Hello to all of you. Unconventional convention is out there. Welcome back to Rocky Talkie. We're a podcast about anything and everything related to Rocky Horror. I'm Aaron and I'm Meg. And later on in the show, we're going to be joined by community legend, Mad Man, Mike for a fantastic interview. That's right. We gave you sal, we gave you Phil. Now. We've got mad man. We're just working our way right through the entire eighth street Playhouse cast, just like chlamydia. You're probably not wrong. But before we get to Mad man, it's news time. But before we get to news, I just want to take a second and ask how's everybody doing out there? You all keeping cool during this crazy heat wave? I hope Sweetie. What did you get up to this week? Oh, not a whole lot. I mean, we had a sold out Village East show this weekend that I completely blew off. So not a lot of Rocky there. Uh I just got back from the dentist today. So my sincere apologies. I can't feel my face. Did the dentist give you a lot of coke. Uh No, no, it didn't do any of the fun stuff. It just numbed the shit out of me, but I got my pearly whites all ready for R K O K. So I'm very excited for that. Uh What did you get up to this week? Um What did I get up to this week? Talk to Mad Man, a whole bunch. Um Oh OK. So here's a fun thing about me. So I, I do podcasts for a living and recently I quit a job that I was working and I have taken on a freelance gig for this month and I have just been writing so fucking much. This job just involves churning out true crime scripts, one right after the other. So I've been just in total research and writing mode for uh for work just churning out content. I'm sure you can't understand any of that. So you haven't been doing any of that at all, have you? Uh No, I, I definitely haven't been crazy, crazy, crazy working on something that uh we might talk about a little bit later in the show. Well, that's nice. Glad you shared that with everyone prematurely and with that, let's kick it over to global news. So you all out there are gonna have to bear with us today. I've been super, super busy this week. So I had Aaron actually get his hands dirty and collect our global and community news for the episode. So let's see how this goes. All right guys. First up in global news, we've got a big dispute brewing over licensing rights for Rocky. That's right. In a scathing verbal attack this week, it was claimed that the producers for Rocky were quote untalented and parasitical for not dishing out any portion of the rights to the talent. If not for the producers, it was said there would be at least another three Rockies. Wait Aaron with six Rocky movies already released two spinoffs and the third already in post production on Sylvester Stallone has taken to social media to lambast the production of the franchise citing goddamn it fine. This is the only fucking time we will ever do this joke and you blew it on this good job, but it's relevant. Well, Richard o'brien has always said he got screwed on the rights for Rocky Horror and now Sylvester Stallone is saying he got screwed on the rights for Rocky. Maybe it's just something about Rocky movies that leads producers to screw over their talent. I apologize, guys moving on. Ok. Moving on next, we've got a live concert series that may be coming to your town later this year. The show currently gearing up for its US. And Canadian tour features a film screening and live band performing the songs live on stage. It Yes. Is this about Rocky um of Rocky Horror? Let me clarify. It's about dirty dancing. What the fuck. So yeah, Gaia live and Carl. So in association with Lions Gate are doing a tour where they show a remastered version of dirty dancing and a live band and vocalist sing the songs on stage from the movie. There's a big after party and it's touted as a hyper participatory event. Does that sound familiar? You guys? I'm so sorry. Oh, come on, this one's at least adjacent. There's shows scheduled all up and down the east coast, parts of the south and the Midwest and even quite a few in Canada, I think this is super cool, seeing a huge push for dirty dancing's 35th anniversary. And basically they decided to take a cue from Rocky. If, if you're interested, if you think that I'm on to something, all the information is available at dirty dancing in concert dot com. All right. All right, I wasn't with you before, but judging from the pictures on the slide, it does look like they even have their performers shadow cast parts of the most iconic dance numbers. All right. Fine. So I mean, we've touched on this one before on the show, right? But like is this the future of cinema? Right? At least with some of these like legacy properties that, you know, they can still draw a crowd. But up until now, whenever they're Commemorating the anniversary of like your favorite movie, it's always just been like a sit and watch experience. So one night, you know, stand kind of thing is this the kind of thing that we're gonna be seeing more of as audiences get back into movie theaters. I feel like there's been a lot of this recently, right where they'll do movie nights of like some old movie that you watched when you were a kid, but they'll do it with some sort of participation component. I'm thinking of Jaws in the water, right where they did it in Texas where they had a big screen on a bay and they had everyone sit in like little floaty and stuff and watch the movie. I know that even like the Alamo draft houses around us are getting into that. I get targeted ads for this all the time. Like, they're doing a legally blonde night where they hand out little bags, people sit there and watch legally blonde and they have themed cocktails and you get like an Elle Woods pen with a big fluffy pink thing on it and, um, like press on nails or something and it's cute. It's like, it's small but it makes you feel like you're a little bit more involved in the movie than just sitting there watching it. Oh, yeah. No, I love that. Especially for stuff that's like these, you know, nostalgia, cult classics, you know, stuff like Ghostbusters or back to the Future. Right? I mean, like, I would love to go to participatory or interactive screenings of those films. I mean, I know back in the 20 tens there was even a shadow cast here in New York that did. Ghostbusters. Uh, they were called, uh, Minions of Zer, I think, I don't think they're around anymore, but that was super cool. Bring that back. I wonder if there's anyone we could talk to about that. I guess you might have an opportunity to punch somebody else off your eighth street bucket list. We live in Hope and I mean, like back to the future, right? Like that's another nostalgia property that's been coming back big. I mean, there's the west end musical that's now transferring over to Broadway. So clearly there is this, you know, kind of effort from these studios and from these property holders to try and take these nostalgia properties, these big budget movies that were big. It's before and kind of rethink them for audiences today. It's something that I think we're gonna see a lot more of and I think that, you know, Rocky Horror already being on the ground floor of that is the perfect kind of example to look to, I mean, you can see it with, with this dirty dancing thing, right? Like they're putting live vocalists on stage. Well, that's, that's very similar to the sing alongs that Rocky is, you know, in the UK and they're doing a big like party afterwards where everybody gets to, you know, hang out and that's already kind of the atmosphere that we're all doing, you know. So I, I think this is a good kind of example of, of what we should be seeing more of, let's not forget about like the guerilla warfare grassroots ones of these hashtag gentlemans fuck that. Well, last up in global news, we've got a big Blu Ray release and I'm, I'm just going to scroll down here a second guys. I don't want to get your hopes up. Sweetie. Yes. What's the return of Captain Invincible? And why do we give a shit about a Blu Ray release? I'm so glad you asked. The return of Captain Invincible is a 1983 musical superhero film starring Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. It was a box office failure when it first released, but it has become a relatively underground cult success in years since. Yes. And why do we care? Because Richard o'brien and Richard Hartley actually wrote some of the songs that are in this movie. Oh. Oh, all right. Well, then, congratulations. One of your three global news topics is actually vaguely tangentially related to Rocky horror. Good job bear. I mean, the plot on this thing is right alongside all of the modern like anti superhero films and series that, you know, you're seeing them all over the place, I think like the boys, that kind of thing. So I love the Captain Invincible is a big name superhero during prohibition in World War Two, like into the mid forties. However, he is forced into retirement by a mccarthy style government witch hunt in the fifties. He's accused of being a communist, citing his red cape and premature anti fascism. Uh, and he's charged with violating us airspace by flying without a proper license, Impersonating a military officer and wearing underwear in public. So he disappears from the limelight. Moves to Australia and becomes an alcoholic. Must be nice. 30 years later, his old nemesis returns and the aging alcoholic superhero may be, the world's only hope. Sounds a little familiar. Right. It's like the plot of that Will Smith movie, Independence Day. Exactly. You know the one I'm talking about uh yes. Uh Wild Wild West Hancock where he's an alcoholic, right? He's like a bum. I don't watch pornography starring Will Smith. Oh my God. Well, more for the rest of us, I guess. And uh so Richard wrote the songs for this thing. So, yeah, kind of, I mean, Richard o'brien and Richard Hartley wrote three of the songs that are in the movie and they're much closer in style to their work from shock treatment than they are Rocky Horror. So if you like Shocky and you wanna listen to some of Richard's work from around the same time period, here you go. This is a movie for you. The rest of the songs in the film are from an assortment of other musicians. One of them is titled bullshit and is literally just the word bullshit repeated for the entire song. Oh My God. I know that song. Yeah, I sing it every single day. So British fantasy novelist and my all time favorite author, Terry Pratchett spoke about this film once and he said, quote, it is a series of bad moments pasted together with great songs and a budget of four pence. He also admitted that he had seen it several times. It's got that going for it, I guess so. Yeah, a new Blu Ray release drops this month. It's supposed to include a ton of extra features, including a director's cut. That Wink Wink includes nudity, unclear. Probably not. It was made in 1983 boobs. Probably boobs. All right. You sold me. It's a solid maybe on my watch list. The boobs have that effect. Well, if you're interested in boobs, preorders are available on Amazon though. It's not that hard to find copies out in the wild already ahead of the street date. And with that, let's move on over to some community news. Ok. I'm here for the boobs, but I just want to say this better, not be a repeat of global news. This shit better have come from like the Rocky Horror community. I honestly sweetie. I don't, I don't think that bit really even held up for the first half of this. Let alone the whole show. No, no, no. These are, these are all Rocky Rocky Horror. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's Rocky Horror. Thank Christ. OK. First up, we'd like to wish a big happy 21st birthday to the Las Vegas cast Frankie's favorite obsession. Yep. They celebrated on the third of this month but we missed it. So, whatever. Congratulations guys. You can finally drink male yay. Founded in 2001 by Steve Van Meter and based out of the Tropicana Cinema in Las Vegas. F F O has been a community staple for the last 21 years. They've had celebrity guests, proposals, pre shows news coverage convention wins all kinds of accolades and for their 21st birthday, they even showed a personalized congratulations video from none other than Franken Furter himself. Tim Curry. The video short is up on their social media. Definitely go check it out. It's like 30 seconds long. It's super fun. Oh, congrats F F O yay. Congratulations. Next up in community news. An announcement from across the pond. Yeah, the UK fan club has announced that due to some late dropouts, there are slots available for this year's 2022 time warp picnic at Oakley Court in the UK. Well, I mean, that's exciting. This thing usually sells out like a full year in advance. Oh my God. I know that when we scheduled our wedding, we had to book the rooms out like our wedding block even not to do with the picnic. Basically a full year out to make sure that we would have the rooms. It was insane. Obviously, there was a second part to that because a lot of our people did attend the picnic. It was the next day. But even for just the block of rooms for the event alone, they were like you got to get this in now. Otherwise it's not happening. Oh, yeah. I mean, everybody who wants to be there is fucking obsessed with Rocky Horror and it is so much fun. There is fantastic food. There's awesome people to talk to shoot the shit, check out their costumes. The costumes are insane that people show up to at this thing. It's just a great fucking time. The costumes are so cute. I fucking loved seeing them because they're not, there are like some traditional Rocky horror costumes there. But then you've also got people dressing up as like, like aliens from, from Mars from outer space like you would see in a campy movie and then they have people dressing up with like chicken wing costumes or like Oscar the Grouch, like just these random ass costumes and they're like, uh whatever. It's Rocky and the kids since it's like just a fun holiday, weekend excursion, right? Like a lot of people bring their kids. You get Little Columbia and little Eddie. It's, it's adorable. Oakley Court is such a fun place to visit. There's tons of stuff to do. They've got tennis courts and swimming and hiking trails, just all the things you would expect from like, you know, a giant British manor. Uh and it is just really, really fun if you ever have the chance. I know it's expensive. But like you really should check out the time warp picnic, make it that you're one like pilgrimage for Rocky Horror. If you're a big part of the community, it's fucking pricey man. And that hotel is full of spiders. But if you can definitely do it, like take the fucking gargoyle picture and sit on the banister. It's, it's really, really cute. It's totally worth it if you could swing it. Plus you get to watch Rocky Horror in the extravagant Castle Hotel where the film was made, like what's not to love about that? So if you're interested in taking an impromptu fucking trip across the pond, this August hop over to the Time Warp UK website and they've got all the details for you right there and last up in community news this week, an absolute shit ton of ac O con announcements dropped. Who? All right, we've got an event schedule. We've got applications for room requests. We've got the entire cast list for every show including drag race. And we've also got access to the R K O Con Discord server where you can go out there and schmooze with everyone who's gonna be at the con before you meet up I R L. There is so much information that has been posted this week. So if you aren't already on the R K O Con Facebook group, get your ass over there and check it all out. Same with the discord. I hopped in there a couple of days ago and it's just, it's fun. I pop it in my phone blows up the whole day with it and I get so annoyed because I get a little notification. But then I look, and it's an R K O thing and I get excited about the fact that the cons in like two weeks and then it's just nice to get to go see all the people you're going to hang out with. I'm so excited about fucking everything on this goddamn schedule, man. We just like go through it day by day real quick. Do like a blurb. Oh Absolutely. So, as everyone that's listening knows a Ocon coming up just in a two weeks now, two weeks, uh probably a week and a half when this episode drops right time to get those costumes finished. Uh And yeah, there's a ton of events all Wednesday through Sunday. So, uh yeah, let's run them down real quick. Wednesday kicks it off with Buffy. Fucking love. Buffy. Excited for that. And then the Rocky horror punk show. I don't know what this is. Apparently it's a K O performing Rocky in 30 minutes. But punk we make it punk. Is this like their cabaret show, the one they do at clubs and stuff? I don't know. I guess we're gonna have to find out. I have no fucking idea, but I can't wait to see it. I'd imagine the costumes are gonna be top notch. Love a punk costume. Absolutely. And rounding up Wednesday night, we've got a dance party. Hell, yeah. Always here for a dance party. Gonna get loaded at a S 2 20. Woohoo. All right. So that brings us to Thursday. What do we got Thursday board games? All right. Community board game day. Um, which apparently is just going on all day. You can wander in and play some fucking board games with hungover Rocky people. That sounds great. Oh, maybe, maybe a Rocky horror trivia game contest. No, I'm not bringing my copy. If anybody wants to do that, you gotta bring your own copy. It's not happening. I'm sure there are plenty that live in a the six oh seven probably got seven copies just hanging a house, one in each room each. Uh but after that, we get into the panels, right? So, yeah, the panels start. We've got setting up a five oh one C three here for useful panels. Setting up your cast is a nonprofit. We got someone walking through how to do that, determining if it's like right for your cast. That sounds like a thing I should probably go be at probably we've got a fundraising panel about how to make money for your cast. Imagine trying to make money off a Rocky horror. I guess we'll get to find out how also sounds like something I should probably go to. Oh, Fred's hosting this one. Uh you know, Fred was on our show a little while back talking about uh merch and how you out there can step up your cast. Merch Game. Well, if you want to step it up even further and actually make money off of it, then this is the battle for you. I'm really glad Fred is leading this one fucking boss at this shit right after that. It looks like we've got Hedwig. Hell yeah. Shadow cast of Hedwig and the Angry inch. I'm so pumped for that. We've got some people from our cast in this. I'm really excited about. I know one of our new cast members, Eric is gonna be playing Tommy. No. Oh Hell yeah, he's gonna be fucking awesome. That's gonna look so cool. He's gonna kill it. I can't wait to see. And then my favorite one, Rocky's got talent at nine PM show. Love a talent show. Oh my gosh. It's the best part of every con as far as I'm concerned. Can't wait. And uh after that, we've got something called the R K O Horror Picture Show. I've heard about this and I'm actually really excited that they're doing this at the con because I've been wanting to see it. This is Roy Rossi's personal tribute to Rocky Horror. It's an audio and video slide presentation with alternate versions of the songs from all of the plays and things. I, I I'm really excited to see what Roy's put together for this. I feel like I'm reading this description and you just told me what it was and I still don't feel like I have a great handle on what it is, but I also I can't wait to see. Well, 10 pm at the ballroom, you know where you're at and while you're at the room stick around for 11 pm for the room. Sorry, that was, that was. Shout out to, yep, I will drunkenly watch you say I did not hit her. It'll be super fun. And then uh I guess we're doing room parties on Thursday night. That sounds great. I bet we end up with like a patio party. I bet the Hilton remembers us and knows what's up. Yeah. Right. All right. That brings us to Friday. What's on Friday? The Rocky Fit Club at 10 AM? And I have so much respect for anyone who goes to that. I will probably be hung over in my bed. But do it get your fucking blood pumping warm up for all the shows that you're gonna be in because it's gonna be a long ass day. Go to that. Good for you. Yep. And after you get your morning workout in, why don't you swing on over to the Hilton Ballroom at 12 pm for a panel from what's this Rocky Rocky talkie panel? Well, what the fuck is this? Of course, we know them. It's us. That's right guys. We have been invited to do a panel at R K O. We are super excited about it and uh it's what I've been working on for the better part of the last, I don't know, month researching for it. So why don't you give our listeners a taste sweetie? Why don't you read the description that we've got here for what our panel is all about? Sure. So you guys might not know this, our listeners. But Rocky Talkie is a weekly podcast where the two of us, John and Jacob will discuss the latest news and current events in the Rocky Horror community. So you can join us for a fun filled romp through the latest happenings in the community and then we'll reveal the never before seen story behind the 1987 musical that rock rock rocks spicy. Well, that is extremely cryptic. It is. What does that mean? It means you're gonna have to show up at the Hilton Ballroom at 12 PM. This is the untold story behind a never before known Richard o'brien film musical that you are going to want to show up for. We have been doing so much research on this. It is fucking mind boggling that the community has never found out about this thing. You're all gonna want to show up and take a listen. All of our listeners know that Aaron is occasionally want to get excited about some really, really deep rocky hard shit that a lot of people may or may not find as interesting as he does. But this is bananas. Like I'm so excited that we get to fucking talk about this. You guys are really, really gonna love it and then stick around right after we're done because we've got everybody's favorite con panel, the costuming panel. Yes, I'm here for that. I'm so excited for it. The costuming. That was always one of my favorites, the tips, the tricks, the history, just all the little details, the flippant comments. It's like, oh yes, we found out that there were six of them on there and you go what? I got to redo my dress like flashback to like you and Harley in our room at Providence Prime just with your faces pressed up against the H D. Fucking shocky being like, oh my God, her shirt has pinstripes. Indeed. That was super fun. Shout out to Harley and then after the costuming panel, we're going to get into some shows. So at two PM, we've got, we're gonna be shadow casting rebo where you can see me playing Amber. I'm going to be the snottiest brattiest little bitch you ever saw. I can't wait. And if you need a pallet cleanser after meg being a total cunt stick around for the cast of video. Preshow, these are always super fun. And after all of the editing work and all of the video production we've seen out of the community over the uh you know, last couple of years. I think this is just gonna be stepped up to a whole other level. Hell yeah, we have all become like professional video editors in lockdown. So these are going to be like fucking highly produced Martin Scorsese Preshow. And then after that, we're in to the big ones. We got shock treatment. Seven pm at the ballroom. Oh my God. I love shock treatment. I'm so excited to see it. I love the all-star casts of it. This is gonna be like one of my top must sees of, of the convention. And you and Harley will be able to determine whether everyone's costume has the right amount of pinstripes. Yes. Yes, we will be judging you. Yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll be judging you and if you want to go from being judged to, um, being judged when you lose all your money and have to walk around with no shirt on for the rest of the night. We've got the F BC poker tournament. I'm pretty sure it's not strip poker. I meant because you would lose all your money and like, lose your shirt in a poker game. But I feel like any poker is strip poker if you try. Well, you'd have to find out at the Roger Williams room at nine PM. Uh, apparently there's gonna be some valuable prizes and you're gonna be competing for the title of champion poker slut. So, if poker is your game, this is where you wanna be see, champion poker slot. You can walk around without your shirt on all night either because you lose your shirt because you lose or because you win and you're at the slut or because you're at R K O con and you might just walk around with your shirt off anyway, and speaking of walking around without your shirt on after the poker tournament at 10 PM, we've got the drag race dance party. So that's gonna kick off kind of our late night festivities for the evening. Hell yeah, another party, some more dancing, gonna see some awesome drag performers that are, it's gonna be running until like midnight. So I'm here for that and then the party is gonna keep on going afterwards and we'll just get loaded the whole night. I'm here for it. All right. So we pass out Friday night after a crazy night of partying. We get up Saturday morning, crack a dawn. What's the first thing we're doing? Club? Part two? All right. Best of luck to all of you out there that are Rocky Fit Club. I will be finding Tylenol. Well, you better fix your hangover quick because at 11 AM bright and early we are going to the chocolate covered Rocky panel, chocolate covered Rocky is such an iconic cast. I've never seen any of their shows or met any of them and I'm so excited that they're doing a whole panel talking about all the wonderful things they've got going on in Baltimore. I know that their show is, is very nontraditional and I'm very excited to hear from them just what, what they do with it about the creative choices that they made. It always looks like such a good time. When you see the pictures on social media, it looks like such a huge party. I'm excited for this and I, I can't wait. This is, this is one of the things that I definitely definitely want to check out at R K O. Speaking of nontraditional, right after that, we cut into some of the non-traditional shows that we're doing this year. Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog at noon. Oh my God. Yes, I love Neil Patrick Paris. I think this is one of the funniest fucking things the community has ever latched onto it. Shadow cast. So well, I love it. I'm there. I've been in the room with Doctor Horrible happening. Like I would need more than two hands to count the number of times. But my, my focus is always drawn away to like a conversation or to something and there's always a little thought in the back of my head where I'm like, all right, I've zoned out of this movie. This isn't the time that I'm going to pay attention and really learn about what's happening. Maybe next time will be the time and I really hope that this time is the time I'll get to watch it. Shadow cast. I would love to finally know what doctor Horrible is all about instead of just having like the fun music playing as I engage in conversation. Well, you might actually not catch the whole thing because I just noticed right afterwards is Reefer Madness and we're both performing in Reefer madness. So, get fucked up, I guess. Oh no, I'm so excited for this. I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll skip part of Doctor Hu in order to get ready because uh yeah, I'm doing Jack uh for almost the entire film because I suffer from a chronic condition called I don't want to dance. But yeah, for the rest of the show, you're gonna see me slapping me around and turning all of your kids into hooligans and whores. So look out for me on that one. I think I even get to slap you. You get to slap me, I get to slap you right back and then you just deck me into a glass coffee table. We've been practicing at home. Did we get that scene together? I'm, I'm excited. Hell yeah. So yeah. Reefer madness. And then right after that, you know what to do, go get ready and uh get your ass onto the bus because we're all going over to the stadium theater for the night of festivities like this is the night of R K O con. It's the big, big shows. What are we doing over at the stadium? All right. So seven PM. We're off the bus, we're ready to go. First thing we get to watch everyone do their live choreograph. Preshow on stage, it's gonna be a fucking hell of a time. I love watching these. I'm so excited for this. J C C P. Try not to break the stage. R K O. Good luck fitting 100 and 20 people on there. Let's do it. Yeah. After that we've got awards and MC Time. Uh That sounds great. Spicy. A hell. Yeah. And then at eight PM they let all the riff raff into the audience and it is Rocky time. It's the big Rocky Horror. R K O Con Four Spectacular. See all of your friends, maybe you yourself are performing in it. We're doing Betty and Ralph for a wedding scene. Our favorite thing to do because you get to still be part of the show and then watch the whole damn thing. I can't wait to get to wear the biggest ugliest wedding dress in the whole world and pretend like it's my special day all over again. And then right after all the festivities wrap up there, head back to the hotel for the karaoke after party, going from 11 pm, all through the evening. You know, that's where you'll find every single person. It's a karaoke after party. Karaoke is my fucking favorite social activity. Love watching people nut up and sing. I think it's fun. Uh And I think it's even more fun when you don't give a shit and you just want to be a dip. So we all crash Saturday night and we wake up Sunday morning just in time for farewell food and games over at Dave and Buster's in the Providence Mall which sure, I will go play guitar hero for three hours. I can't wait to go be hung over at a Dave and Buster's again, it's been three years since I was hung over at a Dave and Buster's uh wasn't Dave and Buster's the first night of the con last time. Yeah. Ok. Ok. That tracks. That tracks. So there you go guys. That is your entire R K O K four lineup. Obviously anything subject to change between now and then. But uh this is the list we got now, this was posted over on A K O con dot com slash schedule. You can go check it out for yourself. Read all of the great descriptions that are up there, check out what times everything's at where everything is at and yeah, we're so excited. We cannot wait to see everybody at Con. Absolutely. I'm beside myself. I've checked these fucking discords and Facebook groups multiple times a day just to hype myself up about the fact that this is like imminent finally after so much waiting and being locked away and not seeing all of you people. I miss you and I can't wait to party with you very soon. We're like so close and with that, let's take it from stuff happening right now to stuff that happened 25 years ago. We've got a special treat for everyone. This week we sat down with community legend Madman Mike and shot the shit about anything and everything. Rocky Horror. Let's go check it out. All right guys, we've got a awesome conversation queued up for everyone this week. Uh We fortunately were able to get a hold of Madman Mike, the original member of the A street playhouse, the New York City cast director, shock treatment. Fan club president collector, extraordinaire. I'm just so excited to have the chance to share with you all. Mad men's deep inner thoughts. Hey, mad man. How's it going? I'm doing pretty good, Aaron. How are you doing tonight? Oh, doing fantastic, man. So, I mean, it's been forever since we've got to sit down and shoot the shit. Uh We, we had a chance a little bit ago but I just wanted to, you know, start off with some easy ones. How are you doing? What have you been up to lately? Well, I've been flying around the world as you. Well know, I've been living bi continentally. Um, I live in Scotland in the UK and I'm also living at, in Missouri at the moment. Oh, very cool. What part of Scotland are you in? I'm in Glasgow. Oh, right on, right on. I know that there was a, a pretty big rocky community up there for a while. Well, the, the cast, Doctor Scott Sex Forks were around forever. And now there's another cast that has taken over from there and uh they don't do it quite as often as we do in the States, but they put on a really rocking show. That's fucking great. I love that. I, I've never been able to see uh a, a shadow cast out in the UK. Is it really different from in the US? It is um it's taken with a grain of salt where we're trying to be everything and we have 400 people that we have to please per night and we have to have, you know, really great costumes and emulate everything. Most of the shows out here don't have a normal theater which you guys are experiencing right now um because of COVID and everything. But um as my friend Marty used to say, everything had to be able to fold up into a suitcase at the end of the night, including the actors. Uh that's a real one and, and we just learned, you know, just the other day that Marty passed uh was really sorry to hear that. I know you guys were really close. Yeah, we ran a bunch of uh UK conventions, the Den AA Conventions together um as well as some other things that we did outside of Rocky Horror. We were very close. In fact, we lived in the, in the building next to each other. Oh, wow. That's such a shame. He, he, he will always be remembered in the community. He's such a, such a great guy. I fortunately did get to meet him once when he was in New York a while back. But. Right. Well, he ran Doctor Scott's extra reports along with other people. But he was, uh, one of the main figure head for, well, over 20 years in Glasgow and I first met him at the 20th anniversary in 95. So we, we've known each other for a very, very long time, right? Um Well, speaking of very long times, uh uh oh, do you want no si simple questions first. Do you want to throw our listeners just a brief history of yourself? I know that you started with a street back in the eighties, right? In the early eighties. I, I, I can't remember the exact date that I started performing, but I started going to the show on my birthday 83 which was a Saturday, it was February 5th. And um I saw this amazing, amazing show which of course, we all know now, but, you know, it was uh not as well publicized back in 1983. Um It was on my birthday and when I got into the theater, of course, the, you know, the preshow at the time. Warp and Sweet T Roxy and all that kind of stuff was done. But then when the movie came on, I saw a filmed image. I saw, you know, people emulating what was going on and I had the audience around me doing callbacks and I was like, my God, this is true theater. You know, it's not just your, your average movie you were walking into, you had, you know, so many people participating, which of course, you know, is the, uh the main staple of Rocky is participation, but you got it on so many different levels that you didn't know where the next thing was gonna come from. It probably had that like raw quality to it too right back then where everyone's still figuring out, you know what the flow was for this thing. Well, actually the, the people who were on stage back then were actually pretty well rehearsed because back then, you know, you would learn a little bit of the movie one week, go home and practice that a little bit, then you'd learn another little bit of the movie and go home. And because we did not have the video tape, the video tape didn't come out in the States until 1990. There was a V H s in 84 out here in the UK. Oh, right. Ok. So it was, but who had power converters back then? You know, it was not, this was not the, you know, this wasn't click and watch back then. This was, and then of course, you know, in late 83 audience participation album came out and that at least gave us the entire soundtrack to the film to practice to. Hm. Sure. Sure. And I know that we had talked uh on the show a while back about uh the bootlegs that were available, but any of the very early ones were like Japanese. Don't mention any of that. We can't use that word. They're called conversions nowadays, you know, they're archives, rare archives. Right. Right. The, the, the backup copy for the original, you know, the stuff that you, that you find that you, you get to keep it down on that stuff. We don't want everybody knowing. All right, we might get back to those uh in a little bit. Uh Those, there is one I do want to mention just for a very quick second because there actually was another uh copy which as you said was a bootleg that came out of, oh, I forget I was it Japanese or was it? Uh there was a, there was a laser disc that was out for a little while, but it was only down to like 400 copies. That's my memory. I can't remember where it came out of, but it was N T S C. So the only way you could see it at home was to get this really rare, you know, copy of it and it wasn't even an official copy. It came from another country. Right. Right. I mean, it's, it's just crazy, that kind of touches on like just how much stuff was out there. All of these collectibles and these rarities and just like you were deep in that community for a very long time for hunting down all of these things that just, we didn't even know were out there for so long. Well, that's what I was trying to do is bring a lot of it to the States because of a lot of the stuff was coming out in the UK because Richard had his show, The Crystal Maze. So I tried to get episodes of that over Pat Quinn Tim Curry. They were all doing television stuff out here in between the bigger films that we now know. But you, you couldn't get any of that stuff in the States and I was trying to track it down. You see, the best thing was that the connection between the fans because as much as I wanted it, somebody out here wanted it so that they could watch it over and over. But we didn't have I M DB back then. We didn't have, you know, we're looking up things in books and we're seeing names as we now know anybody who's ever Googled Richard o'brien. He wrote a great book on trains, but it's not the same Richard. We, we all know that one. Ok. But that's the point. You look up something in the book and you say this book has been written by Richard o'brien. Richard o'brien was in his TV show. Now, if you go on I M DB, there's Richard o'brien, 1234. And, but you had no idea back then. So you had to get a copy to make sure it was the right person or talk to someone in the country that it aired to find out. Wait, was he actually on this, like that one episode of The Detectives, which was a British comedy? And it took me forever to find it when it finally came out on DVD. I got a copy and he's only in one episode, I think in the third season I'd have to look it up. Oh, yeah. I mean, I know that that Train book comes up all the time. The guy has recently written a, uh, a book on collectible toys now too. So I see that one all the time. Like old school, like tin toys. The guy's really got to change his name, you know, maybe two hours at the beginning. I, I don't know, it's, uh, there's got to be a delineation for who we're looking for online to get proper information. Anything that doesn't contaminate my, uh, ebay searches. I'm, I'm fine. Just change it up, bro. Right. Because there's like 27 mystery novels by Richard o'brien too or something like that. Like, who is this person? Um, so mad man, back in the early days of you, you know, getting involved in this collectible scene was there like something that was the hot ticket item that everyone was after like more so than anything else. Information, the stuff that we were trying to figure out, like I just said was who was in what? Because there was no I M DB and there was no official list. And back then, of course, all the actors were much younger and that list was growing every month, somebody could do something. So I would say information was the hot commodity back then when it came to what did people want out of my collection? Everything. I mean, I used to, no, we used to have a lot of guest performers come up from Maryland and other places and they would be over at my house watching all my tapes, you know, because they wanted to see it. So I can't really say it depends on who who your favorite actor was from Rocky Horror or Shock treatment. They would pick the, the what stuff they wanted to see based on who was in it. So would you do like um like Pat Quinn nights and Tim curry nights where everyone would kind of get together and like watch the entire catalog as it existed. Was that like a no, I lived in, I, I, I had a studio flat in the west. Um So getting everybody in there was uh not the easy thing in the world, barely had enough room for me and my bong I remember that. Yeah. Well, there you go. Uh, that was, I, I remember so many nights sitting there with you and just, oh, you got to check this one out or? Oh, let's look at this or I'd ask a question. You'd be like, oh, yes, I have that. It was some of my favorite stuff to just hang out and shoot the shit about rocky, you know? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, that's, I've always tried to make it available to people so that they can go through the catalog and I'm still finding things to this very day via youtube or other collectors or, I mean, I have a collection of the UK plays on, on video now that I never thought I would have half of the ones that I have and I probably have about audiotape wise. I probably have over 100 of the plays, just audio recordings from the audience in all, in different languages. So they need to be transferred one day. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that stuff's amazing. It's, it's the kind of stuff that I know I go back to when I'm researching for the show, uh, you know, for the limited stuff that's available out there on youtube or whatever else. Fortunately, some of the other collectors in the community have shared some of them with me but nothing on the scale of, you know, hundreds of recordings and things. So that's absolutely amazing. Well, that took a very long time to collect that. That wasn't in one go. Oh, for sure. So uh kind of piggybacking off of that like I know that you were talking about from the collecting angle. The biggest changes are like information is just available now, right? Like it's so much easier to go on Wikipedia. See the whole list of things that Charles Gray ever did. It's easy to go on youtube and find some of that stuff. What are some of the biggest differences just in the community over the years? Like you, you talked a lot about screen accuracy, you know, in the early days from the nineties into the two thousands, 20 tens into today. What were some of the trends you noticed? I mean, you were in charge of the New York cast for over a decade. Well, even before then, I mean, there were, there are definitely some bookmarks throughout the history of Rocky where there were changes in the cast. The first one, of course, Sal must have told you about um when you had your lovely interview with him and he told you about the very beginnings, ok. Then we come up to 1985 and the 10th anniversary and that was a gigantic blowout at the Beacon Theater in New York City. After that happened, we started to lose a lot of our cast members. I don't mean it in a bad way, but a lot of our people started to retire because it's not gonna get any better than this. You know, we just performed with Richard Pat and now we had Jonathan Adams, you know, was on stage, Barry was there, Meatloaf was there. We just played the 5000 people, you know, where do you go from there? Little did they know? Not everybody but a lot of the people who are in the audience participation album, uh photo uh started retiring and some had already retired. We started to lose some people and we started to get a new group in, from the Marlborough Theater which I used to perform at as well in Brooklynn. It doesn't exist anymore. But Phil, you know, the boy genius and a bunch of other people came from there because that was kind of the training ground. You know, we started to overflow with people who were already practiced and already had costumes and then they started to make their way over to Eighth Street. A little birdie told me that's where you first started performing. And we're doing Brad. Is that right? Everybody knows you for, I was doing, I was doing Doctor Scott. I may have done Brad. Phil was our Brad. Um, but I took over riff from, uh, from, from one person and then Liz Adele was my other riff. Uh, she was a great riff but she never came over to the, a street playhouse when I started at the A street playhouse. I started as Dr Scott, I moved to Brad for two years and then I was Riff for the rest of the time until like 2011. So I, I had a pretty long run, uh, you know, I had no idea what I was doing but, uh, the audience seemed to like it. No, for sure. So, after this kind of, you know, um, changing of the guard in the, in the, in, in the late eighties into the nineties. So what happened next? What else were you kind of seeing? The second book Mark was in 1990 at the 15th anniversary because that's when the video tape came out. So it became a lot more accessible to a greater audience because they could go rent it at the video store. They didn't have to wait until midnight to see it. They didn't have to be a certain age to go see it. Obviously, with me being 13 when I started, they didn't really hold up that hole. You have to be a certain age to see it back then. But uh well, pretend they did to not get anybody in trouble, but that opened it up to a lot more people, people were coming in already knowing the movie and not having to sit there week after week, memorizing little bits here and there. So we, we started to get droves of people who were very familiar with the film because they would watch it at home over and over and over again and then I forget what year the third book Mark was. But it was glee, one of the worst things that ever happened to Rocky Horror. Well, no, no, it was because people were coming in. Not because they cared about the movie and they cared about everything about the actors and everything. They thought it was a way to get on stage because these were theater kids now coming in. These weren't the people looking for a home, for a, a group of people like them. These were a completely different type of group. I'm not saying that it ruined Rocky Horror. What I'm saying is that it was just a different group and it completely changed the dynamic because before we had people who put their blood sweat and tears into their characters. Now we had people who want to get on stage and act and it became a completely different dynamic and then just to follow through, I think that it's changed again in recent years because of the LGBT community has completely opened up and we've gotten much, much more varied people on stage who are putting on performances that we couldn't do in the old days. And I think that there's been a, you know, I'm talking New York centric from what I from what I see because I don't know what was happening in the rest of the country at the time. But, you know, over the years, the more freedom people had to be whom they were, the more freedom they had on stage, the better the performance has got. Oh, definitely. I mean, we, we see it now, especially with some of our shows where we're going completely off book right where we're not doing screen accurate, blocking their costumes or anything. And, you know, it's, it, it's, it's got that not rocky feel to it, but the performances are, like, genuinely their own performances in their own way that make me pause and go, huh? I never really thought of Columbia being played like that. But, uh, well, that's, that's the whole thing is that we've gotten throughout the, the years, the more freedom people had to be themselves in society, the more that they could do on stage because they didn't have to hold back. You know, and we lived through and I'm talking about as a cast, not me personally, but we lived through the AIDS epidemic and we lost a lot of great people because of that. Um, including very close friends. Back then. We lived through the gay marriage and gay rights, which of course says, you know, because you marched with us, we were always in the, in the pride parade marching for rights and stuff. We've gone through the LGBT Q Plus Rights and people coming out and everybody getting, hopefully, hopefully recognition for whom they are because that's one of the most important things because that's the whole message of Rocky is, don't dream of be, it, just be yourself. Absolutely. No, I, I, I love that and it's, it's, it's a great history. We've touched on those milestones kind of in the past with Glee. Now, the Fox remake, right being the most recent example of kind of bringing that its own, didn't it? That was the, the new one is a good one. The old one is the bad one. Well, what are you talking about? There would be no new one if there wasn't the old one, how can you even, you know, that's like saying the original play is better than the movie. I mean, you can make any argument you want, but no one's gonna be right on the subject. It's what it means to you. It was, it was so funny because just after our last live show, a group from, of performers came over and we're just hanging out at our apartment afterwards. And one of them said, you know, I never actually saw the Fox remake and of course, Aaron goes to the shelf, pulls off the DVD and goes. Really? Here you go. Uh, we sat and watched it and surprisingly, it was mostly positive. Taa, there's no excuse for Taa. Uh, and, but, but everybody loved, you know, uh, I, I think my favorite thing and I had forgotten it was, uh, the way they did. Uh, Planet Schnee is just dragging Victoria dresses this by her hair across the ground. Like, it's really a different take on, uh, Planet Schmid. It's really aggressive but, like, fun kind of. So, they did some things, they did some things in that one that are interesting. Uh, I certainly wouldn't call it better though. I mean, how do you, how do you, I can't, how do you improve on the original Rocky? Well, Rocky Horror was lightening in a bottle. I mean, you're watching for the most part, you're watching the original performances of the London cast. Absolutely. Just glammed up and, you know, made pretty for, for film. Exactly. And, you know, uh, yeah, I mean, there were a lot of changes and script changes and whatnot and directorial changes. But, I mean, you're actually seeing the people who originated the roles, of course, Barry and Susan were brought in and so was Charles Gray and, uh, Jonathan Adams of course, is playing a different part. Peter Henwood, of course, wasn't in the original either, but you're, you're seeing the core core at least six. Well, I mean, Meat Loaf was in the original, uh, Roxy cast. So, you know, he, he was one of the originators, Patty o'hagan in the UK and, and Meat Loaf in the US. So you're getting, you're getting some of the most genuine performances there are in the original and that's what I like about it because these are the people who, who crafted those roles from script to character. Here's a question and, uh I don't mean to put you on the spot if of all of the version twos that exist, right? All the other iterations of Rocky. Is there one that you like more than the others? Are we talking about Sequels to Rocky or including shock treatment? Uh No, no, no. Any of the medias that have rebooted it. Glee or perks of being a wallflower or the fox remake any of this shock treatment I think is don't animal but has there been, yeah, shock treatment is not, is definitely not a remake. Um No, I'd have to stick with the original movie because you see, that's one thing that people didn't understand way back when I'm talking about when I first started a lot of people when they said, oh, it's a, you know, a takeoff on the old horror and sci-fi films of the fifties and sixties. Everybody, of course, automatically saw Bella Goi and stuff like that. But of course, we're talking British. So it was actually the Hammer horror films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing that they were alluding to because Oakley Court itself was known as the Hammer Horror House and Bray Studios was only a few steps away. So that's what they were actually going for, which most people know now because of the internet and whatnot. But there was a lot of people saying, well this, it wasn't a very good movie, it didn't emulate what it was supposed to. And of course, you know, the, the few of us who, who had any wherewithal into those movies back then were like, oh, no, it's. Exactly. And then we heard they were thinking about, uh, not that does crawl crap anyway. Right. They're, they're thinking Hollywood M G M Frankenstein and whatever. And it's, no, no. Right. They're thinking Carlo and Legos and Lon Chaney Junior. And meanwhile it's, you know, it's a whole different set and a whole different set up and a different type of movie. Right. Right. It's, it's one of the things that the time that I hear stuff related to Hammer brought up most often within the Rocky community is about the poor color correction on the DVD. Right where they took away all of the Hammer blues. You know, that some of the scenes are supposed to, well, with the bedroom scenes, they kind of almost made it nude. You know, there is no, there is no color overlay on them. That's a shame because I think that was a slip up on their part. But that brings up something very interesting changes in the movie because the original mono sound was a completely different. So, soundtrack pre uh 1990. It also had different variations in some of the songs. The, the saxophone, the meat loaf plays is a completely different kind of saxophone. Really? I didn't know that it's an alto sax versus a, you know, my, my memory is going, yeah, he, he's wearing a tenor but they, they have him do an alto in the mono. No, then it was a tenor in the mono as an alto on the, on the record because the, a lot of the performances were made into stereo from mono film. So the record was stereo and then they had to bounce around the audio to make that stereo. And then the actual mono on the DVD is just a fold down of the stereo coming out of both speakers and they never actually went back to the mono on any of the releases. This is actually fascinating. I don't personally know a ton about the audio history. I only what I've kind of done for some of our edits and things maybe you know about this. I've been meaning to ask someone who might know this. There's a part in Don't dream it be it the very beginning of it where in the star soundtrack, if you crank it all the way up, you can hear in the backing track, a ghost version of Tim Curry singing the song fractions of a second before the clearly Tim Curry audio comes in on top of it, which is so weird to me that, that's, that, that ended up in the final, you know, cut of it. Are you talking about the soundtrack to the movie? Uh Well, yeah, the one that's actually in the film in the stereo uh that's on the Blu Ray today. Ok. Well, I've never noticed it myself, but that's probably because they, I mean, they made the 7.1 before that, the 5.1 before that, the stereo, I think there's actually two versions of the stereo out there. And then before that, the mono. So I would not be surprised if there is an underlying track somewhere. Yeah, it's even present in the say it album, the, the karaoke album that came out in the mid nineties, the one that Lisa occur. Well, Lou Adler put that out and that probably was lifted minus the vocal track straight from the, you know, when they were remixing things. I mean, there's other people who are much better about vinyl and much better about audio recordings than I am that you can ask about this. Oh, no, but I'm just curious. Uh I haven't, haven't even started on my trek down the audio and into the vinyl. There's so much variation and stuff out there like that's, I don't even know where to start collecting that stuff. You know, you, you, you and me both. That's why I stuck with video. So you mentioned lightning in a bottle last time. So I definitely want to talk about shock treatment, right? Because I mean, you, you're the shock treatment. Fan club president, you were deep in shock treatment when it came out. Well, not when it came out. That was 1981 but there was a couple casts that were trying to emulate it back then. After Waverly, there was a cast. Um and it only lasted for a few weeks from what I understood. And that was very close to the opening because they wanted to try to emulate it just like Rocky Horror and start building up its own cult. But, you know, when you try to force something, it never works. But I came into shock treatment later on and uh I had seen it on V H si, didn't understand it on my first watch through because it was throwing a lot of things at me. And about a few hours later, I took a second viewing of it and the music was so good that I just started watching it as music videos with a bit of story line between them. That's fair. Anybody who sees it for the first time he goes, oh I get it. You got to go. Really? Did you watch it all? I think you didn't because it's so much, it actually is a multilayered story. I mean, of course, everything was changed at the last moment and they shot it in the studio instead of around the town. And you know, there were a lot of differences from script to screen. So what was it that really drew you to shock treatment? You know, to like, I, you know what, I wanna form a fan club around this, I wanna make sure that like, you know, shock treatment gets its due in the community. Like, what was it that really incentivized you there? Well, what I really liked about shock treatment is the music, first of all, and second of all, the secondary story because in a way and you have to be a little bit careful about, you know, speaking on this subject is that it was about the Rocky Horror community. It was about going from the audience getting on to the set and becoming one of the characters in this gigantic multi television production owned by Farley flavors. And the whole thing was to make your costume, you know, little black dress and to get up there and look what it did. I've changed my ID, I've changed my personality. I've become the character and it was all about us. That's the way I viewed it anyway. Now when I say, yeah, you gotta be careful because a lot of it is not very nice. You can look at Farley like probably one of the managers, you know, of the theaters and who's against what's happening and only wants, you know, the money, what he can get for himself, which is a very Farley thing to do, you know. So there was a lot of different parts to it and I wanted to get it hyped up enough where it took on a life of its own. And Bill Brennan and I who sadly passed away now started the fan club. I think it was in 1996 and we just brought it to a lot of different conventions and we tried to get people to get going with it and now it's become an absolute staple. Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't remember. I actually, I, I do there, there has not been a convention since I've been in the community where shock treatment wasn't performed. The first couple of conventions that I ever went to, there was no such thing as shock treatment. Uh I mean, it, it's so much fun. Everybody loves doing it. And now, I mean, there's been a big resurgence in the last, you know, year or so since the pandemic wrapped up that like we're seeing a lot more casts do it, you know, twice a year, three times a year up in Buffalo, they're doing it out in J C C P. They're doing it, they're doing it up at R K O like it, it's coming back. Well, the hardest part about it is where you need 10 people plus Transylvanian's for Rocky Horror. You need about 28 29 people for shock treatment. So, and you need a theater that's going to accommodate it and you're gonna need a stage that big and you're gonna need, I mean, we've done it in small little corners before at conventions. It's a really fun show to do and the music just kind of grabs the audience because it's a where Rocky is great to watch and listen to and yell back to shock treatment is really fun to sing along to. Oh, absolutely. I remember, uh, the second R K O K, I want to say a friend of ours came with us, uh, who didn't know anything about Rocky, didn't know anything about shock treatment. And the first night they were doing shock treatment and him and I were just standing at the bar and he was like, I have no idea what this is, but these songs are great, you know. And I was like, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about the plot. Just listen to the songs. They're fucking awesome. You're gonna enjoy them. Here's, here's thank God, I'm a man. You're just cringe at the end and it'll be awesome, right? The most, the most non rocky song that's ever been created by the creator of Rocky Art. The last line just takes away. Don't dream of being you're talking about a commentary on the scene. Interesting Richard. Interesting. Yes, exactly. Well, no, but that was the character of dad. He came from a different time and he, that's how he would have viewed stuff because that was in his eyes. Very unmanly. So it fit the character perfect the e of uh OK. Boomer. Richard given an OK. Boomer before there was OK. Boomer. Um And Mad Man, your lovely voice is one of the voices that we hear on the DVD commentary. Yes, I was asked to do it. And uh so was Bill Brennan and uh we, we played up an Abbott and Costello kind of thing. I don't know how well that came across but we, we tried to have a bit of fun with it. Uh Trailer park media had given me a call and asked me to come down to do it and they only gave me about two or three days to get ready. Oh, wow. That's a tight turnaround. It was, luckily it was in Manhattan. So it was only a few, you know, train stops away. I got there pretty quickly. But, uh, to get my notes together was pretty interesting because even though, you know about something, even if you've seen the movie a billion times, you don't know what you're gonna say for an hour and a half. Oh, sure. I mean, all you gotta do is listen to the Rocky commentary to know that. Right. Like even even Matt and Richard can't get it together. Well, you know, of course, when you get to people who, who were actually there, there's going to be conflicting stories by the way, they remember things, but I was trying to give facts and figures and, you know, as much as I could and Bill was just trying to have a really good time with it. You know, I, I, I think there's a bit of a balance somewhere in there. I, I, it, it was, it was crazy. I mean, we got to, we were just put in a room with two directors chairs, you know, with the soft backs. And we were like, they were like, ok, we're starting the movie, start talking and we're like, what do you want to say? And he was, it's like just talk click and started. I mean, that actual reaction you hear when I go, oh my God, they color time the scene and it, all the reds are not bleeding through on Janet's carpet and that whole scene you can actually see what's going on. That was an actual response. I had no idea. They cleaned up the movie that much. No, that's great. Yeah, I know just recently I was up at R K O and I sat down with Harley uh and we were watching the uh Blu Ray transfer which is still just, I think 10 80 P or whatever, but uh I hadn't sat and washed in detail and we were just sitting there doing shots going. Oh, you can read that thing that's on the jacket. Oh, you can see the little thing there. It, it, it was a total rocky moment that I haven't had in so long and I'm glad that shock treatment is there to give me that. You know, the only problem I have with the Arrow Blu Ray that came out is that the voice sync is completely off? Is it really the minute right during a, during a Bert Schnick scene when he's a I think it's bitching in the kitchen right after that or something. It goes out and it's like off by like a word or two for the rest of the film. That's painful. That was, that's the only problem I had with it. And I contacted them and they said that was what they sent over and we just put it, we just, you know, we went with it. Well, maybe something for them to fix for the next transfer of it. Fingers crossed of shock. I don't see it happening. I just don't, we might get that for rocky 75th somewhere in there. Uh Speaking of big anniversaries 50th is coming up in just a year, two years now, three years now. Wow. Is there anything big you'd love to see for that, like stuff that you hope Fox hauls out of the archives or just, you know, let's slap a new cover on the DVD and call it a day. You know, what are you, what are you thinking for the 50th? Well, there's a lot of things I would like to see, but unfortunately, as time goes on, elements rot away. The nitrate goes, goes bad because a lot of, a lot of the outtakes were not exactly preserved. We were very lucky to get once in a while. What they had shot for it. The, and the what is it, the extra, the shopping cart scene with uh Frank, you know, when he's getting ready for floor show and the, these little tidbits, we were lucky to get them at the time. So I don't know how much is actually still surviving in Lou Adler's vaults. You know, back then there was not a whole market in 1975 except for eight millimeter. You know, you didn't have extras. You had no reason to keep everything that was on the cutting room floor. You had no idea that, you know, oh, the two dis special edition, the three dis special, the special collector, no one had even thought they were, we were just happy. Hey, we got the movie, right? Whereas now they're like, oh, he blew his nose. Keep that we might need it for the show cut. Well, nowadays when you buy something, you get the movie, you get the extended director's cut, you get all the web content, you get the PDF S in the rom pile which have, you know, the original shooting script, the, the, the budget script, the, you know, every, you get everything that you could ever hope for as a fan of any film, older films. It's really hard to find. You might find some stills. Of course, we, we have a plethora of Nick rock stuff. You know, there is, there's an entire archive out there and that are the parts of the movie that we never got to see video for. Well, hopefully one day, I mean, I'm sure there's gonna be big events for 50th. I'm, I'm sure Fox is gonna do something. Well, what I'm hoping for the 50th anniversary is that, I hope that the studio does get involved because, I mean, it's such a great property. I don't, it's only in their interest to, you know, keep promoting it because with every new generation, you know, there are new fans that do want to learn about the old stuff and they want to see this stuff, you know, that they haven't seen before. And I'm really hoping that they delve into their archives and they find more elements that even I haven't seen, you know, I've been around a long time but, you know, it's things, things degrade, they're misplaced, they're mislabeled and a lot of the things are just getting lost to the annals of time. So I really hope that they get involved again and really do a really big job on the 50th. Give us the Brad Riff. But fuck scene. We know it's in there somewhere. I knew you, I knew you were gonna bring that up. I, I, I knew that. Go ahead. We'll talk about it if you want. I know that you were one of the first ones that distributed a copy of that. Right. Well, yeah, that was from the Mongolian laser disk. I mean, that was one of the rare, I mean, if you want, I mean, meg, you asked me about some of the rarest stuff that I ever found I mean, that, that, I don't know how they got it on there and it must have been from a Pirated copy before the movie was released because not too much releasing in Mongolia going on. Um, but that somehow wound up on a laser disk, I think. And I, I don't have my, my notes with me, but I mean, it was really low pressing. It was definitely not official and it came out and I just happened to be talking to someone. He wasn't from Mongolia, but he was from that part of the world and he came to Eighth Street one night and I kept in touch with him. I can't remember his name right now and he sent me, he just basically dumped it on the V H S and that's what it was, it was one of the worst copies I had ever seen of anything. I mean, it was, it was blurry and that could have been from the conversion uh because it was originally in power, but at least it's out there people can still see it. Yeah, we did a, we did a great video about it. We, we even tracked down and interview Brad and you know, it was a, it was a fun time. If you're interested in that, go check out our stuff that we did last year. We had a ton of content around the Brad Riff, fuck fuck scene. You don't want to miss it and you know, these rarities. I hope that they come out. I hope more of them surface, who knows, who knows? But, you know, fingers crossed, you know, you never know what's gonna come around the corner. I mean, they, they have found things from 100 year old movies and they put them out. Um, and hopefully we don't have to wait that long for more rocky horror elements. I've got a couple more questions for you. Mad Men. About just your, your time on cast. Do you have a favorite? Just memory of your time on New York City? Well, the first night I went when I was 13 years old has got to be the greatest memory in the world. Uh The first time I saw Riff on screen and, uh I, I just, in my mind, I made a connection because I just thought it was the coolest character I ever saw. One of my other favorite is when I was working with the Jack Cena Company who were the ones who put on Rocky Horror Broadway 2000. And I was doing the promotions for it with them and they gave me 400 tickets to give away at the show, you know, and I, and, and that was for, that was for the night that uh Richard o'brien was there. And then we all went down to Times Square to Virgin Records and, you know, they gave away the C DS or people bought the C Ds, whatever. And the entire cast was signing. And we also part of my uh deal with them is that we had the entire cast come down to the show except Joan Jett. She didn't show up and Dick Cabot and I hosted the show together. Oh, wow, that's fucking awesome. That was a really memory because I went out for pizza with him right before and I'm a gigantic Groucho Marks fan and he was best friends with Groucho. So he told me a lot of stories at the pizza place. I don't know if it's still there right next to the theater you're in now? Oh, yeah. They switched it to a, uh, what is it? It's a Chicago style pizza place now. So it's not, well, it was like a whole wheat pizza place back then. Well, at least it's staying weird. Yeah, exactly. So, but, uh, that, that was definitely a special memory of them all coming down and then maybe the time that, uh, we went down and I was hosting with Elvera at the Sunshine Cinema. On what? On Houston Street? Because we were doing cross promotion for Richard being in Elvira's Haunted Hills. Oh, very cool. I forgot he was in that. Yes, most people did. I've got one here. I had mentioned it when we were talking, um, about Bill Brennan a few weeks ago. The, uh, drunk man in a baby crib story. Oh, God, this is, uh, gonna plague me. For the rest of my life. No, I'm kidding. It was, it was actually, it, it was more innocent than people realize because no harm was done to him. What happened was that I had a party. It might have been an after con party was on the last night and everybody came up to my room, a hotel room and, and this was in Vegas at the 96 convention. And, um, this one guy came in, sat with his back to the wall on a chair underneath the window and was drinking this red stuff and everybody's having a good time and this guy's just quiet. He's not bothering anything. He's just his criminologist a little while later, he's head starts nodding down and back up and down and then he starts to spew red stuff all over his white. Oh, no. Right to the point. I mean, it looked like Grenadine and I have no idea what it was, but it was definitely alcoholic. Anyway, some guys from the San Francisco cast, I wish I remember their names. They were cool as hell. Uh, they had found a baby carriage or a baby, uh, crib rather, uh, outside one of the rooms. It was one of the ones on wheels that the hotel would bring up if you requested and they brought it in and they were jumping in and out of it, in and out of it. So I got the bright idea. Hey, let's get this guy out of the room and we, uh, you know, try to, uh, get him in which he's kind of passed out at the moment and we get Bill Brennan who of course has a camera. Um So you got to imagine this, me and this, uh, one of the guys from California are rolling this down the hallway with 30 people in costume behind us and we get to the elevator, we push it and put him in just as the doors are closing. Bill takes a shot. The guy looks up and gives him the finger. The rest of the story goes, something like this. He gets down to the lobby. He is immediately pulled out by the security guards and ejected from the, from the hotel, which was the four queens hotel. He's put into the drunk tank by the police. But the story has a very happy ending. It turns out and I don't, I, I'm not gonna use the man's name, of course, because I don't even remember it to tell you the truth. But, um, he had some problems and went off his medicine and from what I understand he got all the help he needed and he actually went on to clean up his entire life. Well, that is a good ending that, you know, it, it was, it was, I mean, it was a prank that actually helped somebody and that, that, that is really good. No. Yeah, that's great. I mean, I, I suppose, uh waking up in a baby carriage being thrown out by hotel security, I will do that to you. Right. Well, you know, it's, it's a good story anyway. So, but uh no, it did happen and, uh, and it, it, it did kind of go down in the Annals of Rocky as this gigantic story, which was just a spur of the moment thing, you know. Oh, that's fantastic. No, I love it. I mean, and this is why I love talking to, you know, everybody who's been around the community for so long is that we get these stories firsthand. It's not my third hand, you know, attempt at retelling it. So I, I just love it. Thank you so much for uh No, of course, of course. Can you tell us a little bit about when you took over as director of the cast? Well, when I took over as director, we were at the East Side Cinema which was 55th Street and Third, there were two theaters that we never should have been in 55th Street and Third Avenue because we were playing to 500 people a night at the A street playhouse, both Friday and Saturday. And then we quickly down, went down to about 30 people a night at uh at the East Side Cinema. The staff wasn't bad. They actually enjoyed us. It was just the wrong area because there was no nightlife in that area. But anyway, so got into an argument with the management and basically said I am leaving, I'm, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be treated like this and I don't remember what actually happened. You'd have to ask him. But he, he got rather, uh, irritated at something that happened and he said that's it. I'm done and he got on stage and he announced that I was taking over. He, his actual words were, you know, and in my absence, I'm gonna leave, you know, the, the scarecrow will be in charge or something like that, you know. And, um, you know, he made, he made a little bit of fun of it and then he didn't come down to the show for a long time. Of course, that had nothing to do with the fan club or anything. So was of course the biggest promoter for years, but it was, it was dropped in my lap. Now, if I was to say that I ran the cast, that would not be true because there was a bunch of us back then. There was me, there was Ron, there was Phil, there was a lot of people who pulled together. It wasn't just, you know, this, this is what we're doing and that's it. There, there was none of that. We were trying, trying to get the cast going again in a theater we shouldn't be in. And after we left there, we went to movie land, Eight Street which was only about three blocks down from the, a street playhouse. And you would have thought that it would have been an automatic success. Again. It wasn't, we had a hard time getting it going. The management there was pure evil and we had this one security guard named Buddy. He was a cop by day and he was moonlighting as a security guard and he was a, probably one of the most heinous people I've met, we would put away our stuff, our microphone and stuff. One on Friday night, we'd come back and magically it was broken on Saturday night. Now, there's no evidence that he did it himself. We all know exactly what was happening and it wasn't until we moved back to 12th Street that we started to and that was very slow at first. But by the end of it, the last night people were so upset that we were leaving that they were ripping the back chairs out of the back row. Oh, sure. Sure, sure. The, the, um, in theater number three, I think what the one next to the big one on the, on the main floor. Uh, all the way to the left by the stairs. They, uh, yeah, that, that whole back row. When you first walk in on the left, that whole back row was missing about three or four seats. Then we, then we moved to 23rd street where that once again was a very slow start. But of course, Aaron, you came in, in the middle of that and you meg, you know, and, uh, I mean, we had a pretty rocking show, you know, a couple of years into it. Absolutely. I mean, by the time I got there it was a well oiled machine and, you know, we had all the props, we had all the lights, we had all the things and it was, it was definitely, definitely a sight. Well, that was the thing is that over the years, we tried to add more and more and more to the show because it was getting a little stagnant. It was getting low. I mean, the dance party, I started because they gave us something to do before the show for the audience to do instead of sitting there. But like I, like I said, you know, I was not the only person running the show. The, the over time, there were a lot of tradeoffs because nobody, as you guys know, running the show now, it is not a one person job. There's no way to please everybody. There's no democratic way to get everything done and please everybody. So you have to get different point of views on it and you switch it off depending on what's going on in, in your life, in the world. And there were, there were multiple people who were putting in ideas and we had a lot of great people over the years and then this kid Aaron came down and screwed up the entire thing. What did he do? Oh God. And what didn't he do? You know me? We may have to have a second podcast just for that story. I'm here for it. Oh God. No. All your dirty little teeth, man. That is you. You just want to take the door off the closet and let all the skeletons out like, well, I'm a riff rap. Of course, I do. You set me up for that one? I did, I did, I didn't even plan that one. That one was good. That was good. But no, the lineage of the show is very interesting. There are a lot of people who left their mark on the show because let's just, I'm just gonna make this up. But if a Columbia started doing something when they were doing it, say 1986 the Columbia that was going to be the next one, saw them doing it. So they added it to their routine and the person who came out after them. So the what that part of that 1980 whatever routine and what the next person was doing. So then they took both those things and added it to what they were doing when they were Colombia and so on and so forth. So a lot of things gradually kept getting passed from performer to performer just like the lifts. You know, originally they weren't doing lifts, they're not in the movie but it's become a staple. Oh, absolutely. Oh, that's actually a fun one. Uh, you know, the snaps during, uh, sweet tea that, uh, Riff Magenta and Colombia do. No. Oh. Huh. Damn. I guess that's a new one in the last. Well, I wasn't doing it. Yeah, I was, I was gonna say I was like, if anybody would have known about it, what about you? Because you would have had to have done it. So, yeah. No, no, no, no, I, I mean, I think I may have seen another cast doing it, but no, I wasn't, I wasn't part of that. It's standard now and I don't know where it came from. So, uh, one day I'll track that one down. Yeah, that may, that may have come from another cast. You know, another thing about performers leaving their marks is that we had a lot of guest performers from different shows over the years. I was very close with the Pennsylvania show in Allentown. In fact, for a while I was actually running New York and Allentown. Um, well, Jeff, Jeff, who was the manager out there basically turned to me and said, Mike, either you run it or there's no more show out there. So there were, there were some problems going on and I, I took it over mostly in name only but I, you know, uh, for a couple of months I showed up and I, uh, I played Riff for them. And I had a lot of very close friends in the cast and anyway, the problems went away in like a couple of months and, and I didn't have to keep on running it. I didn't want to run another show. It was hard enough to run one show, you know. Uh, but we also had a lot of people from New Jersey perform with us and a lot of people from Maryland perform with us. And of course, we had people fly in from all over to perform in New York if they were on a vacation or holiday or whatever, they say, hey, I'm coming in. Can I perform? And we'd say yes, of course, you can. So, as I was saying about people leaving their mark, we also picked up a lot of things from our guest performers who came from completely different states. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it, I even see it today where uh John or I, or just, you know, somebody else will be hosting and they'll tell a joke that I know as a madman joke, right? A joke that you used to do as part of your hosting routine and I'll tell them. Oh, yeah. No, you delivered that well, like as good as Mad Men. They'll be like who I, I, I know this is just what hosting is. I don't, I don't know what these jokes are, where they come from. They still live on. Well, I had done it at a couple of conventions and people had heard, heard it at the 30th anniversary I did out in Vegas and, uh, um, yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people picked up, you know, when I first started hosting and I was a host for many years I started with bit because that's all I knew. And then over the years it morphed and I, I took things from, from different places that had nothing to do with Rocky and I was like, well, I could fit that in over here or, or whatever and it just morphed into my own act. That's the way it is. You know, that's it. You know, you, you emulate what, you know, until you come up with your own. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, and that's, that's Rocky as a whole. Right. Everything down to the shadow casting call backs, you know, the blocking we use. It's all this amalgamation of the last nearly 50 years now of people learning what works and what's funny and what's good and what looks right and smashing it all together into, you know, what we now know as Rocky horror. Right. Well, a lot of it came from the, a street playhouse and the original people who put their time and energy into blocking the show because of course, that was our in New York starting ground. So, what they had come up with is what follows through till today, you know, I mean, it's been augmented and changed and uh you know, repositioned for whatever theater we're in or cinema rather, it all has its bases going all the way back to the Waverley. Earlier. I mentioned that I was doing Doctor Scott at the very beginning of my career in Rocky Horror. Before me, dinner scene was never done. There was no dinner scene. I turned to sa one day and I said, do you mind if I do it as a solo if I just have the lights come up on me for Eddie Teddy. And he said, go ahead. I don't, I don't care. That's fine. Go ahead. So I would sit up there. I would wait and then, and then I would do Eddie's Teddy as a solo. Within the next couple of weeks, people started surrounding me just for the song and then it grew and grew and grew. So I'm the person that everybody in the world has to blame for making dinner scene actually have to be done every time. So you're the guy, I'm the guy. Me at 13 when you're doing Doctor Scott and you only have two little bits in the whole movie and the, and one main song you want to do that? Give me the song. Damn it. No, it's exactly. Don't take the song away from me, please. It's my big break, you know. Oh, man. And actually that brings up one thing I ask all of our old school guests. This one, do you remember for the first time, uh maybe just in New York that, that you saw the entire movie? Get Shadow Cast? Was there one week where Sal finally went? Ok, we're making a list. I need everybody for every scene or did that. Just not happen until, you know, later on the first time, the first time I saw it, we, we were, they were doing most of the film the first time I, and I'll tell you that the second time I saw it, there was no cast at all. And I think that was maybe the next week there was some guy who was high as hell with a pink panther doll sitting on the stage, throwing it up and down for an hour and a half. That was the entire, the entire in front of the movie. That was the entire show. And I was like, this is really cool. I need to get into this. You know, where do I find that pink panther doll? Like I'm gonna to emulate him doing that show. Yes, that's the next step in Rocky R but no, it was just, I don't know what happened because I wasn't actually in cast yet. I think, I think I started performing that summer if I remember correctly. I mean, we're talking a long time ago here. But, um, you know, the second time I saw it, there was no cast and I have no idea. Why? And uh I think I know who was the guy with the pink panther doll was, he was a friend of the cast, but he was not a cast member. Mad man. I think that kind of wraps us up. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for talking to us and telling us all of these stories. These are fucking fantastic to listen to, dude. No, it's been completely my pleasure. I love talking about the history of Rocky and you know, it's one of the most special things that ever happened in my life. And a lot of people I know too. Um It brought an entire community together and there's a lot of people to thank for over the years who have kept it going, including you guys because you are the one who's leading the new generation and I hope that everything keeps going upwards from here. Oh, thank you so much, man. Now, it's so much fucking fun. We're definitely gonna have to have you on again to tell us some more wonderful stories. So much fun. I'll tell you the ones that I've been told that if I tell I will be killed. Yes, I'll give you the real dirt, the real juicy stuff. Rocky Talky After dark. Oh, that's good. I like that. Yes. So stay tuned to Rocky Talkie. And that's our show. As always, we want to thank our writer Jacob and our editor Aaron from Tennessee, buddy. You're a champ. You're the fucking M V P. We appreciate every single thing you do. And as a quick night cap here, we want to also extend a brief. Congratulations to Jen of the New York City Rocky Horror cast. Congratulations on the new bundle of joy you brought into this world male. Uh Her name is Baby Violet Celia and she's fucking adorable. There's pictures of her that are posted to social media, which is surprising because Jen doesn't really do that. But uh she, she made a person. That's awesome. Congratulations Jen. I expect a tiny little brag costume or Janet. I, I, I, I don't know. Uh It's Jen. This is Jen's baby. It's gonna be a tiny little Frank costume. That's true. I, I did, uh I did draw a little brad onesie at the baby shower for her and I, I, I made it uh pink and purple bow tie and, and cumber bun because you know, she, she was keeping it secret from everybody. Well, that's cute because it's, it's a brag costume and Janet colors. Right? Well, if anyone out there has a baby announcement or maybe just a question that they'd like us to answer on air for our ask a question segment or some community news that you'd want us to talk about. Uh We would love to include it in our show. Just go to our website that's Rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to tell us all about it. If you're enjoying Rocky Talkie, please help us out by rating, reviewing and subscribing to the show. It makes our 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 or just show up at R K O and you'll see all of us there. We're doing a panel and you're gonna wanna check it out, find out all about this never before seen Music Hall also. We can't wait to party with you next week. Bye bye. Get at 84. Hell yeah, we have all become like professional video editors in lockdown. So these are gonna be like fucking highly produced Martin Scorsese pretty shows. Is he a filmmaker? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's correct. Awesome. Ok.