Hello to all of you. Unconventional conventions. Welcome back to Rocky Talkie. A Rocky Horror podcast where we talk about anything and everything. Rocky Horror. I'm John and um Aaron. Yo, I missed both of you. I missed you too, John. No, you didn't. Don't fucking lie to my face. Aaron, I had to talk to Jacob last week, man. I missed you a lot. That's valid. That's valid my sentiments. Exactly. Well, I'm back. Everything's gonna be ok. What were you up to John? I don't even remember what I did last week as to why I couldn't be here. I think it was just like um my, my work schedule, I think, I don't know. Well, this week was fun for John. I'm back in the office so I'm there every other day on alternating weeks. So like on week one, I'll be there Monday to Wednesday and then week two, I'm there Thursday and Tuesday and then it just keeps flipping back and forth. So my availability is like all over the fucking place. But the most important thing that happened in the past like week, week and a half, two things. Number one, I decided to go like best partner ever. And I booked a surprise trip for Savannah for Christmas. They have no idea where they're going at all. Spicy. They're not gonna know until we get to the airport. That is the only hint that I gave them is that we have to get on a plane to get there. But like, if you're really thinking about it, you can get on a plane to literally go to fucking Boston or Philadelphia. So they have no idea where they're going and they're not gonna know until we go and I know Samantha listens to Rocky Talkie so I can't say where we're going here but like shoot me ad m if you want to know it's, it's super, super fun John, they're gonna be so upset when they get to the airport and you take off from laguardia and land at J F K. Yep. They're gonna be so pissed. So uh if anybody ever wanted to date me now is the time for you to tell me because I will be single soon. Well, that sounds awesome, man. I'm sure that Savannah's gonna absolutely love that shit. Yep. And number two, so I said that there were two things that happened, you know, in the past few days. That was number one and number two, Nicky was born. Uh I kinda Yeah, today like the day that this episode drops. Yeah. Yeah, you were born. I'm so fresh and so new. Yeah, Nicky. Happy sixth birthday. Thank you. I'm a Libra who's a big girl. I don't like that. Double digits. Oh boy, double digits. Oh my God. You sound like my father. What? All right. Well, Nikki, in honor of your birthday. How was your week? Um, my week was very good. I played Janet on Friday with my cast. That was very fun. I got to have like my little birthday moment and then on Saturday I got to go into the city with my friend Spencer for his birthday because we're close in birthdays and we saw AJ Holmes which, uh, for those of you who don't know, I mean, he's so much more than this but like, he's in Star Kid and he was in the book of Mormon and he was on the tour. Um, and he's just so talented. It was such a good show. It was so funny and we just had like a really good time. We had like a little soho excursion and now I'm just enjoying my days off until I have to go get absolutely brutalized by work next week. Oh, yeah. Not in a sexy way, shame. But how was your week, Aaron, how are you? Oh, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. Uh, not a whole lot. I was working a lot this week. Um, I did though, finally get some more of the apartment squared away. I got all of my back to the future crap. Put up on my big giant clock tower display case that was super fun. Uh And I got our TV set up. So now we have nice good surround sound again. That was very exciting. Uh But actually the highlight of my week was just yesterday. Uh Meg and I went out for dinner with Phil DeJean. Hi, Phil. I know you're Phil is an original member of the Eighth Street Cast and was one of the managers of the New York cast for a while. It was just awesome to get to finally see him. And it had been a, I mean, since before the pandemic when, when we, I had last seen him and got to catch up and, and talk and man, it was super fun. Absolutely, super fun. Uh You said, hi, Phil. I thought that he was gonna like chime in here and I was terrified that there was going to be another person on this call that I did not notice until now so good on you. Uh I also got to thank him for this lovely birthday present that he gave me. Uh He sent me in the mail, a stack of original photos from that he had collected over the years of Eighth Street and conventions and all sorts of stuff. There's pictures of Nell in there, there's pictures of Richard and Pat and just Barry and, and him and Sal and, and, and some of these photos that I'd seen like printed in Creatures of the Night and other books. I, I have original copies in my Hot Little hands. It's so amazing. I absolutely love them. I'm getting a photo album to put them all in. Uh probably the most boomer thing that I've ever said in the last 10 minutes. But yeah, I'm so excited and uh thank you so much, Phil. If anyone out there wants to see them, hit me up, I am totally willing to share these out. They're so cool. You're so cool. And with that, let's get started with our first segment, global news. It's from everywhere. First up in global news, some of our horror buff listeners may have heard of AM CS recent documentary series, Eli Roth's History of Horror with you guessed it, Eli Roth. So this upcoming October 1st, the series will premiere its third season. Eli Ross's History of Horror is known for doing documentary style, deep dives on a specific genre or motif in the horror film genre. Every single episode. This upcoming season, you can catch episodes like Sequels that don't suck. Holiday. Horror and Mad Scientists all on a MC Fridays at 10 PM all October and the first weekend in November on November 5th, the sixth and final episode of the season titled Mad Scientists. In addition to digging to a variety of Mad Scientists across horror history will feature our very own fruity flavored Doc Brown Franken. Additionally, it's also been teased that meat loaf will be one of the celebrities interviewed somewhere during the third season. There's no guarantee he'll be featured in the Rocky Horror episode. But we can hope we don't know much else about what we'll see of Franken Furter and Rocky Horror in the last episode. But we do know that they'll appear alongside films like Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll, and Mr Hyde, as well as ex machina eyes without a face, the abominable Doctor Fives and altered states as Roth looks into each one to dig into the Mad Scientist genre within horror. Over the past two seasons, a total of 13 episodes have premiered in Eli Roth's history of horror series and we can't wait to see the next six. Eli Roth has been a big name in horror ever since Kevin Fever and Hostile brought him into the limelight in the early two thousands though. True Roth fans, especially our staff writer Jacob will know him for playing the Bear Jew in Quentin Tarantino's glorious bastards. Wait, is that why he calls himself the bear Jew? I thought he made that up. Have you never seen Inglorious bastards? Clear not. Oh, man. Well, what a guy, the new season can be seen as it premieres again 10 pm every Friday night in October and the first Friday of November on A MC or on A MC plus subscribers can see the premiere a few days early on September 25th and every other episode can be viewed once it's premiered live. We wish Roth the history of horror series and everyone else working on it the absolute best we're looking forward to what we might see and we hope you'll join us on November 5th at 10 PM on A MC. That's remember, remember the fifth of November? Ok. Sorry. Anyway, no one's going to acknowledge my joke. I don't think you're sorry that it was hilarious. Ok. I watched that movie for the first time last week. Ok. I'm really excited about it and now you're going to hyper on it. Yeah. Uh uh ok. Uh-huh. Now, in an effort to cleanse your palate after our foray into cable TV, we are proud to announce your regularly scheduled or Aduba news slot. Yeah, that's right folks. While it's not about his personal life this week, we do have news straight from the odus mouth about the additional dates just added for him while he'll be continuing his portrayal of Brad in the 2021 Rocky horror stage show production. Show dates have been added for or a in London, Norw, Bradford Hall, Brighton Blackpool, Guildford, Bromley Oxford Glasgow and Cardiff. Whoo, that was the most British sentence. So regarding these new dates or a said, I'm so excited to be extending my stay with our amazing Rocky family truth is when you know how it feels to wear a corset and heels, it's very hard to take them off. At least in my case, it's been a wild ride so far. The audiences have been incredible and I can't wait to time warp around even more corners of the country. He says that as though the journey between two corners of England isn't just a vigorous afternoon walk. Yeah, if you want to see a real country, look at the good old US fa where you got to drive through, at least one state governed by a literal groundhog to get from one corner to another America. We are certainly the land of the something. Anyway. Congratulations to R A for getting to continue playing everyone's favorite asshole. We hope you have a fabulous time continuing your run and we wish you and the rest of the 2021 production, all the broken legs and last but certainly not least we are bringing our final global news segment closer to home with some more info about the Rocky Horror Show. You might remember a few episodes back. We spoke about a ragtag team of good Christian evangelicals performing. Oh, oh, fuck, no, wait, my bad. That's awesome hotty nudists performing modernized selections from the Rocky Horror show as a duo in nothing but their underwear. And now we have an update about them and backed by popular demand and as a special a Halloween treat, the duo of Nick Seely and Lauren Molino will return to Joe's pub in New York City on November 1st at eight PM to perform their signature scantily clad version of our already scantily clad film. Remember, remember the first of November, you're going to do this for every single November date, aren't you? Yes, I am cool. There was a whole bunch of them before you could have done it. Anyway, Nick and Lauren are the Skibby and we'll be joined with special guests, Tony winner Michael Service. Tony nominee, Tom Hewitt. Tony nominee Alison Frazier. Nick Adams, Jay Harrison, Gee Krista Rodriguez Travis, Kent, Christina Bianco, Asma Gera Michael Marissa Rosson, Nathan Lee Graham and Rob Morrison, apologies if I mispronounce any of those, I probably did shit. Maybe I should go all like every single one of those people are hot, they're all theater people, right? I I'm not familiar with most of them. Yeah, like Jay Harrison, kill me, slaughter me. Christo Rodriguez spit in my mouth. I can't wait to go. I'm very excited. Joe's pub is a subsidiary of N Y CS Public Theater. It's an independent nonprofit music venue dedicated to supporting performing artists at every stage of their careers. The venue plays a vital role in fulfilling the public's to serve audiences and artists alike as an active member of New York City's creative community every evening, they pair vibrant culture with genuine hospitality. Joe's pub has been dark since the start of the Paris Hilton, but performances in the venue are slated to resume on October the fifth. So just a few weeks away and like we said The Rocky Hor Ski Show will take place on November 1st at eight PM. Tickets are only 35 bucks each. So if you'd like to check out the performance, you can find it at public theater dot org. We've also got it linked for you in our show notes. And if you want to check out the music beforehand, just to make sure you know all the words and don't look like an idiot at the concert. The Rocky Horror Skivvy Show album is available for download and streaming on all music platforms. We wish Nick and Lauren the best and we hope that they break legs with their performance this November. And uh if you're in the city and you'd like to check out the show, be sure to hit us up because we'll be there. Meg and I already have got our tickets and we'd love to grab a drink with any of our listeners who are there too. And if you don't want to hang out with a Boomer and his mega hot, awesome foxy wife, me and my bestie Andrea will be there too. But with that, let's get into community news. And first up in community news, we teased this for you in our last episode and we are all beyond Pump to finally get to see our choices for the upcoming R K 04 Pin design. They're so pretty. Fred and Harley and everyone else who was part of the design team. Did such an amazing job on both designs for those of you who haven't seen them yet. And I don't know how they've been posted to every single Facebook group. Uh There are two design options and we've got to pick just one. So option A is uh this hotty little Heart with R K O Con four on it with uh Frank's Corset behind it and it's got a film strip extending out from the right side of it saying the 47th annual Rocky Horror convention, the B option is basically the same thing that Little Heart with A K O Con four, except there's no little film strip extending out to the side. I don't know. I like them both. As of now. The overwhelming majority of the community is voting for Option B but I'm curious how we all voted. Did we all go for B? Well, I like them both but I can only pick one. So, yeah, I went with Option B. It just seems like it's gonna be a little easier to fit a little heart pin onto something that I've got instead of uh you know, something that's a bit bulkier. I also went with B um because I agree with you, I think I like that it would be smaller. However, I have a dream for a and it's not, it's not a plausible dream but imagine a but instead of it saying the annual Rocky Horror convention, that's where you could put your name in your pronouns, like a cute little name tag. I think that would be so cute. Yeah, I also went with B, I just feel like it's also more, it, it, it's, I feel like it's easier to pin because it's just, it's, it's right there. It's nice and small. And then if anyone, obviously the first one has more of like an explanation as to what it is. But if I have an A K O con four pin somewhere, I want someone to ask me about it, you know. That's fair. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Anyway, it's looking like B is gonna be the official content of R K 04. Although who knows a bunch of a voters could come in and swing the election at the last second. Maybe it could happen. Recount. I demand recount. Probably not. But we shall see that said if you're looking for more pins, don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for the new line of Fred's shocky pins that will be available soon on Kickstarter. He's going to be releasing those designs to us soon. So stay hype people. I'm pretty pumped for those. Those look really cool. Next up in community news, we wanted to bring attention to the awesome work being done by one organization for the Rocky Horror community and for the theater community as a whole De Broadway is a theater company that provides full and complete American sign language access to Broadway musicals. Their ultimate goal is unprecedented visual language access for the deaf community. The organization was born out of a celebration for Sondheim's 90th birthday in March of 2020 when a group of both deaf and hearing friends held a Zoom watch party of the original stage version of Sweeney Todd. Most of the attendees were performers. So they sang along with the music as we theater kids are want to do and it quickly became evident that the deaf participants were actually missing out on more of the show's nuance than anyone in the group realized. Not only was it hard to follow who was singing and what was being said? Especially because Sondheim's lyrics are notoriously very fast and overlapping. Often the captions were incorrect or simply too fast to be able to understand coherently plus things like the double entendre word play or the nuance of the overlapping lyrics or even the emotion with which the lyrics are presented were almost completely lost using captions alone. It wasn't until the hearing people in the group painstakingly explained the nuance of the show to their friends that the de partygoers were able to fully appreciate the show in its entirety. And more importantly, finally realized how much of the show they were missing out on. It became clear to the group that the most obvious way to make shows like Sweeney Todd accessible to the deaf community was to actually perform the show in a S L so that it's always clear who was saying what and when and why and how only through sign can the full nuance intended by the original creators finally be revealed for the deaf community to understand, appreciate and enjoy. The group of friends decided to have a small one time reading of Sweeney Todd over Zoom in A S L. After the reading was shown to their family and friends, there was an instant clamor for more because for the first time, these deaf people had full visual access to musical theater on their own terms. After Sweeney Todd, the group recorded a performance of into the woods and positive feedback poured in from members of the deaf community who were stranded at home and had little to know visual language access. Since its inception, De Broadway has continued to put on digital musical theater productions including showings of Les Mis Legally Blonde, the musical company. And of course, the Rocky Horror Picture Show as theaters have started to reopen de Broadway has been offered opportunities to perform live events including a recent performance at Lincoln Center in New York City where they performed selections from the first act of into the woods. A throwback to their roots. In an interview with the Hollywood reporter, Garret Zir, one of the company's co-founders discussed the challenges that went into their first live performance. He used this example, any time a bean is dropped into a hand and into the woods you hear like a ding. How do we show that sound? We came up with a physical representation of what that sound is. Conveying a deaf audience is already missing part of the experience. If we leave out that sound, Garrett went on to comment his hope that the group's work will be able to help the theater industry see that there is a need for this in more productions. There are many incredible deaf artists who have not yet gotten the support that they need to really thrive. I'm hoping that audiences live with the thought. Why not? Why can't we see many incredible deaf actors working together? I hope they leave knowing that deaf actors can do musicals. All of us together. Now, most of de Broadway's performances are standard run situations with performance dates and times. However, they do have one show that they've recorded and made permanently available on their youtube channel. Oh, which one? Which one do you think? Rocky? Of course. And it's not just a table read either. This is like a full edited, a costume, shadow cast performance of the movie completely in A S L. It is phenomenally done and a lot of fun to watch. And with Halloween season coming up, we know lots of our listeners are going to be fielding all sorts of questions from their non Rocky friends about putting on watch parties. We here at Rocky Talkie just wanted to give you all a heads up that this wonderful version of the movie is out there for free. They even have a countdown at the start of the performance. So you can sync it up to the movie. If you want to experience it in full with audio, we cannot recommend this shadow cast performance enough, especially if you or someone you love is deaf or hard of hearing and you want to make sure everyone is able to be included in on the fun. But also if you've seen Rocky A Cai Times and want a new way to experience the film while supporting a group that's out there doing amazing work for our community. This is totally for you too. If you'd like to check out deaf Broadway and all the wonderful projects they're working on, you can visit them at deaf broadway dot com. We've got that and the Rocky Horror Shadow cast performance linked for you in our show notes next up in community news. We've got another fun fan project to share with all of you. This one comes to us from Angela, a Rocky Horror fan living in Dublin Ireland. Angela is a Belgian gamer who first saw Rocky Horror back in 2017 in Antwerp Belgium where it was played in Dutch, one of the three official languages spoken in her homeland. The Dutch version of the movie was good, but much like in our last story, Angela realized a lot of the film's nuance and humor was lost in translation. Now that she's living in Ireland, Angela is super excited to get to watch the film in a theater in English something she's been practicing for at home with her roommate so that she can get her A P down perfectly. Oh, that's pretty amazing. I remember doing exactly the same thing when I first started getting excited about the movie, learning all the lines and all the callbacks so that, like, I could be the most advanced audience member in the theater. Like I even remember checking out all of the, the online scripts to try and see like what the old version of the callbacks were in the new version and like, try and find the raunchiest version of it or like the most offensive version I could find, I don't know, I always, I always had a kick for that kind of stuff with Callbacks. Did you guys ever do that? Yeah, absolutely. I actually, I originally started going to Rocky Horror because I was trying to get in Savannah's pants and it worked. Congratulations. I did it. It was me, I did it. But when I started going, the more often that I went, the more I was like, you know what if I'm gonna impress Savannah, I need to come back next time knowing the entire callback script and I found one online. And when I got to the, when I got to the theater for the second show that I went to, I had noticed that, you know, all the callbacks were different. So then I felt like an idiot. I actually did the same thing when we first started going to Rocky, I googled like Rocky horror audience part participation script and I like, tried memorizing it, but I'm not good at memorizing shit. So I ended up just going to every single show and being like, OK, that's the one I'm going to focus on this time and I, OK, I have anxiety. So doing A P took me a really long time to be comfortable and I will, this is like a little bit of a tangent, but I will never forget the day that it was the callback line. That's um Janet. Did you bring your waterproof vibrator? Yes, it's raining. And I did like the line way too early. Like I don't even know how I fucked it up, but I said it way too early and I literally almost didn't go to Rocky the next week because I was like, oh my God, I fucked up. Oh my God. Oh Shit. Because it was literally like I said it and then there was like a long pause and then everyone else said it and I was like, oh no, you know, a P Yeah. So anyway, Angela has been a Rocky fan for the past few years and like we said, she's also a gamer. She particularly enjoys Lord of the Rings online or lot, a massive multiplayer online role playing game based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the game you get to play in real time on the server with lots of other players and the entire game takes place in Tolkien's universe. And you and your friends get to take part in quests together, think like World of Warcraft, but with Hobbits and elves instead of whatever creatures are in World of Warcraft. Pandas, I saw pandas on a World of Warcraft Box. Once Orcs, no, no, no or Orcs are actually in Lord of the Rings. I feel like they're also in World of Warcraft too. Listeners write to us and tell us if World of Warcraft has Orcs in it. Anyway, the perpendicular hit just after Angela moved to Ireland back in 2020. And after a few years of being away from Loro, she found herself with oodles of free time as we all did and got back into the game in game. She met another player called Elsa. The two of them got to talking and realized they were both Rocky horror fans. After chatting for a while, they came up with the idea of doing an in-game rocky horror performance. And at first they started with just a few songs including Time Warp, of course, which is available for our viewing pleasure online. We'll link it for all of our listeners, by the way, you should check it out. It's a lot of fun as they carried on. Angela and Desa decided to try and create a full in game Rocky horror show with a Lord of the Rings online themed the Hobbit tree harvest picnic show. That's so cute. They recruited other members of the community who are also Rocky Horror fans to join in on the fun. And as a group, they've been able to make a very, very cool in-game production. She and her friends also revamped the story so that it fits with the Tolkien theme, for example, to open their show, they've got two little hobbits who have wandered into whist me at a creepy inga town that only opens to players during the annual Halloween event. They've also rewritten lots of songs so that they've got more of a middle earth theme going on. For example, Hot Patuti New and improved lyrics are hot bacon roll. I want want my hobbit whole get it because Hobbits love potatoes as every good Lord of the Rings fan knows potatoes, potatoes, boil them, mash them, stick them in the stew. What? Never mind? Science fiction? Double feature is impressively even more intricate than the O G song hit it. John Shire living. Thank you. Little Rivers farmer Magan will release his creature. See first send off to do some queer C and to tweens burgle. I can forbid and cart what? Oh oh oh oh, at the late night, early morning Hovis double feature picnic show. Oh my God. I mean to say Rocky. But I said, oh that, that is adorable. I mean, it's clear that they really put a lot of work into the production values here. I mean, this, this is just so super cute. Of course, no show comes without its difficulties. And for this group, costuming was a bit of a difficulty. Costuming is always one of the hardest parts of any Rocky show. Angela. Yeah. Turns out it's actually really difficult to costume a Rocky cast in Lord of the Rings themed garb in game. Oh, yeah, I can imagine. I bet it's hard to get fish nets from a fantasy style wardrobe. Yeah, Angela says that there aren't any shiny golden briefs, sexy corsets or panties. So their group decided that they just do their best to costume their character so that Rocky Horror fans are able to look at them and get as much of the the vibe of each character is possible. For example, for Rocky, they dressed their character in gold colored clothing and made him muscular and blonde with a tan Columbia is wearing a pair of shimmery trousers that look like shorts, a sleeveless shirt and a top hat. And you guys will love this. Riff Raff is wearing a Gollum mask which is super creepy and like has that bald face. Gollum. Wow, that's so perfect. Honestly, who hasn't done that for a show? Like there are certainly some nights when we're just short staffed or have to throw someone on stage as Janet with zero warning, wearing the beige panties that they happen to have on that night in a blue bra that they borrowed from a crew member because it was the closest thing that they had to a white one getting the vibe of the character, right? Is way more important than the actual costume, right. Aaron Gollum. Yeah, I mean, it, it sounds like you guys handled that the same way that any one of our cast directors would guys the hobbit tree harvest picnic show? Sounds like an absolute ton of fun, dude. The name alone is amazing, right? The show takes place on Sunday, October 24th. If you're interested in checking it out and are also a Lord of the Rings online player. You can watch it live in game on the Laura server in the Shire Homesteads in the Homestead Suit Crest at number four, Myrtle Court. And if you're not cool enough to check it out live, the performance will be recorded and available to the rest of us on the performers youtube channel, which we have linked for you in our show notes. If you'd like to check out this group on social media, we've got their handles linked in our show notes as well. And to Angela Elsa and the rest of the cast, we wish you all the broken legs and potatoes and we hope that your hobbits are able to enjoy their adventures and whiskey. Without getting into too much trouble. Hm. All this talk of potatoes made me hungry. You guys? I think it's time for a snack. What kind of snack? Nikki? You know, it's funny you ask. That's right. It's time to get down with a little bit of me time. It's everyone's favorite Nicky flavored segment. Nicky asks a question. But before we dig into this week's snack, we've got a couple of follow ups to last week's entree. We ask you the community to let us know if we had forgotten about any awesome celebrity shadow casters. And we've got two more that are going to absolutely blow your minds. So if last week was the main course, think of this as some like knack snack dessert if you forgot or maybe you just want a refresher. We had a write in last week from Josh, the director over at the Rational Masters cast asking about celebrities who had been a part of the Rocky horror community. And shortly after that episode dropped, we got a heads up from Becky Melania Capri about two more awesome a listers that we should mention a listers. Really? Well, they get A's in my book. I see. So Nicky back in the day over on the west coast, there was a little cast called Indecent Exposure. You might have heard of them. I have not. All right. It's probably because they came and went before you were even born. But during indecent exposure's 15 year run. They were a massive influence in the community. Starting in 1980 the cast was based out of Berkeley, California, primarily performing at the U C theater after the cast dissolved in 1995 the barely legal cast took over in the Bay area and they are still active today. Indecent exposure was the primary cast featured at the 15th anniversary celebration in L A held on 1/20 century Fox Movie Sound stage. In 1990 the cast was filmed by entertainment television and MTV is the big picture and several snippets of footage appeared on the Rocky Horror home video release. Becky clued us in to a member of the Indecent Exposure cast that was actively involved in the Rocky community even before they formed in 1980. Way back at the very beginning of the Rocky craze and someone that a few of our more discerning listeners may be familiar with and that is Shana mccoo. All right, you're gonna have to fill me in on that one. I don't know who that is. That's surprising Nikki. It's like you've never even watched porn in the nineties. Sorry, what you heard me, Shana is a four time Avian Award winner and a member of the Avian Hall of Fame. Oh, hold on. I remember we talked about the Avian Awards way, way way back in our episode about the Rocky Horror pornos. They're pretty much the Oscars of porn and she's won four times and she's part of the hall of fame. All right, I may have to do some research. Yeah, I bet you do. Shut up John. Hey, keep it in your pants. You two. So Shana was also at the forefront of the modern online adult industry in 2009. She was one of the first adult stars to broadcast live 24 hour views from inside her home. Landing her several mentions throughout the media including a wired article discussing if CAM shows were going to be the future of adult entertainment. Anyone been on Twitch lately? Damn right. Sex workers work and those ladies work at a 100%. So in addition to being an absolute a list adult film star with a prolific career spanning multiple decades, Sheena was also a pretty prolific member of the Rocky Horror Family. As Becky recalls in the late seventies, Shana used to show up at the El Rey Theater in Walnut Creek and she was one of the very first to bring the J A N E T and the O Brad signs, you know that you hold up during dam it, Janet uh later on indecent exposure would incorporate those signs into their show. Oh, neat. I know a lot of casts still use those today. That's awesome. So after the L Ray Shana joined the San Francisco cast at the Strand Theater prior to joining Indecent Exposure in 1980 four. Who did she play? Was it Janet, you got it. Shana was a fantastic Janet, but don't take our word for it. She actually won the costume contest for Janet at both the 10th and 15th anniversary conventions. Becky was even kind enough to send a photo over of Shana in full Janet costume. You can see it right now. If you're listening on youtube or we're going to have a link to it in our show notes. Oh, what a cutie. No wonder she won her purple dress and that wedding hat. Oh, my God! Ok. Adorable. And hey, throw back to our episode about the Rocky porno produced by wickered pictures. Apparently, Shana appears as a Transylvanian in one of those scenes. Oh, neat. I'll have to go have a look for research purposes, of course. And shut up Erin Imm down. We'll all go do some research if you know what I mean. Oh, we know what you mean. But back on topic, uh, Becky also clued us in to another well known indecent exposure alumni, uh Bay Area Radio DJ and iconic metal head. Nicky Black. Oh my God. Nicky, same. Nicky pioneered San Francisco's rock radio station one oh 7.7 The Bone and was the host of the station's afternoon drive for five years. She's a well known figure in the Bay Area's metal scene and regularly interviews popular recording artists including members of cannibal corpse. Metallica Judas priest Slayer Anthrax Black Label Society mega Death. The list goes on and on not to mention she's super hot. Oh, my God. I just googled her. Well, that's really fun. Hell, yeah, you can't see it. I'm throwing up the horns. Hell, yeah. See Nicky was also voted one of the top 50 hottest women in radio for 2009, 2010 in 2011 and was one of the most prominent production runners at live Nation. San Francisco's Warfield Fillmore and virtually every other Bay area live Nation venue working with everyone from Green Day to the Grateful Dead and Madonna to motorhead man. She sounds like a stone cold bad ass 100%. So a huge thank you to Becky for sending in these celebrity shadow caster spotlights. If anyone out there has more, keep them coming. We love to highlight members of the community and I personally love to learn about celebrities that have been part of our Rocky Horror family. So speaking of family, let's take it over to this week's main core snack snack and talk a little bit about our wonderful extended family that many of us may be going to visit this Halloween season, the Rocky Horror stage show. That's right. Nicky with the ramp up to Halloween just beginning, we're starting to see tons and tons of stage show adaptations be announced all over the US and abroad. And there's a huge range in scope and budget anywhere from high school and small community theater productions to full blown big budget productions. And this may come as a surprise. But the widespread stage show presence during the spooky months is a relatively new occurrence. How new, like this week new or like I'm a boomer and 1990 is new, new. Well, relatively new as in Rocky had been around longer without the ability for independent theaters to put on small productions than it has been since it wasn't until 2000 that the amateur performance rights for Rocky Horror were made available in the United States. So yes, Nikki, you probably would be unimpressed for the 1st 25 years that Rocky Horror existed. If you wanted to see the stage show, you needed to catch one of the official touring versions, the West end run or one of the other officially sanctioned productions because Rocky has a bit of a complicated history when it comes to getting the rights to put on a production and it starts with some very humble beginnings in the 1990 booklet bundled with the 15th anniversary CD box set, Michael White recalled his initial involvement as the producer for Rocky Horror. He said, quote, I received a phone call from the director of the Royal Court Theater who said they were doing a new musical in the theater upstairs and were looking for a producer to put up £3000 toward the cost of production in return for the West End rights. That's crazy to imagine that Michael White put up only £3000 and has reaped a fortune in royalties since let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. That's £3000 in 1973. And when you adjust that for inflation and convert it to good old American freedom bucks, it is closer to around a $51,000 investment. How far off is that from today? I mean, Broadway shows are insane now with millions of dollars in budgets but often and surprisingly modern shows, not necessarily the ones being put on by big name companies like Disney, but many of the others are still financed from a large pool of investors that are all contributing smaller amounts. According to investing Broadway, a company that helps connect investors with show runners. The average individual investment for a show is only around $25,000 and it's made by people who have a more modest net worth than you might expect around a million dollars or so. Oh, yeah. Check out the millionaire over here with his modest net worth. Yeah. Wish I could throw around 25 grand on my little pet Broadway project. I mean, we're not talking real world here. We're talking Broadway investors. They function on a whole different level. Yeah. The 1% level tax the rich. Yes. Yes. But listen, not all Broadway investments are the average. Some shows seek investors only looking to put up a few $1000 and some cap the minimums at 50,000 or higher like anything involving money. There is a really big sliding scale. This is pretty funny. There is a report from investing Broadway from one investor who contributed only $12,000 to the production of Jersey Boys, but saw a 20 times return not bad, a cool quarter million for investing the price of a used car. But exactly that initial investment is the price of a car that's a lot of money. And when you see something like Michael White only invested £3000 and got the West End rights. Well, it makes a little more sense why that happened. When you do the math, it was more like $50,000 adjusted for inflation, much more than the average Broadway investment is today. And he wasn't funding something like Jersey Boys that was developed by a member of a hip hop group. The four seasons and Jersey Boys had already previewed at the University of California. You know, like when Michael White was investing in Rocky, he was throwing money at a show sight unseen. It was a play that hadn't even been fully written and it was still being workshopped all the way up through its initial opening night. So I know Michael White produced the initial run of the stage show in the UK and I'm sure we could do a whole episode just about him. But where did Lou Adler come into it? He produced the stage show in the US and we all see his name at the start of the Rocky horror picture Show movie. How'd that happen? Sure. Let's get into that a little bit. So quick note about Michael White. We will definitely be doing a full blown episode about him. One of these days, there's a fantastic documentary that I've been meaning to find time to finish watching. It's called The Last Impresario. If you're interested in learning more about his Absolutely bonkers life story, I highly recommend checking it out or you can just wait until I get a chance to watch through it and then we can all learn together. Unfortunately, it isn't streaming anywhere. So I'm gonna have to like, I don't know, buy a physical DVD or something. I feel so sad for you physical media. Yes. Yes. Stay focused. How did Lou Adler end up with the US rights if Michael White was the one who produced the original UK stage show? So by 1974 when Rocky released in the UK, Lou Adler had already made like quite the name for himself. He had a certain knack for tapping into youth trends. He was at the forefront of the post hippie counterculture movement, an explosively powerful and iconic movement that would go on to define the decade and he was gaining steam due to the Vietnam War and mainstream coverage of the burgeoning civil rights movement. But first, let's take a quick step back originally from Chicago in 1967 Lou Adler produced the Monterey International Pop Festival, a huge concert that predated Woodstock by two years. And as part of the festival, he released a tie in movie version. The following year, Adler also had picked up a number of musical acts and other performers as producer and manager. He managed the iconic stoner comedy duo Chi Chong and the sixties pop duo Jan and Dean. He also produced the music of several chart topping bands throughout the late sixties and into the seventies, including the mamas and the Papas, Sam Cook and Monterey pop. Just to name a few. Oh man, I just made this connection. That's why you saw the very earliest rocky events like that first ever birthday party in Austin, Texas where Cheech and Chong were special guests. It made no sense why they would be connected. But of course, Lou just bucketed together all of his properties, right? And it was sometime in the late sixties while managing all of these acts and creating a media empire that Lu began a relationship with actress Brit. I uh herself a household name for her first marriage to actor Peter Sellers and her own appearances on screen in movies like the wicker man and James bonds the man with the Golden Gun. So in January of 1974 Lou Adler traveled with Ekland from L A to London, a grueling 10 plus hour flight that left Lou exhausted and jet lagged especially after an additional six hour delay, further extended their travel time. This was all exacerbated by the sleeping pills. Lou had taken to relax for the flight when they arrived in London. Lou wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. However Ekland was having none of that. She had tickets for that evening's performance of a little known rock and roll musical that had been creating quite a stir with London's theater crowds and having already seen the Rocky Horror Show several times herself, she was excited to see the experience with her partner and Lou inevitably relented. Adler describes the entire experience in the soundtrack box set booklet from the 15th anniversary No Sleep Jet lag bam. The Rocky Horror Show. It cut like a knife from the first moment I entered the theater, cobwebs flashing lights, white faced ushers and the opening chords of science fiction. I had the feeling you get when you see or hear something very special for the first time. It was a few days later in a chance encounter with Michael White at a party that Lou was able to usurp several other producers who are attempting to court the worldwide rights Adler and White quickly struck a deal that would bring Rocky to the United States and gave him significant control over the eventual film adaptation. Funny story about that night that Lou saw the show as he writes in the anniversary booklet. So thank you, Britt. And I guess thank you British Airways for the delay because Richard o'brien, not Tim Curry played the lead that night and I didn't even notice how skinny his legs were in high heels. And that must have been jet lag, man. What a bastard. He gets to see Richard play Frank instead of Tim and is still like, yeah, let me throw some money at that thing. I saw on a jet lagged haze after a 16 hour flight and oopsy Daisy, it turned out to be a cash cow for decades to come. Oops, and Lou saw the potential right away from the moment that he acquired the US stage show rights. He was already aware of the potential for a film version. It was during the first US production at the Roxy Theater on L A S Sunset Strip that Lou Adler invited then president of 20th century Fox Gordon Stolberg to come see the show. Of course, Lou left nothing to chance. He made sure to invite some of the show's more exuberant early fans, the ones that would dance the time warp along with the performers and they would sing along with the songs. He also made sure to invite the Fox executives, teenage Children. And while the studio ahead may not have really understood what he was watching, his kids were smitten. And it helped to convince him of the potential for Rocky Horror as a film. And I think we all know the story of Rocky's transformation from stage to screen. But one of the things that surprised me most was the infants budget that the movie was made on. If you thought £3000 was small for a stage show, try making a full length feature film musical on a million dollar budget. And that was almost entirely Jim Sherman's choice. Originally, Fox gave Sherman the option to cast a bunch of well known a list celebrities hold on a list, a list or not like really a list like Keith Moon, the drummer for the, who had expressed a ton of interest in performing in the film. He was a huge rocky horror groupie in the early days seeing the show many times, both in London and in L A Meatloaf had recalled that when Keith was in the audience, he would place nine bottles of champagne, one for each member of the cast across the front of the stage every time he was in attendance. What a fucking suck up, right. You, you also had Mick Jagger who had expressed interest in playing Frank in an eventual film adaptation. Although his lackluster performance in 19 seventies, Ned Kelly had shown him to be a rather, let's say underwhelming actor plus Sherman just really wanted to use the original cast that he had developed the stage show with in London. And in doing so, the studio gave him as he would later describe it. A Fox executives, lunch money, a budget of a million dollars though that would eventually grow to 1.25 million before shooting had completed, which for those of you wondering adjusted for inflation is a little over $5 million that puts Rocky firmly in the realm of modern indie films with budgets like Shaun of The Dead Clarks Two and Donnie Darko, all of which were shot for between 4.5 to 6 million bucks, which just to put into perspective, Modern estimates place the Rocky Horror picture shows total gross revenue at like over 100 and $70 million. It's endured as the longest running theatrical release of all time and of which a big portion of the royalties has gone directly to Lou Adler and Michael White being the film's primary producers. Fun fact, when the film was eventually released, Michael White was actually credited as the primary producer and Lou Adler as executive producer. However, the opening title cards on British Prince of the film said 20th Century Fox presents a Michael White, Lou Adler production. But on American copies of the print, the order of Lou Adler and Michael White's names was reversed. But as with all artistic endeavors that end up far more successful than anyone could imagine. The battle for reputation control and money wouldn't end with the release of Rocky Horror on film. In fact, it exacerbated the matter even further with the end of the original UK state show run in 1980 provincial British theaters quickly seized the rights to mount their own professional productions with varying degrees of quality and success, combined with the explosiveness of the cinema experience in the United States brought on by the audience participation that was pioneered in Los Angeles, New York, Austin. And that independently emerged in theaters all across the globe. This led to a real conundrum for showrunners of the stage show throughout the early eighties, the rowdy atmosphere of movie theater, Rocky was supplanting the eerie horror movie send up. That was the initial stage show productions were getting bigger and bigger with more glitz and were taking cues from the film as that was what many audience members were most familiar with. By 1984 the line between stage and screen had blurred with callbacks, overwhelming many of the actors performances and props being hurled onto the stage causing more than one show to have to adjourn early due to the danger from the Yes and with the UK tour having no predetermined end date and cast members under contract for a mere three months. At a time, new performers regularly were assuming the primary roles. It was adding to the confusion and lackluster performance. Rocky Horror was very much at risk of becoming a pantomime, Richard o'brien and Samuel French limited who then held the professional performing rights to the show, eventually granted the Theater Royal Hanley an exclusive Rocky Horror touring license for 1985 but limiting the production team did little to stop the steamrolling outrageous behavior from the audience. Throughout the early to mid eighties, audience members would take any opportunity to throw random items at the cast becoming increasingly tangential to the dialogue or plot. We're talking like flour and full bags of rice, water bombs, eggs like lumps of candles. It was a nightmare for the performers and was a far far cry from what Richard o'brien had intended with his little musical and rightfully so Richard and the tour production teams were getting fed up with it all. They felt that the once modest show playing in small intimate theaters needed to be punched up to regain control over the crowd. The simple sets, a masterpiece by Brian Thompson as B movie for the stage was replaced with brash flash and distracting monstrosities. At the suggestion of producer Charles Deacon, a huge investment was made adding laser effects which in a desperate attempt to justify the massive expenditure will be used extensively throughout the show. Like this was the beginning of the show's increasing reliance on spectacle and effect over the strength and ingenuity of the script and the songs and in an effort to wrestle control back from the audience. This was also when the narrator was spun out into a more master of ceremonies kind of role taking on the task of warning theatergoers against throwing things at the performers and brandishing threats of stopping the show. If the crowd got too rowdy gone was the State English presenter and in his place was a ringmaster who occasionally ushered the story forward with little tiny bits of exposition. By 1988 the stage show barely resembled the original performances that had made Rocky into an international success. Nor did it really resemble the film that all of us know and love today. It was a weird amalgamation of ideas attempting desperately to keep up with the times and remain relevant and Richard o'brien hated it at one point. The show's official program notes literally said direct quote. The plot is largely irrelevant and by the late eighties, it was no secret that Richard o'brien was planning to stage a new production of the Rocky Horror Show in London's West End. It was in part due to his artistic frustration with the direction the show had taken and partially due to other more financial reasons. In a newspaper article from 2016, when Fox decided to create the remake without Richard's involvement, he finally spoke on the matters of the film rights explaining when the stage show first went to the US. Lou Adler arranged the sale of the film rights to Fox. I wanted to take the contracts home to read but was hurried into signing them after signing something I hadn't read. Sure enough, I found out I was going to be marginalized. It made Fox $360 million keeping them afloat for years. Lou made a conservative profit of about $20 million. Whereas I've made less than a million rumor has it though, it's not very difficult to believe. Given Richard's comments on the subject that bitterness over the film contracts and frustration with the state of the touring show were primarily what led to o'brien revamping the show for the nineties. This also allowed for new ownership stakes and contracts to be drawn up for the revamped production, giving Richard back control over his work that had slowly suffered from too many production changes throughout the eighties, but also essentially put an end to the original staging of the Rocky Horror Show. Gone was the Rocky Horror Show. And in its place, the newly minted Richard o'brien's Rocky Horror Show, a subtle change, but one that was also reflected in the show itself, dialogue was adjusted, the songs were reordered to match the film version and the overall presentation was modified to better suit the big auditorium, proscenium theaters that the show now played in on tour and on the west end and with Richard effectively wrestling control back of the stage show, it's no wonder that Lou Adler doubled down on his ownership of the Rocky Horror film. This is why the 2016 remake is described as a remake of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, not an adaptation of the Rocky Horror Show as it effectively allowed Fox to freeze out Richard and all the other original production members. And if it wasn't clear enough, the blu-ray edition of the Rocky Horror picture show released in 2010 has Lou Adler's name now preceding Michael White's on both the US and the UK versions of the film. So it's been a bumpy road. What originally started off as a £3000 production in a small theater in London turned into an international juggernaut. And with it came all the trappings of fame and success, including the struggles over ownership, credit and finances. So it's probably for the best that we as a community don't have to deal with any of that since our theaters deal with the licensing of the film. And as of 2000, anyone who wants to put on a production of the stage show can do so for like a relatively modest fee. That's assuming if you want to put on Richard o'brien's Rocky Horror show, the original version, the first Rocky Horror show. Well, the closest you'll find to that is in a movie theater and that's our show. We want to thank Angela for chatting with us about the hobbit tree harvest picnic show. I just like the name and Fred and Harley for being incredible talented human beings. And for coming up with those gorgeous pin designs. We'd also like to thank Becky for writing in with those two awesome celebrity sightings from early shadow casting days and a big props to Josh over at the irrational Masters for sending in the original question that kept us going, if anyone has a question, they'd like us to answer on air for Nicky asks a question or some community news that they'd like to talk to us about or even a cool story to share with the community. We'd love to include it on our show. Just go to our website rocky talkie podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to tell us about it. 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 to grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky Talkie content, check us out on Facebook, youtube, Instagram and tiktok all at Rocky Talkie Podcast. We'll talk to you all next week. Bye bye bye. See you got a million dollars. I want to make a movie. Yeah, I got you. Hold on. I have a gummy worm in my mouth. I thought I was done talking now in an effort to cleanse your pallette after our foray into cable TV. We are proud to announce your regularly scheduled array, a Duba news slot. What is that word for? She said it right. Yeah, for, for, for now in an effort to cleanse your palette after our foray into cable TV. We are proud to announce your regularly scheduled or ABA news slot. Now you have both. Y'all can fight it out. I, I, I just googled it apparently it is four a mega, correct? Ok. I still don't hear the difference for a, for a listeners. Write to us and tell us if World of Warcraft and tell us if World of Warcraft has Orcs in it or don't, I don't want to hear about your account. Yeah. No, me neither. Fuck. Active blizzard. Anyway, coming from two people who play active blizzard games on a regular basis. I mean, I played, wow, for like two years. Wow. All the homies hate. Wow. Ok. Well, it was back in the days when it was still an ok company on the LA server in the Shire Homesteads in the Homestead Scoot Crest at number four Myrtle Court. I don't know what any of that meant. You Scoot Crest. So. Oh.