and you'd pull up three random people to play the normal people, whether they're cast members or audience doesn't really matter and boom, instant preshow, absolutely zero effort. But because they sold that performance so well and frankly, they were just so fucking funny to watch like it just always landed and you could always have a preshow at the drop of a moment's notice. And that's part of the reason that we did internet is for porn, for our community preshow night. Like, it's super cute. It's a little bit raunchy and relatively straightforward. So if you're looking to do pre shows for your cast, but you haven't done a lot of stuff like the big choreograph numbers that we've talked about. Like, don't let that intimidate you. It's not about size or scale, it's just about complexity. I know that I just said that I really love like the big complex pre shows that look like it took an army to pull off. But like Aaron said, that's not always necessary to entertain an audience honestly because the number one rule in the world is that Rocky people are lazy uh present company included. Of course. Thank you. Wait. Hey, OK. Well, yeah, it's not that every rocky person is lazy. We just all have our own cool rocky shit and we want to do your shit, but we got shit, you know, shit, shit. Indeed. Like I was saying before, I'm the person who oversees theme nights and pre shows for N Y C R H P s. And I can't tell you how many times people come to me and they're like, we want to do a preshow or a theme night, but we're talking about pre shows like we want to do a preshow, they'll have this like, really amazing idea and I'm like, great. Go do it and get back to me when you have everyone on board, right. Because just because I'm the person who oversees it does not mean that it's my responsibility to go out and find every single individual person who wants to be on board with it and like choreograph and organize and do all of that stuff. Like I'm just here to oversee the production aspect of it. It's like doing a group project in school. You hope that everyone does exactly what's planned and they are prepared to have a backup or do it all themselves at the drop of a hat. Well, actually, I have a question regarding the way N Y C does preshow. Uh how do you guys go about like coordinating them? Like if I was on N Y C and I was like, hey John, I want to do a preshow. Do you guys just do like a random Friday preshow or is it like a special occasion sort of thing? So more often than not the pre shows that we put on are for special shows? So things like Valentine's Day, April Fools Halloween, the last November that we performed, we did like a Disney themed night because we wanted to reuse once upon a Saturday night, which is the preshow that we put on for R C 03. But for the most part, like if people just had pre shows that they want to put on, they can just let us know. But then again, it goes back to what we just said, like I'm not going to be the one that's gonna corral all the people for you. You got to get the people interested. You've got to give me a schedule that you're gonna need to rehearse if you even need to rehearse all of that stuff. And that's usually for the most part that's kind of where it stops. People will come for me with the idea. And I'm like, yeah, this is great, but you have to put the work in there. And like Aaron said, Rocky, people are lazy myself included. So like if anyone wanted to have a preshow, let's fucking do it. Just you do it. Yeah. But you do it because I'm not gonna do it because as much as I love your idea of Captain Planet in space, I am not devoting weeks of my time to coordinating how to get that off the air, right? But I will hit me up, right. So I, I coordinate and I produce them, but I don't necessarily, I'm not involved with the scope of all of them. Like sometimes I'll be in them. But like when I was talking about lo the pride preshow the most recent pride preshow that we did. That was all Savannah Adam and Megan. Like I didn't do anything for that. It was an idea that they had, they brought it to me and I was like, yeah, fantastic. Let's do it. They got the people together, they choreographed it, they did all of that. I just got them the space and coordinated day of basically. Yeah, I mean, some of the bigger crazier ones, right. Like when we have Halloween, we know we want to do a Halloween preshow, there's a bit more coordination around that. That's not just, you know, pick somebody and have them run with it because you kind of need it for those crazy big ones, you know. Yeah. But I think one of the most exciting things for me coming up is getting to finally check out all the crazy pre shows at R K O K four. I've obviously seen them all online, but everyone out there knows how removed you feel, watching taped theater or really any kind of live performance. Yeah. Watching a crazy preshow from like a previous con online is always great, super entertaining, but it really does remove you from how much dedication and time and effort go into putting together a preshow of that caliber. N Y C has always really been known for bigger pre shows. You know, the two most recent ones that we can talk about are once upon a Saturday night, which was from R K 03 and then Rocky goes to Broadway from R K 02. Those pre shows take so much time effort and consideration from everybody planned for when we start talking about once upon a Saturday night, we started rehearsing for that literally months before R K 03 months and it wasn't even just the actual rehearsals that became the issue. That was a group of like five or six N Y C cast members who added into this idea. You know, it was me, Adam Savannah Michelle and I'm pretty sure there's, there are names that we are missing there, but there was so much that went into just the simple idea of. Well, Disney is now owned by Fox. So Frank is a Disney Prince as ha ha ha. You know, that was just the base idea. But then it grew into this like huge monster with super accurate Disney costumes, tear away dresses, complicated, choo mashed up with skits. We had to do audio editing. It was wild. It was a multiple month process. And then when we even got to the con, we also had to find a place to rehearse it. We couldn't find anywhere. So we literally rehearsed it in a back alley behind the hotel before it happened. It was wild. So putting together these big preshow. So when you look at them online and they are like these gigantic 678 minute preshow, you just think, wow, that's really cool. But that shit took us months. And if you really think about it, hundreds of dollars because we have to get all of them out to the con in the hotel, they have to actively go to the convention to be able to be a part of it. It's wild. And when you really think about it, these con pre shows are just gigantic dick measuring contests because why, why else would we put months and months and months and months of work into a preshow if not just to show people how big of a dick. N Y C R H P S has. I mean, a good dick measuring contest is as old as Rocky Horror itself, right? I mean, all, all the way back, all the way back in the late eighties and into the nineties, like there have always been really huge, massive preshow at cons the greatest show and all the other preshow shows that were shown at R C 03 are just the natural crazy ass evolution of years of the community outdo each other and one upping each other's performance. One of the earlier examples that I can kind of think of is the Pink Invaders doing Thriller. This was way back when probably mid nineties. It was a massively choreographed preshow complete with like rip to shreds. Rocky horror zombie costumes set to Michael Jackson's Thriller, obviously the absolute masterpiece of a song. But like what John was saying about money, like how many of us own, how many Rocky Horror costumes or preshow costumes that existed for one costume? Could you imagine owning a whole Columbia tail coat that's just ripped to shreds because you needed it as a zombie Columbia costume. That's what these guys did. That is exactly what these guys did, man. If I have to see another cast, do Thriller, I swear, I'm gonna shit my pants. But like in the bad way, the Thriller was fucking massive. You know what else is massive. My dick. Yeah, my dick too. My dick's more massive. Well, I know it was like any other stupid big pop song that hasn't changed. Everyone knew that. Dance. Hell, I bet I could name 20 people now who know the Thriller Dance. My middle school musical did an entire musical dedicated to Michael Jackson and we did like four scenes dedicated to the Thriller period, right? Like I don't wanna say that thriller was like a big defining moment in Rocky history or any of that kind of crap, right? The, the music video didn't release until 1983. We've got a bunch of history in the community before that, but it was a massive pop culture Touchstone in the early eighties and I mean, everyone knew it. Everyone was watching it. That video is an amazing short film. It's directed by John Landis for fuck's sake. Like, you know John Landis, an American Werewolf in London Animal House blues brothers. Like he literally redefined the entire music video genre. So of course, Rocky latched on to it. It's right in our wheelhouse and it just so happens to have relatively straightforward, awesome choreography that looks impressive and is topically appropriate every Halloween just stop doing the 14 minute version like, please. Yeah, I, I felt like if we were gonna talk about pre shows, we had to get Thriller out of the way at some point. Yeah, that's fair. But ok, let's actually do the thing. Let's roll it way back. Let's talk about just the idea of the preshow and the floor show cast and how early Rocky casts were not shadow casting, the film, you know, like you and I think of that didn't take hold until the early eighties. That's kind of unreal considering how shadow casting is the mainstay of Rocky now and has been as far back. Certainly, as long as any of us have been in the community, it's the shadow casting from the early eighties that has evolved into Rocky today. But, you know, it's real different today. It's still random and improvisational and off the wall sometimes generally for theme nights. But the average regular Rocky show and the precision of shadow casting, it ends up having a performance consistency that approaches like a weird touring community theater that has a lot to do with the screen accuracy craze that gripped the community around like the mid eighties. And it's why I could go guest with New York or R K O today and know 80% of the blocking after just asking which side the tank and the elevator are on. But yeah, let's go back to before any of that before screen accuracy was in anyone's vocabulary. We know that shadow casting wasn't a thing. So, the origin of Rocky casts you're telling me is in the preshow, it's certainly a good narrative device, isn't it? Don't jerk yourself off too hard. No such thing. But also it's kind of true. Right. I mean, we're, we're using it as a through line, but it's actually true way back in the earliest days of Rocky when it was first blowing up as a phenomenon. Think like 1976 77 78 nobody that was going was thinking about matching the screen or anything even remotely like that. You'd show up at your local show, you'd line up outside before midnight and you're just there to party. So you started the party right there. I mean, we do this now like you play songs, you dance, you goof around, you're just chilling with your friends. Sometimes you're scrambling to put on makeup or finish gluing photos and your crim book or you know, get your frank eyeliner just right. But you know, we've all been there and it makes sense that Rocky was the big thing. It was what everyone was there for. So let's blare the music, let's listen to the songs, let's do the time warp in the street. We said it last episode and I'll say it again. The seventies man, weird fucking time time warping in the street. Have some respect. People are driving here. I know that's true. I saw it on the Drew Carey show, Drew Carey was in the nineties and that's not important. So the late seventies, you slowly had all of these groups of fans becoming more and more organized, right? Usually you had some kind of a ringmaster of sorts, you know, the guy who was the host doing the announcements, keeping the flow going. And as more fans showed up in costumes who obsessively knew the songs in the movie, they started performing numbers in the theater before Rocky would start. And of course, it was Rocky. So they did the songs before the movie too. Why not? The soundtrack album had finally made it to a mass release after a ton of waiting around. So I suppose everyone just couldn't get enough. I think if I went to Rocky and had to do the time work five times in a single night in earnest, I would fucking kill myself and dump my own body into the Hudson River. But that's what the earliest Rocky scenes were. People just absolutely obsessed with Rocky and nothing but, and that's changed. But I get what you mean. Everyone was still in the, I have to listen to Hamilton on repeat phase. I'm still in that phase and it just so happens that you can go see it every weekend and dress like the characters and do the dances and get high and get laid and, uh, yeah, I see it now. Yep. Got it. Exactly. It's some of the earliest forms of the audience taking the stage were just that before the film, they were doing some of the numbers as pre shows before the movie. In 1977 you have accounts of fans from the Roxy stage show showing up as Transylvanian to dance the time warp during and after the film. This is at the Tiffany theater on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. But that's not quite the same as a preshow. What gives that doesn't sound like a creature of the Night quote. It's not so a lot of what we talk about here is extremely New York centric, mostly because it's so well documented in Sal's books, Creatures Of The Night Creatures Of The Night too. But I've been meaning to do some digging into the rocky scene on the West Coast from the earliest days, shortly after our women's appreciation month episode. Uh Ruth Fink Winter reached out and told me about the Rocky horror picture show at the Tiffany Theater. Hollywood Facebook group. That's quite a mouthful. I'll give you a mouthful. Yeah. There it is on that group, Lisa Sutton. She's an early fan from the Tiffany in L A has written some fantastic and extremely entertaining accounts of early Rocky on the west coast. Lisa is pretty prolific in the community in her own right. She's the one who designed the Rocky horror box set when working at Rhino Records and she produced some of the very earliest Rocky Horror merchandise in the last few years, she's written a ton of fantastic long form pieces on things like Rocky Horror and Phantom of the Paradise Plane is a double feature or when she got to go see Tim Curry in concert or her stories and Memories and memoirs from the Tiffany in the mid to late seventies. It's fascinating for me since it aligns so closely in time with the earliest events that are told in creatures of the night. It's a whole other perspective to Rocky's early days just on the other side of the country. So you've got dancing and pre shows in line while you're waiting, you've got a semi coherent preshow going on before the show. In some places like New York, it has a little bit more structure though New York would face its own challenges as its preshow started dragging in length until like 40 plus minutes near the end of the seventies. So in 1977 the Fox Theater in Venice, California even hired a troupe comprised in part of local look alike contest winners to perform a live floor show in between their midnight and their two AM showing of Rocky Horror. So they were literally doing the numbers from the film alongside the audio between the two showings of the film. I'm sorry, a two AM showing of Rocky. It's a late night double feature picture show. They're supposed to be different pictures. Gee, you're not kidding. This is the hard core, listen to it on a loop kind of shit. So by the very late seventies, 78 to 79 you had some groups starting to fully shadow cast the movie and not just perform before the show, she had more info about how all of that transitioned over. There's an account in the Bill Hanken Rocky horror book from 79 about full shadow casting just beginning specifically with one cast out of California. But at that point, the eighth street cast in New York was still mostly a before the movie affair. Sometimes Dory Hartley would do sweet transvestite during the film as Frank. But generally, that was only when it wasn't played beforehand because like we said, they were edging up on a 40 minute plus. Preshow, I'm edging right now. That makes sense. And as more and more places began to actually begin shadow casting the movie, the preshow was left open for other new cases within the Rocky community. Bring on Hedwig and the angry and just, you know, whatever was eighties head wig lady Hawk. I mean, sure, that's exactly what the community did by 1979. And into the eighties, many shows began adding music videos to play before the film, stuff like meat loaf bat out of hell. The latest video from little now or even music from Tim Curry's pop album like I do the rock da da da da da, da, da da da, I do the rock, uh, do the rock rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock. Well, I mean, it's simulating, I guess. Did you know that sucks about cocaine? What that song is about? Something? It just sounds like gibberish. It's because it's all names and references to stuff from 1979. It's like we didn't start the fire but instead of spanning 50 years and having this banging chorus about the world burning Tim's just singing. It's 1979 and I like cocaine. We is that real? I have no idea. But I believe it, someone did a whole breakdown on line of the song with every single reference cited on Wikipedia. It is some absolutely obscure shit, man. Of course, there is. So getting back, fame comes out in 1980 we've heard about this before, back on episode six where we dug through the earliest pre internet online Rocky horror conversations from government employees and scientific researchers. You made that sound way more interesting than it actually is. I liked that one. He did all those weird dramatic readings. Anyway, there was all that big debate from the air, quote normal ultra nerds, at least not Rocky nerds about if fame was the thing that turned Rocky into a cult phenomenon. And we all know Rocky has a rich history before fame, stupid government scientists. But one of the big things that Fame did do and sal acknowledges this in creatures of the night. Is it brought a national script to the masses. You don't mean like the A P script? No, it's more like a cliff notes of what to expect. When seeing Rocky, anyone who saw Fame expected to see an MC at the start of the show, they expected to see people get up and dance and take part in the show. They expected the show to be one big party and they hoped that they might just be lucky enough to get past the circulating joint all because that's what they saw happening at the Eighth Street Playhouse in Fame. Reality though was a little different. Everyone naturally evolved their own script and procedures for the night. But it was from there that you get many of the pieces of the preshow that you still see today announcements and anniversaries of special events, stuff like the Transylvanian Anthem and the fraternity like hazing rituals for the virgins, all of that leading up to the big R O C K Y chant, right? That we all know and do today. That's the one nowadays, we spend a lot more time on the virgins and a lot less time on the announcements. Other than no, don't throw things at the screen and all the places to follow on social media. Most of preshow is just virgins and maybe a dance party. It's so much more important these days to get the audience into the mood for Rocky. And I imagine this will be a big thing to overcome. His show's come back from this worldwide hiatus. You have to work the audience into that frenzy that you got for free from fans in the seventies and eighties focusing on the preshow on getting them warmed up for the actual performance that they are about to see is way more important than promoting theme nights that are six months in the future. I think we've all seen those rocky shows where we're just staring at our phone as we wait for the preshow to be over as unfunny joke after unfunny joke fails to land and the host keeps rambling on about so and so's 2/100 time selling merch and how my little pony theme night is only 7.5 months away. Please don't speak that into existence. I mean, hell, when you and I would host New York's preshow, John, we would often just compete to see how much we could chop off. Let's get the show started all that much earlier because let's be real. The audience isn't there to watch us be self indulgent. Ok. Well, they are all just there to see me. We all know that but you're not wrong. Like you got to give them something super engaging, like a skit or a choreographed number or you've got to directly engage them with stuff like the Virgin games that have become the mainstay of nearly every show and the shorter it is the sooner the movie can start and the faster we can all get to the bar after the show or the diner and then we're all just hanging out and we can sing songs and dance in the middle of the. Denny's at 4 30 in the morning. Totally different than all those kids in the seventies outside the Tiffany on Hollywood Boulevard doing the time. Warp. You're right now. We're singing Rent and that is our show. I don't want Aaron to get into musical theater nerd form. If you'd like to submit a question for us to answer on air or write to us with some community news or even just a cool story about your time in the Rocky horror community. Go to our website rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to share with us. We really enjoy getting to hear about all the cool stuff you guys have been working on and we love having the opportunity to share it with the rest of the community. If you're enjoying Rocky Talkie, please help us spread the word about it. All you gotta do is go rate, review and subscribe on itunes. It helps us make our podcast more visible to new listeners, which helps us to grow the show. So we are on Facebook, Instagram and tiktok, all at Rocky Talkie podcast. So please go check us out if you like us and you want more content and we will talk to you next week. Bye. You're out here. You're supposed to be down here. We did it, we did it excellent, excellent work. Guys, independently owned music and pop culture company based in New England has just released an exclusive and I do say so pretty, pretty a new vinyl. That's, that didn't really work. Hold on one second. I'm eating chocolate. Oh my God. Oh God. Oh God. I sneezed so hard. I drop my phone. Oh my God. Sneezing. It's the new hit sport. He's actually going to be part of a galaxy con spin city virtual experience. I ran out of uh breath on that. Hold on. I'm so gassy today. I hate that. Don't share that. So that wraps that up penis. Uh That's right. Always wrap up your penis. All right. I gotta say though. Would it have really been that hard to draw buttock on their leotards? Uh But what the fuck? But, but talks, did you see that man's buttocks? But you know, it's real that my pussy?