Hello to all of you. Unconventional convention is out there. Welcome to Rocky Talkie, a Rocky horror podcast where we talk about anything and everything related to a Rocky horror. I'm Aaron, I'm John and I'm Jacob Subbing in for Nicky who is currently diving for ocean treasure with James Cameron. Do uh do you guys think she'll find the heart of the ocean? That, that old bitch, y it into the water? Yo, he any way? Good luck to Nikki on her adventures this week, I had some fun adventures as well. We finally got our apartment sorted out. Everything is like starting to come together. We got new furniture in yesterday. I spent all day assembling shit from IKEA. Uh So that was not as frustrating as I thought it was gonna be. What's it like to have your apartment put together? You know, it's uh satisfying, satisfying. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to meet you on that. You still fighting around boxes, John. Yeah, basically, Savannah is putting together their dresser tonight. Well, supposedly putting their dresser together tonight. So we'll see if that actually happens. We're still getting everything together. My room, my streaming room, my recording room, my office is the only room that is still put together. Gotcha. Everything else is still in boxes. We did. However, this past week get our couch. Oh, so now we have a couch but we still have a bunch of boxes in the living room that are behind the couch that we haven't unpacked yet. So the battle is still raging on. Gotta get on that shit. But you know, in addition to getting my apartment sorted out, finally got to go out and enjoy the fact that we are back here in Manhattan. We got to go out the other night and we saw Adam hosting karaoke the other day. That was super fun. I haven't seen Adam in over a year, so I was super excited to get to see him again. Heard some awesome people singing a song and it was great. Adam is our dear friend here on the podcast. He has performed with us at N Y C R H P S before the pandemic. Um He is uh other stuff. I don't know a lot about Adam. Oh no, Jacob keep going. Uh I, you know, I would, but I, I'm more curious about Aaron. Did you sing at karaoke? Uh No, I'm what they call the uh wallet when I go to karaoke. What's that? Well, I sit there and I enjoy listening to all of my talented friends sing while they're at karaoke and then I buy them shots. It's, it's like I'm the one singing except I'm not. Anyway, what else is going on this week, guys. I had a great week also. Um Nobody asks Jacob. I had a great week also. I don't need y'all to ask me, I'm the fucking star of the show, baby. Um I had a great week for like the second time in my life. I listened to the podcast and I heard that last week, Aaron, you mentioned my birthday. Thank you so much. Happy birthday. And I've started playing this game again called Hearts of Iron Four. If anyone knows how to play it, message the show, tell me about it. It's so confusing and with all of that, let's get started on our first segment. It's Global News time. Is it, is it really, it, is it really? So for the last several months, we've been talking about the return of the UK Rocky Horror tour. We've gone over the cast, the locations, the touring dates and more. And finally, it's here. The Rocky Horror Show after months of absence has finally reared its secret encrusted mug on stage across the pond on August the third. Yeah. Oh, I thought that was going to be a sound bite. Woohoo. I feel like I just got blue shelled unfortunately, because we're poor. We weren't able to see the opening night at the Milton Keynes Theater speak for yourself. I told you to stop buying avocado toast, but we can read the opening night reviews and pass along the excitement to you. Our lovely listeners. The newest addition to the cast winner of Strictly Come Dancing's 14th season or Duba seemed a little too buff and popular for the asshole aesthetic of Brad majors. But he absolutely delivered as the star geek, his chemistry with Janet Haley Flaherty feels authentic and they played really well off of each other. Stephen Webb as Frank was an absolute powerhouse of vocal bravado and manly musculature that rivaled even or a and though he's been in 1800 performances, more than perhaps the combined numbers of everyone present. Christian Levico gave a stellar performance spectacular in the finely honed nature of a part endlessly performed and rehearsed while at the same time wildly different from performance to performance. And of course, he and Susie mcadams wonderfully complimented each other as Riff and Magenta Tua was flirty Rocky was buff and once in a while, was tender everything as it should be something I thought that was really cool. Is that Philip Franks, the narrator had a lot of real time comebacks on hand for the audience participation. I know at N Y C R H P S we kind of discouraged cast members from screaming A P with the audience, but in England management gets it right. Aren't you part of management, John? I meant the other management, the one that we're recording with. Is it me so? Oh my God? Did Jacob just get promoted. What happened there? I think so. Thank you so much. Er Well, anyway, the uh the stage show does have a unique atmosphere. It's a lot more common for the uh performers to, you know, throw it back at the audience at the stage show. It really paves the way for vibrant interactions between the audience and the cast. You even have seen some of this kind of stuff in other raunchy stage shows like Hedwig. So it's, it's super cool to think of the real time comebacks that the narrator got to spew with the audience. Apparently a lot of it was about Matt Hancock, a British politician. He got a lot of shit that makes me wonder what are some of the coolest audience interactions? You guys have had any fun spur of the moment A P lines, you guys have had either something that really fit well with the current event or something of a back and forth between you and an audience member. I mean, I feel like a lot of times when I talk about fun A P back and forth with audience members, I feel like the only one that ever really comes to my mind is Mr Big Cock, which I think I've told on this stream at least 30 times. It's, it's, it's a good story though. It's a good story. It really is. So for those of you who may have just tuned in, like I don't know. Last week there was a time about two years ago where I had this one audience member who just, every time I came on stage would talk about how big my cock was. I was playing Brad Majors like the most milk toast character in the entire show. Like if there's a ranking of Rocky horror characters from Biggest Stick to smallest stick. Brad gets beat out by even the AFA characters, like Brad's got the smallest wiener in the entire show. But this man was just insistent that I had a gigantic dick at the very end of the show. I came out for my applause and he sat up in his seat and screamed, fuck you and Mr Big Cock and for about a year and a half, the cast never let it down. So that's my favorite. If you're listening to this and you were the one who called me Mr Big Cock. I just want to thank you. It was Jacob the whole time I was gonna say, are you sure it wasn't just Savannah? It was not. Uh Savannah was on stage unfortunately. Or else I probably would have just blamed it on her. I think my favorite kind of like back and forth audience interaction I have. And this is something that I do as Riff is like, I play like frustrated Mopy mumbling, Riff, like disgruntled henchman kind of kind of character so often when one of our like, props people might be a little slow to get something off stage or whatever. I will just go and grab it. But as I'm hauling it off, I'll be grumbling to the audience, I'll be like, uh Riff Raff, move the key to love. Raff, move the drone. I'm gonna fucking kill him. I'm gonna kill him. I'm just gonna kill him. And like, I always get people sitting there talking back to me in the front row. It's like, yeah, you do too much work, man. And like, it's, it's always funny. I like doing that little bit. It's a little something extra for if like you sat in the splash zone in the front, couple of rows. So yeah, that's, that's probably like my favorite back and forth. That happens. I don't know, Jacob, you got one, you got a favorite interaction that you've had. Uh Yeah, definitely. My first Halloween and I, I started on N Y C R H P S around Halloween. So I hadn't been on the show long. But my first Halloween, we had an audience member who was on point with the A P. He was saying he was yelling something at the screen every second and it fit with the movie and it was great. It was like he was directly interacting with the screen. I thought it was Bonkers hilarious, but there were two men also at the show who were drunk out of their goddamn mind and they did not like this man yelling the A P at the uh at the screen. And one of them got up at some point, went over to where the dude was sitting, yelled at him and said something like you are ruining the show for all of us. And then he left the theater and he stole this like this mannequin of an upper body that we have to like show our merchandise, our shirts and he starts running down out of the theater with it and like Aaron goes running off after him and it was like, I thought it was kind of hilarious that night. So, so it wasn't exactly an A P interaction, but it was an audience thing. And I, I remember it fondly, you know, the best fucking thing about that story. I don't know if you remember this, I chase this guy as he's trying to run away with his shirt and I'm like, trying to scream for security to get him and whatever and like he runs down the escalator realizes that like a fat man barreling after him down, the escalator is gonna beat him to the bottom and like just Yeats the shirt over the top of it and like he gets outside and whatever fucking 10 minutes later, the the guy that he was with sheepishly walks back in with his tail between his legs and he's like, we forgot our phones and I'm just standing there like you motherfucker, we gave them their phones and kicked them the fuck out. They're never coming back ever again. But like, God, fuck those two guys, fuck those two guys. Anyway, now that we've had our fun and talked about the most amazing return to stage, it only feels right that we should pay our respects to the theater that facilitated this return. And that's the uh Milton Keynes theater. So compared to some of the grander old theaters that Pepper Britain, the Milton Keynes is like baby, it opened August 4th, 1999 which gives it just over 20 years of running time. So what the Milton Keynes may lack in historical gravitas. It makes up for a newfangled thing. Ofa Bobs think of the Bobs. I got 20. But who cares? No big deal. I want more. Yeah. What the fuck was that? That was Ariel and you liked it? No, I, I did not. Yeah. Yeah, you did. That was the Little Mermaid and you loved it. Oh, ok. So you loved it. I loved it. Now sing it. Um Anyway, we're gonna dive back into the Milton Canes and it's technologically advanced theater being on the newer side. The Milton Canes was built with up to date building practices as well as advanced equipment that allows for a really cool and versatile theater. So this, this is super neat. The ceiling in the theater can be lowered or raised for any production and the seating can be completely arranged to accommodate anywhere from 900 to 1400 audience members allowing for the Keys to host a wide variety of productions from massive musicals all the way to down to earth dramas. Despite covid's impact on theaters worldwide, the Milton Keynes opened back up to seats jam packed with Rocky Lovers dressed to the nines in Rocky attire, complete with themed masks. Of course, the Keys isn't jumping back into productions without safety precautions. Audience members over the age of 18 were required to show proof of vaccination and though face masks were optional, most attendees chose to wear one. We do want to point out that in almost all the reviews we've been referencing here today, the authors go out of their way to mention how much narrator Philip Franks. Absolutely dicks on politician Matt Hancock, like throughout the entire show. And we here at Rocky Talk, he firmly believe that if the cast of the English stage production of the Rocky Horror Show, has it out for you. You probably deserve it. Yeah. Get fucked. Matt Hancock, former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2018 to 2021. Unfortunately, if you were looking forward to hopping the pond over to the Milton Keynes to see the show, it just closed at the theater a few days ago on August 7th. That's because it's a touring production. But coming up, they've got a lot of great stuff including grease, the musical and rumors of Fleetwood Mac. Later this month, we here at Rocky Talkie which the now touring cast of the Rocky Horror show. A wonderful time and some amazing performances. Nice, nice, nice. Last up in global news, we wanted to take a moment on our show to address an issue of extreme importance that we've noticed recently circulating social media, buckle up folks because this is a big the issue we're referring to is of course, Daniel Radcliffe dressed as Franken Furter. See, I've been seeing it making the rounds on almost every single Rocky Facebook group. I'm a part of which is all of them and everyone seems so excited at the idea of Harry Potter Frank. Like we're mem finding it. We're circulating the gifts, we're chopping it together with videos of Dumbledore looking extremely disappointed with Harry. So this week, we decided to do a deep dive into this very important issue to find out why exactly Daniel Radcliffe appeared somewhere on TV as Franken Furter and much like Dumbledore. We too were very disappointed with the results of this expedition. It turns out the images we've been seeing originate from a show called Miracle Workers A T BS comedy produced by Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi starring these two Gents plus Geraldine Viswanath, Karon Sony and John Bass. Now, if you aren't already aware of Miracle workers, honestly, you should be. It is a spectacularly funny show with a repertory cast where each season is set in a different era and tells like a completely different story. So, for example, in season one, the characters were all like deities who controlled the fates of humanity. In season two, the show was set in medieval times. And in the newest season, they're all frontiers men who are exploring the Oregon trail. Like I, I picked this show up like at the very beginning part way through season one or so. And I absolutely love it. I love that each season is different. I love that. You don't have to like follow each season. You can jump in in season three if like, you just want to see what's going on with this frank stuff like you can start there. Daniel Radcliffe is so fucking funny. The supporting cast is absolutely hilarious. I love this show. Of course, we're not going to give away any spoilers for the show, especially because Daniel Radcliffe Frank Memes we've been seeing come from episode four. That's the most recent episode of the newest season. So if you haven't had a chance to watch it, we don't want to ruin it for you. But suffice it to say if you're looking for Rocky horror in this episode, well, you, you might find some similar vibes to those that you find at a wild cast party. But listen, you, you're not gonna find Harry Potter dressed as a sweet transvestite. These are not the Transylvanian's we're looking for. Nah, it's just Daniel doing a burlesque sort of thing in a cape. And if, course all of you damn Rocky people see a cape and some dark eyeliner and immediately think it's Frank. The cape doesn't even have a collar people. It's a feather boa. Ruth Fink winter would be ashamed of your inability to tell a cape collar from a feather boa. You should feel bad. Now, we're just kidding, Daniel was giving off some pretty major rocky vibes in that scene and to be Frank, I hate you. Get it, get it because Frank. Oh we got it. Yeah, we got it, buddy. Thank you. I could totally see his performance being turned into a really cute preshow one day just saying, can we like copyright that somehow? No, but if you do it, be sure to film it and tag us so we can see that shit would be as funny as hell if you're interested in checking out miracle workers either because it's a great show which it is or just to check out season three, episode four for preshow ideas. We've got info about it linked for you in our show notes. And with that, let's ex spear over to he still said it wrong for all of y'all who don't know which is everybody except us. Uh Our producer Meg had to remind Aaron how to say expel the arm before this. And Aaron was like, I know how to say it and then said it wrong anyway, expel the arm. There you go. Close enough community news and another spectacular grassroots Rocky horror stage show production. Looking for a little public funding to make their show a reality. Today we have some fun news for any of our fans in the Minneapolis area. Yes, that's right. You may soon have a new Rocky Hard cast playing in a community near you, Justin. Matthew Dale Nelson. It's a hell of a name is an actor and theater artist working out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. And he's recently made a Kickstarter to help bring a production of the Rocky Horror show to his local stage. Justin hopes to perform the last two weekends in October with a special midnight show and show on Halloween night. He's looking for a total of 7500 bucks to pay for the rights, the space and you know, all the costs associated with building out a community theater production. Directing the show will be Brandon R. Cavan who aims for a freaky ball of the wall production of Rocky in regard to his directing technique. Brandon has stated if anyone leaves not feeling at least a little uncomfortable, then I haven't done this right. So far, they've raised $426 of their goal with nine backers and 23 days to go until their funding deadline on August 31st. If you want to make a charitable donation to their cause. They're under the Rocky Horror show on Kickstarter in for a $100 donation. You get two free tickets to the show. We wish them the absolute best and not just dreaming it but being it, good luck Justin guys with all this stage show talk. Have any of you been finding yourselves thinking, man. This stage show sounds so cool. I wish I could perform in a version of that shit. I know I have guys, I can't even find the nerve to sing at Karaoke night, let alone on stage. Well, if you're ballsier than Aaron and happened to live in the Hawaii area and for the record, the closest US state to Hawaii is Alaska. So the Hawaii area is Hawaii followed by Alaska. Well, if you live in that area and you've ever wanted a chance to perform in the stage show, we've got some great news. The high low community players have just announced that auditions for Richard o'brien's the Rocky Horror Show will be held on August 10th at six PM and on August 14th at two PM for a performance that will run from October 22nd through to the 31st. The high low community players are of course located on Hawaii's Big Island. They were founded in 1938 to educate enrich and inspire the Big Island community through quality theatrical productions, workshops and activities for Children, teens and adults. This theater company actually seems really cool. It's a shame they're so far away because of their 2021 2022 season lineup looks like an excellent time. This company seems to be really big into Shakespeare. They have a Shakespeare in the Park program along with the special Shakes Kids program that was started back in 2014. Right now. They're working on productions of Romeo and Juliet plus a show called The Ification of Romeo and Juliet, which looks to be a drive in production of the play performed by middle school age performers. Like come on, what a great way to get kids interested in Shakespeare. Seriously. So before I was at the job in which I am at now, I was a graduate assistant for student activities at a college in the Bronx. And one of my responsibilities there was actually to direct the theater group and there was this one year where we did a production of a Midsummer Night Stream, obviously by Shakespeare, but they had me direct it, which is a horrible choice because I hate Shakespeare. I hate everything that this man has written. It is full of just pretentious jargon. I'm going to be canceled so hard by saying that. But I give a single fuck. I hate Shakespeare. You heard it here first folks. So I was like, y'all really want me to direct this and they were like, yes, so we completely mem it, it became the biggest joke ever. There are stage directions in a midsummer Night's dream where it says that like the Ferries enter with a train behind them, which basically just means that a bunch of ferries follow the main ferry in. No, no, no, no, no. I had them pull a little block of trains in and nobody got that joke except for us. Oh, my God. Fantastic. You know, there's, there's a real market here, right? Like you've seen drunk Shakespeare or like, you know, the play where everything goes wrong. Right. So, I, I think you, you, you, you hit something there, right? I absolutely did. I had the guy who played Oberon talk like Owen Wilson the entire time. No, no reason at all. He just said, wow, a lot. Wow. And just talked like Owen Wilson the whole time I had the very, very end. So at the very very end of act one, well, not act one but like where the intermission traditionally is for midsummer night's dream. If there is an intermission is right when all of them get drugged and fall asleep. So I had every single one of them pass out on stage and stay there during the 15 minute intermission. Awkward. It was fantastic. Like people would like go up to them and like poke them to be like, are you, are you ok? And they were, they had to remain there completely still asleep on the floor throughout the entire intermission. I had a bunch of like dumb sound effects and stupid sound cues throughout the show. It was a garbage fire and if Shakespeare saw it, he would probably have sued me. Well, I think that they all learned their lesson about asking you to direct Shakespeare. They did. Well, if you'd like to see a slightly, or actually probably a lot better production, check out this stuff that the Helo theater is putting on. I mean, they must be pretty cool. Right. Their next show coming up is Rocky. Oh, man, we should send them the Shakespeare Rocky script. It would blow their minds that bitches. Well, if anyone in Hawaii or the surrounding areas, Alaska and whatever is interested in auditioning for the non Shakespeare version of the stage show. Here's what you should know one. You've already, you missed the August 10th session, sorry, but don't worry, you can still catch the August 16th slot at two PM. Auditions should be at least 18 years of age and come prepared to sing a song in any appropriate style of the show. Dress for movement and be ready to read some scenes. So this company sounds like it would be awesome to work with if we've got any listeners in the greater Hawaii area, which we know there's at least one we super encourage you to audition and break all your legs while you do. So if you'd like more information on auditions, performances or on the high, low play in general, we've got all their dates linked for you in our show notes. Next up a few months ago, we told all of our listeners about transvestite soup, which is a cast in Minneapolis, whose historic home, the Uptown Theater was forced to shut its doors for good in June. A victim of COVID closure. The Uptown originally opened in 1939 and was purchased and reopened by landmark. In 1978 the theater began running screenings of Rocky in May of 1978. They stopped in the late nineties, but they picked the monthly tradition back up again in 2009. Landmark was evicted back in June. And the resident cast transvestite soup was left homeless. A situation which unfortunately, quite a few of our fellow casts have also found themselves throughout the Pantene prove this was a story we followed over the course of a few weeks on our show because honestly, it was a little heartbreaking to see a local landmark get shut down and take some of our own with it. But this week, we've got some good news for all our listeners who are as invested in that saga as we were. Transvestite soup has found a new home. Yay. That's right. Starting September 4th. The cast is gonna be performing at the parkway, another historic theater in Minneapolis. Damn. The twin Cities really do be lousy with their historic theaters. They really do be. And this one sounds like a perfect home for a Rocky cast. The theater was built in 1931 and was restored back in 2018 to be the super cool, like retro chic venue that not only shows movies but also hosts a lot of other special events, like 24 hour movie marathons, live events, including their own performing art series. And they employ an in house mixologist who specializes in movie themed custom cocktails to accompany their classic movie Thursdays. Wait, do they have a Rocky themed cocktail actually? Yes, but it's called the Knockout Punch. So I think it might be the other Rocky. It is very red though. It's, it's mixed with vodka fruit punch, cordial lime crema and Contro. How on earth? Do you know that all of the Parkways custom movie cocktails are featured on their website in case you want to try out some of their creations when you host your own movie night, they've actually got a pretty massive recipe library featuring themed cocktails from all sorts of movies. Jacob, they've got a drink that reminded me of you immediately. It's themed after the Lost Boys and is mixed with bourbon, Campari and orange Bitters. It's called Sunglasses at night. Oh man, that's so cool. I cannot wait to drink it. Yeah. And John did, you know they've got a big Lebowski themed drink that I think would be totally perfect for you. You know, if you mixed it Virgin style, right? It's vodka kalua cream to cow milk dud syrup and cream all over ice. So it's literally just like a shit ton of milk based products with milk dud syrup in it. Uh-huh. So milk over ice. I would drink the ever living shit out of that. You're disgusting. Yes. This place does sound totally perfect for a rocky cast. We're very excited for our friends over in the twin cities to have found such a wonderful new home kla transvestite soup. We hope you break all of your likes on September 4th. If any of our listeners happened to be in the Minneapolis area on September the fourth or later, we're linking all the dates for you in our show notes so you can go check out the cast and their amazing new theater all for yourselves. All right. And with that, let's kick it off with everybody's favorite flavored segment. Jacob asks a question. All right, you bumble headed balls of meat. Nicky's off on an adventure and we all know what that means. It means that this week we're gonna be jacking it. Just call it. Jacob asks a question, please. You know, you like it. Jacking it with Jacob with me, Jacob. And who wants a Jack snack? Yes, you do. You want one? You're a good little conventional convention is Jacob. Yes, you are. You want a jacket, don't you, Jacob? What? Um sorry, just uh what's our topic you can't offer to Jack it and not tell us what we're jacking it to. Sure I can keeping it vague. That's the way I like it. And it's certainly the way our listeners like it in the shortest writing we've ever received our favorite Rocky fan from the Holler. Send us our producer Meg this question. He writes the lips are magenta's mouth, right? And add nothing. Have fun. You two, let's check all over this. Or do you need me to show you how it's done now? I, I think we've got it. No, no. Go ahead. Jacob. I like to watch you tell us whose lips sing the opening to the movie. Uh I'm pretty sure it was Leo G Carroll. Ok. And uh whose voice is it? It's um the barrel. What the barrel? I said Leo G Carroll and then the voice was the barrel because like, oh I get it. That was really bad. Oh I thought it was nice. No, the uh the lips are Patricia Quinns and the uh the voice is Richard o'brien's, let's uh let's see if you can go. Oh, for three whose lips appear in the trailer for the movie? Go fuck yourself. Wait, are they now? Pat slips in the trailer. Uh No, the trailer was done by Ria Rio. Uh She's an actor whose credits include commercials, theater TV, and film, including the iconic Rocky horror picture show trailer. So in an early version of the trailer, Ria's like glossy and sultry lips announced that 20th century Fox had never before unleashed anything like the Rocky horror picture show. But when the Fox executives saw it. They literally shit their straight laced pants and demanded that the marketing people immediately remove those lewd and las lip sm mouthing the words 20th century Fox, a replacement trailer where Ria says you've seen all kinds of movies, but you've never seen anything like the Rocky horror picture show. That one was finally approved by the studio. As recently as 2019, Ria has made appearances at Rocky horror shows, signing autographs and answering questions all about being the lips from the trailer. Oh yeah. Well, what about on the poster then? Smart ass uh The poster is model Lorelai Shark. Reportedly she received the then standard rate of $60 an hour for the two hour modeling. It took to get the shots for the famous poster that we all know Lore life Shark. The tagline on those posters is a different set of jaws, get it. Shark jaws, baby shark do do do do do do baby shark do do do do do do fuck. Yeah, baby shark do do do do do do stop both of you fucking stop. You're the one who wrote it, you know? Ok. So this is this is actually historically the number one fan question whose lips are those in the earliest issues of the Transylvanian Sapiro mentions that it is the most asked question received by the fan club. People sent letters inquiring for the answers so frequently that he included it in multiple issues and fan club updates for a literal decade. It's one of the earliest questions that appears on the Rocky Horror fa Q and it shows up on all of the trivia lists. But also, and I hate to be the one to point this out. We have the internet. Now, why did this even need to be asked? Let alone have us answer it. Hold on, Alexa, whose lips are on Rocky Horror? Here's something I found on the web. According to Rocky horror wiki dot com. The lips at the beginning of the Rocky Horror picture show are that of Patricia Quinns. There you go. Friend from the holler. Glad we could Google that for you. And that's our show. Make sure to rate review and subscribe. No, no, no, no, no, we aren't done jacking it that quickly. I can fix this. Give me a second beep, bleep, backspace, typing, typing. We're, we're waiting, tiktok, Jacob, wait, Jacob's on tiktok. Wait, did Barry start up a new account? Shut up? Ok. I've got it. So obviously we all know that the famous slips in the movie are Patricia Quins and that Richard sang science fiction double feature and we all know that Ria Rugu did the trailer and that the poster was Lorelai Shark. But in the original stage show, there are no lips. Science fiction double feature is sung by the Usherette. It's the whole reason that Patricia Quinn wanted to perform Magenta because she heard science fiction and wanted to sing that song. She didn't care that Magenta only had a handful of lines. So how do we get from there to here? Explain that. Then what's Trixie story? Oh Spicy. All right. Yeah, I'm, I'm here for it. So this is actually a really interesting story about the evolution of the US. Not, not really about the use of the lips in the film. The story of the inspiration for the lips is pretty well known around the community, but for all of you out there who aren't Aaron with his big throbbing brain and huge fat muscles. Let's run that down real quick. OK, buddy. I don't even know what to say to that. But, but yeah, sure. I mean, like, I don't think we've actually told the whole story of the Lips on the podcast. Anyway. So sure, good. Lay it all in me. No, but here's some facts. The concept for the film's opening came from a painting and production designer Brian Thompson's studio. The painting was Observatory Time. The Lovers a 1936 piece by Man Ray Man Ray. It's more commonly known as simply the lips. It's often referred to as a quintessential surrealist painting in it. Man. Ray depicts a pair of giant disembodied lips floating over a landscape featuring the Paris Observatory. As you do, the canvas was eight ft long and over three ft high. And it took Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma Man Ray two years of work to paint. But since it's real hard to show you a painting on a podcast here, man, Ray described his own work far better than we can. The red lips floated in bluish gray sky over a twilight landscape with an observatory and its two domes like breasts dimly indicated on the horizon. An impression of my daily walks through the Luxembourg Gardens, the lips because of their scale, no doubt suggested two closely joined bodies quite Freudian. Your mouth itself becomes two bodies separated by a long undulating horizon like the earth and the sky like you and me. OK. I uh I think I need a cigarette. Shut up old man. You don't sexualize me. I sexualize me. I'm baby, baby shark. Fuck. Yeah, baby shark. Fucking bit up guys, please. Anyway, I think we can all see why I think we can all see why Man Race painting was a pretty good inspiration for the opening to Rocky. But point of order guys, the lips weren't the original proposal for the opening of the movie, right? As you can see in an early shooting script, the initial rendition opened the movie with a montage of scratchy black and white film clips from the science fiction films named in the show's opening number. This early script draft has very specific call outs for which shots from each movie were to be used. There's a couple of really good fan recreations of what this would have looked like they're up on youtube. You should definitely check them out. If you haven't seen it before, we'll have my personal favorite linked in the show notes, Jim Sherman himself credited a few two other sources as inspiration for the idea. The opening titles of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo being one but most notably not I A 1972 production at the Royal Court Theater, written by playwright Samuel Beckett. The entire performance consisted of a single actress, Billy Whitelaw, performing a dramatic monologue as a pair of disembodied lips. White Law's entire body was covered in black and her head was clamped between two pieces of sponge rubber so that her mouth would remain fixed in the single spotlight. A photograph that exists of this performance bears an extreme resemblance to the opening of the film, which if you remember the awesome script that I wrote during our penis makeup malfunction episode, it's also pretty reminiscent of how the opening of the film was created. I mean, on a technical level, my only takeaway from that episode was not to put glitter into my penis, which I think we can all agree is a good lesson. And one I have yet to learn if you don't remember Peter Rob King, the lead makeup artist on the film and his team tried all kinds of things to black out Pat Quinn's face for the lips. They even tried resorting to various inks to try to color her skin, but it was impossible to hide all the pores for the camera. They considered printing ink, but acknowledged that it would have been impossible to remove, saying quote, if you use anything on the skin that doesn't come off, you won't be reemployed. In the end, they had to resort to a combination of effects using polarizing lenses on the camera blocking out patric's entire face and attaching a mouth shaped cardboard stencil to the front of the camera. Also in probably the worst trivia tidbit ever. Peter remembered that on the day they filmed the lips. Pat had a cold sore, they disguised it very well. But he said it was probably the worst day possible to do that scene which by the way, guys, are we just going to ignore that the opening to our favorite movie is literally blackface. Yes, we are and it's not that kind of black face. So Jacob's casual racism and technical difficulties aside in his 2008 book blood and Tinsel Jim Sharman claimed his motivation for fusing Richard o'brien's voice with Pat's lips had an even deeper meaning as he put it. The seductive title sequence has Pat Quinn's luscious lips sinking with Richard o'brien's falsetto, establishing a disorienting sense of ambivalence and Androgyny. He later expounded that his intent was to quote, celebrate the incestuous twins, riffraff and magenta and to see them eternally morph together in image and song. Ok. So we certainly know how we ended up with the lips. Jim and Richard wanted to take a literal interpretation of the song, showing all the clips from the films that were referenced. A better idea came along or possibly the rights for all of those films was too costly. We've heard that reported as well, maybe a little column, A, a little column B but you ended up with Pat's lips in Richard's voice, which totally upset Patricia Quinn as she had originated the song on stage and to top it off, it completely removed the entire usherette character from the film. Pat likes to tell the story at conventions that when Jim Sharman came to her with the idea of using Richard's voice, she reportedly responded my mouth and his voice. How much? Which fair. Seriously. It, it wasn't until the 2015 remake that we would actually get a real cinema usherette singing science fiction double feature on film when Ivy Levon opened the movie, which we can all agree is the far superior version of the movie. You are such a troll. It's not what your wife said last night. Oh damn. It. But hold on in the original stage show, it's the user in the movie. It's the lips. So where the fuck does Trixie come from? This keeps me up at night guys. I don't know about you. So this is actually pretty fascinating and what I was alluding to earlier in the original London production, Patricia both opens and closes the show as the usherette, she sat on stage as the audience filtered in, draped in gauze waiting for the performance to begin. The character as conceived in this original form is dreamily innocent. She is poignantly mourning the forgotten celluloid treasures of a less complicated time. This opening to the show was also attributed to designer Brian Thompson, much like Man Ray's lips. Painting was years later when Thompson signed on to design Rocky, he faced a huge problem trying to stage a show that wanted a cinematic kind of theatricality but couldn't afford it on his minimal $600 set design budget. In a 1979 interview, Thompson recalled his lightning bolt strike of inspiration. Suddenly I remembered an image I had stored away a few months before I had gone to the cinema and seen an usherette selling ice cream on the side of the stage with a spotlight shining on her. I thought it was one of the most theatrical things I'd ever seen. Thompson pitched the idea that science fiction double feature should be sung by a cinema. Usherette dressed in a suitably plain uniform and carrying an old fashioned refreshment stray. The set could then be dressed as a dilapidated old picture palace long abandoned and scheduled for demolition, which many of our listeners might recall is the origin of the theory that the Usherette might possibly be the cinema's resident ghost. And the entire story of Rocky is her character lamenting the forgotten movies of a simpler time or as many audiences interpreted it that the entire show is actually the user regaling us of her tale of escapist fantasy that she dawns the character of Magenta to place herself in the story with her finally escaping the madness at the play's conclusion and recapping the story with her rendition of the science fiction double feature reprise, the last song sung on stage before the audience is released back into the world outside the dilapidated cinema. Sue Blane on her equally meager budget, dressed the usherette in her iconic short button three uniform, relatively modest but cutting away to offer the occasional involuntary flash of the top of Pats Stockings. Pinto Lapel was a large button badge of Elvis Presley, a tribute to one of Richard o'brien's rock and roll heroes and she wore a hat embroidered with the words Sloan cinemas. According to the original program, Bill Lewington supplied the Usherette's lions made ice cream tray because the prop featured a prominent strawberry time logo. Many fans took to referring to the Usherette as Miss Strawberry time. Is that where that comes from? I know the New York cast used to have one of those old beat up Trixie boxes in our prop closet. It had strawberry time in big letters on the front of it. I've seen that box. A lot of Trixie make them the tons of people posting photos of their costumes for going to the stage show include the iconic pink dress complete with the box. But also what the fuck that, that's also not Trixie guys. You're really leaving me unsatisfied here. I thought we were jacking it. Where the fuck does the name Trixie come from? So this is what I think is fascinating. The the usher at as a character was clearly very inspirational, both as a framing device for the show and to set the tone. But it was also the character that I think has been most adjusted over time. And that various directors have taken the most liberties in altering after the original London run of the show, the play along with Tim Curry traveled to Hollywood and opened at the Roxy Theater in California and there, the UST was now played by Jamie Donnelly. You might best remember her as the actress who played Jan in the 1978 movie version of Greece, having previously played the role on Broadway. The American version of Rocky was given an extravagant Hollywood makeover to appeal to its US audience. In addition to a number of musical changes, the character of the usherette was played much more upbeat with a flashy flamboyance that ran contrary to the starry eyed dreamy nostalgia that saturated Patricia Quinn's interpretation. You can see pictures of the Roxy cast online. Jamie Donnelly's look was also a big departure from Pat's. Her interpretation had glitzy, extravagant makeup, big wild hair and a hand microphone seemed to look like a large ice cream cone. Donnelly has said that she originally based Trixie look on a waitress that she used to see at Tiny Nailor, a popular drive-in restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Even down to the pink uniform and hairdo and to complete the look emblazoned across the front of her venting box and leaving little doubt that this usherette was far more ostentatious than the London version was the phrase. Hi, I'm Trixie. Finally. So Trixie is the gaudy American version of the Usherette. How fucking fitting Americans ruin everything. But what's even weirder? She didn't stay Trixy for very long after the show opened in 1974 at the Roxy Theater. It attempted to make the leap to Broadway. It opened at the Belasco Theater which was renovated and themed as a cabaret nightclub. Trixie was again rebranded this time as the Belasco popcorn girl. It's hardly surprising that the 1975 Broadway debut was widely panned by critics and I suppose it's probably why everyone remembers Trixie from the 1974 L A version instead that and it was just better and the album that everyone owned Trixie as a character would change and evolve over the years, directors have tried a lot of different ways of opening the show. Some even placed Trixie off stage entirely. Others have completely reimagined the character as a custodian. The 2001 Broadway version had both Magenta and Columbia singing a duet in bellhop uniforms. One particularly heinous production even put an actor on stage in a giant lips costume. Completely a misunderstanding that the stage show in the movie are not the same thing. And with all the experimentation, the usher is often a big source of contention for fans and performers alike. Peter Blake, a longtime Frank who began performing the role in 75 during the original London run lamented in a 92 interview that he despised the evolution from a grubby little rock show to a mainstream musical extravaganza. He said, quote, there's all sorts of shit in the show now, attitudes have changed. It was never a fucking musical. The time warp is all choreographed now, we never had a fucking choreographer. It's very hard to get the young kids in the show to understand what it's really about. They all got it. Fifth hand through the film. I remember sitting there the first preview ever with the ramp up in front and Pat Quinn doing the Usherette with pubes hanging out the sides of her knickers, really dirty and tacky like it was supposed to be, wait, hold on. I thought we just said that the Usherette was wistful and, and glamorous. Oh, what the fuck was that fuck? Maybe it's for the best that the shadow casting community latched onto the Glitz up Usherette Trixie. What makes you so sure we didn't just take the name. I've seen some pretty raunchy Trixie. I mean this one time. And that's our show. We want to thank our Rocky fan from the holler from writing in with what can only be generously described as almost a question. If anyone has a real full length question, they'd like us to answer on air for Nicky asks a question or some community news they'd like us to talk about or even just a cool story to share with the community. We'd love to include it in our show. Just go to our website Rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to tell us about it. We did get a great write in from Josh over at the irrational masters that we'll be tackling very soon. Thank you for the write in Josh. I just need to stall for a week or two while I dig into some research. If you're enjoying Rocky Talkie, please help us out by rating reviewing and subscribing to the show. It makes the podcast more accessible to new listeners which really helps us grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky Talky content, check us out on Facebook, youtube, Instagram and tiktok all at Rocky Talkie podcast. Well, talk to you next week. Bye bye bye. Thank you. Oh, did you know that the castle is a hotel? I had not heard that it's a, it's a university, it's not a hotel. They go there to learn magic John, are we just gonna completely not address the fact that Nicky thought Hawaii was South along with Alaska next up, Nicky thought Alaska was. You remember this conversation? You don't remember this conversation, Nicky was like, they're always on the map south of the United States. So I assumed that Alaska and Hawaii were like, down there south next to each other. Oh, man. Yeah, I hate that. That's like some, if anyone watches King of the Hill, that's some loan shit right there. Listen, Daddy. I think that that's where, you know, it's where they want to live. That's where they are on the map. That's my little Murphy. That's good. I like it. Oh yeah, that is Brittany Murphy. What's the Pantene pro V? The pandemic? Ah OK. Yes, they really do be. And let's say did somebody say Dobie? Yeah, it's, it's mixed with vodka, fruit punch, coral lime crema and qu it's mixed with vodka, fruit punch, cordial lime crema and con. That's not how you pronounce it. How is it? Lime crema and contro. How on earth do you know that? I asked Meg four times. Yeah. OK. What makes you so sure we didn't just take the name. I've seen some pretty raunchy Trixie. I mean this one time the Trixie suck my dick as part of her performance. Fuck, dude. I was just, oh soda out my nose. Fuck you, man. Oh oh ow. Ow. Ow. Oh All right. Well, I'm hitting stop after that.