Hello to all of you. Unconventional conventions. Welcome back to Rocky Talkie. I'm Nicky. I'm Aaron and I am John. Hi, John and Aaron. It's so nice to hear from you guys again. I've been gone for so long. Shut up, Nicky. Aren't you going to ask where I've been? Absolutely not. Where have you been, Nicky? Well, I'll tell you this weekend, you know, feeling very crazy and spontaneous, very much. Not like the other girls. I went to Ohio. Aren't you going to ask what's in Ohio? What's in Ohio? I went to Ohio for literally zero reason. I literally just went to Ohio because I wanted to see Ohio. So I drove eight hours there and back and I saw a field of concrete corn and I wouldn't trade it for the world. That's exactly what's in Ohio as somebody who has been to Ohio, approximately twice in his life. Yeah, that tracks corn. Cleveland has like approximately two buildings in it. Aren't you guys going to ask what concrete corn is? No, what's concrete corn? Nicky? So, you know, we drove eight hours to Ohio and we were like, what are we going to do for fun. We need to find something to do. So we looked up like what's fun around here and it just said a corn field and it was like two miles away and we were like, that is so threatening and so exciting. We're going to have to go. So we drive these two miles ready to like graze on some corn and we get there and it's like 100 yards of just concrete statues of corn stalks. We literally had to pull over and take a moment to just kind of take in like what, like, what, who's like, you know what, I, you know what I'm going to do with my life? My passion project, I'm going to just build these corn structures and place them throughout Ohio and just like offend Eastern people. So you mean to tell me that you just completely went by the only decent city in Ohio in Cleveland to go. Oh, yes, yes. I was in Columbus. Why? How did you know I was in Columbus? I didn't say that Columbus is where the corn stalk like art installation is on tiktok. They said it's called Corn Henge. I hate that. And it's in Columbus. You, you were really on a road and you went, we could either go to Cleveland, which at least has the Rock and roll Hall of Fame. But no, let's go look at a bunch of concrete slabs of corn. We stayed in a Marriott in Columbus Ohio. We ate at a Waffle House. We drank Mountain Dew. It's the American dream. This sounds like a catastrophe of a true. Absolutely. I had a great weekend. I would argue. I had a better weekend than both of you combined. I saw West Virginia. I'm sorry, West Virginia. Take me home. Country roads. Can we get the MC A for that MEG? Anyway, why don't I tell you what I did this weekend? You can't top mine, but you could try. I moved still. We're still moving. We still don't have a couch. Half of our furniture isn't built. And Savannah's father comes to visit us tomorrow. Oh, no. Yippie. And I cannot stress this enough. Skippy. Wow. Yeah. Now that's, that's basically everything I do. We're still in the process of moving in. Adam. Savannah and our friend Emily are currently at our old apartment cleaning it and getting it ready to be put back up. So hopefully we can get some semblance of our security deposit pack, which would be really, really, really nice. I unfortunately cannot go because I'm currently at work. I'm recording this while I am on the clock, so I was not able to go and help them clean up, but I wish them the best of luck. I'm gonna say by like the next time that we record we'll be like halfway moved in fingers crossed. Nice. Yeah. What about you, Aaron? What's going on with you? Well, I am currently recording this from our new apartment in Manhattan. Very exciting. Absolutely nothing is really set up here yet. So I'm on Meg's laptop. She's on my laptop. My microphone is sitting on a box. I'm practically sitting on a box. It's very exciting. But we have so much unpacking to do that. It is daunting, but we're almost there. We are almost done with it. I'm so excited. We are in Manhattan now. It's gonna be super cool. Yes. And speaking of having busted my ass this week getting moved and spending the past couple of days trying desperately to transform our new apartment from a box filled storage unit into, you know, an apartment today. We've got something we're gonna frame as a special treat for all of our listeners. You're welcome. We are going to be airing our live episode from Te Staycation Con. Yeah, because until Netflix gets their shit together and starts licensing R H P S Con videos. All our devout fans who weren't able to make it to the con will be missing out on that three course snack, snack and we can't have that. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, are these fuckers being hung over elementary school teachers and trying to show a video instead of teaching an actual class. The answer is yes. Yes, we are. But we also had such a great time doing Rocky Talkie live. We were thrilled at how that episode turned out and are incredibly excited to share it now with our listeners. Yeah, I mean, it was a really fun topic to research and to talk about like it was an absolute roller coaster of a story full of craziness and community drama and it was a lot of fun. So anyway, we think you guys are really gonna love it. We certainly do. But before we get started with today's stuff, quick disclaimer guys. So this is our con episode when we did this at Con, there was a visual component to it. There was a slide show that we played along with it. It had some photos in it and there's some video at the end. If you're interested in that, go check it out on our youtube, it's gonna be up there bigger longer, uncut. Exactly the way that we all like it and you'll all be able to see the videos we're talking about and the pictures that we're looking at along with our beautiful faces, if not enjoy our talking into your ear holes. So without further ado, roll that beautiful bean footage. Hello to all of you, unconventional conventions. Welcome to Rocky Talkie. I'm Nicky, I'm Aaron and I am John and this is Rocky Talky Live live in front of your face. For those of you who may have just wandered into this Zoom room by accident. Rocky Talkie is a podcast where we talk about news and current events in the Rocky horror community and the shadow casting community. We also deep dive into a new topic every week to try and learn about the history of this show we're all obsessed with and the community we're a part of. So by far, the most educational segment of our show is called Nicky asks a question and as every kid knows, the educational rides at Disney World are by far the most fun. Oh my fucking God, Aaron, you would, which is why we've decided to make today's panel an extra special extended edition of Nicky asked the question. I'll show you an extended edition. Please don't as we run through our show. If you have any questions for us, either the content we're covering or just our show in general. Go ahead and pop them in the chat. We'll do our best to answer them at the end of the ses if time allows. So without any further ado, let's head into 11 and only segment this week, Mickey asked the question. Thank you, John. Thank you so much. Yeah. Well, all right boys, it's our big special live te staycation con. Nicky asks a question, extravaganza. And I would only think that it's fitting like while we're here on Zoom in the middle of probably one of the weirdest Rocky horror conventions that has ever or will ever exist to throw it all the way back to the first Rocky Con. I want to do a bit of a look how far we've come. I don't think anyone would have ever imagined back when Rocky came out that almost 50 years later we'd be not just doing a convention but an entirely virtual convention. I mean, like, how could they after one of the most difficult years for our entire Rocky family? Let's kick it back, old school, way, way back. Tell me all about Rocky Khan one. So, for those of you who may not tune in every week to hear us idiots talk about Rocky. This is the part of our usual show where we do a deep dive onto a topic. Sometimes it's submitted by a listener. Sometimes Nicky thinks one up or our producer, Meg or whatever, this became the basis for our, he asks a question segment or a neck for short, Aaron will do a ton of research. So me and Nicky don't got to do jack shit claiming that this justifies all of the dumb Rocky books that he owns and squeeze out a tiny morsel of condensed knowledge that he becomes the script for this segment. It's a, a neck snack. If you will also, what better opportunity than a con to pull back the curtain a little bit on our process. So come on, Jeff, don't leave me hanging Rocky Con one go well. OK. First things first, I'm the realist. Damn it, John. Uh Rocky Con one was not the first Rocky convention. The fuck you say the convention, Rocky Con one. The first fan club convention. Yes. Not the first Rocky convention. Yeah. Not, not even close to the first actually. Yeah, I'm, I'm sorry, is Rambo one? Not the first Rambo movie? No, that was Rambo. First. Blood is Air Force one. Not the first plane. No. Uh That's the right flyer is Metallica's one. Not their first song. Uh No, that was a song called Hit the Lights. E Aaron. You listen to Metallica. What fuck you? They fuck. No. So why the fuck is Rocky Con one? Not the first Rocky Con. This better be good. Let's go tell me a story. So this is the part where Aaron pulls out his copy of Creatures of the Night and starts to pray for answers from his patron saint Sal Piro. Listen, he has never let me down before and sometimes for one of these Nicky as the question segments like we can crib directly from Sal's Gospel in our holy book, Creatures of the Night part one or part two or as Creatures of the Night part one. Not the first fucking book either. No, no, no. You got that one, right? OK. So in fact, the first Rocky event and I'm gonna call it an event instead of a con was held at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas and was organized to celebrate the first year of Rocky playing as a midnight movie. It took place April 23rd, 1977 and was called the Rocky Horror birthday party. Hold on. Now, I know the gospel of Sal pretty well. And Creatures of the Night does not actually mention this thing like at all. So where does this come from? I've actually seen this one. I know how to internet. This one is listed on the Rocky Horror wiki that's over at rocky horror wiki dot org and is maintained by Troy Martin and a whole host of other contributors. Reportedly there was an audience of over 1300 people who saw the guests of honor, Tim motherfucking curry and Cheech and Chong be awarded with a certificate of honorary citizenship by the mayor of Austin. It's also reported that they had a live band and, and a costume contest with the winner walking away with an original Frank Corset, either from the player of the movie, the records a little hazy there. Um I'm sorry, they just gave an original Frank Corset to some random fucking dude in fucking Texas. That's like that is so many dollars. That is a lot of dollars and he just what it and you know, I bet his costume wasn't even that good. So you actually see this a lot at these very early Rocky events where they give away screen news costumes, like literally from the movie, the organizers and the stars, they would like dole them out for costume contests or raffles or just all kinds of things. We're, we're gonna have quite a few more instances of original costumes just being around as we go through these first couple of conventions. So, ok, there were no panels, no big events, no performances. I don't think anyone even played a single round of Jack Box and a costume and a costume contest. We all know you can't do those at a convention anymore. No, I don't think that one counts if you wound me up. Just to tell me there was a birthday party before Rocky Con one. We're gonna have words. Oh, no, no, no, no. We have a long way to go before we get the Rocky Con one. We've got a whole hour to fill here, you know, and I only last like 30 seconds, we know John. But no, I, I tend to agree with Nikki like this first one doesn't really count. I, I'm sure it was an awesome huge event but also like not a con. Um So in order to see the series of events that led up to Rocky Con one, like we have to go back to the beginning of Creatures of the Night. Well, the start of Rocky in general. So, yeah, creatures. Ok. But I, I promised we've got a ton of details and despite what my lovely cohost might say, our info for our episodes doesn't just come from creatures uh far, far, far from it. And like you guys in chat, you all probably own copies of Creatures of the night. This would be pretty fucking boring if we were just gonna sit here and read straight from Creatures. Right? Of course. So first up, let's read from Creatures of the Night. God damn it, Aaron. Ok. I promise. So, just bear with me for a minute because to understand the series of events that lead up to Rocky Con one, there's, there's just a lot more at play here. So we've got to talk about the fan club, We've got to talk about Sapiro and of course, all the folks from the Waverley in New York City and, and this quote, uh from Sal from creatures, it, it kind of sets the entire stage, right? So Sal says, after all, the original reason for starting the fan club was to have a convention, God, is that what it sounds like? Yeah, that's exactly what self hero sounds like. Yeah, make, make sure uh if anyone on this call, uh knows South Hero, let him know that John from Rocky Talk. He does the greatest impression of him. God, please don't. But really though Sal kick started the whole fan club just for a convention, I mean, of course, it's hard to appreciate now, but the entire idea of a fan club around a movie was pretty crazy. You had Star Trek fans who did their own conventions. There were a few other fandoms, but, well, as you can see from Sal's first president's message from the very first issue of the Transylvania newsletter. It was still a little out there, right. And he said, uh, I know that to most Neophytes and virgins a fan club for a movie sounds bizarre. But let me say that to anyone who has experienced the absolute pleasure of seeing Rocky Horror. This is not bizarre but merely something that had to be self hero. I feel like you should be reading that in my best. Like Tom Hanks or like Ken Burns instead of like a Rob Paulson or whatever. I mean, I can get behind that. Do you want to take it again? This is a live podcast, Aaron, we don't get retakes, right? Um, ok, so our journey to Rocky Con one, uh, there's another tidbit in Transylvanian one that I think we should really hit on. Uh, if you want to go forward, sweetie. Uh, just a few pages later. Uh, a very few Larry for announces the chartering of the fan club and announces Rocky Con one and they promise so many things the world like we'll see how well that works out for them. A time, work, dance, a banquet, films, contests, quiz shows, guests at a major hotel in Manhattan at the Four Seasons. Totally awesome hotel, not a landscaping company at all, but as we'll see, uh, the best laid plans don't always come together as you would expect. Uh, just ask anyone who's tried to organize a Rocky Con since then. And also, let's point out here that the fan club group, the group that was founded out of the Waverly had their sights set on putting together a real life convention. Only a few months away. Transylvanian one dropped in January of 1978. They're talking about throwing a convention that spring. That's insane. Right. And on top of that, they formed the fan club, they started putting out issues of the Transylvanian fanzine, they started planning a convention and as I'm sure everyone here can relate, they did that all on top of the performances every weekend at the Waverly theater. But as we all know, if you've got too many irons in the fire, someone might just beat you to the punch. Sal tells the story in creatures and I just love it. One night at the Waverley, a man approached Sal and the Waverley regulars and told him about a convention he was planning at a concert hall in Long Island. He said he had booked the stars from the film that there would be dealers and a costume contest and all sorts of things. That guy was John Mancia and they didn't believe him. Oops, but they had a lot of other things on their mind right at the end of January that same year in 1978 Rocky and New York lost its home at the Waverly theater. So this group that had formed the fan club, they put out the Transylvanian and were in the process of planning Rocky Con one, they were all just spread to the wind. And meanwhile, they probably should have just listened to that John guy because apparently he fucks on February 20th, 1978. And that's barely a month later. He and his friend Paul Spiegel threw the very first Rocky Horror Convention. Although if you were to go by just creatures of the night, you'd be a little confused because in it, Sal says the event was in 1977. Uh That's a typo, you literally have the flyer for the event sitting right next to the section in creatures that describes it. And the dates on there are very clearly Monday, February 20th, the 20th of February was not on a Monday in 1977. It was definitely in 1978. Sorry, Sal Yeah, sorry. So we're not gonna beat you up over a dumb little typo any more than that. But this does illustrate a great point about why we are so careful to find as many sources as possible when we're digging into rocky history. We're very lucky that because the community started off so fanatical, we have so much history to draw on. I know Aaron's got a massive library of books and fan signs that helps us trace through these early days and plenty of members of the community that love to chime in and help us out. But I think we all know how fickle memories can be. So having period pieces like the fanzines is super useful as we'll see in just a second. Right? Because in April of 1978 Transylvanian issue two comes out and it has a great write up of the events from Rocky Con one. They, they did indeed get the stars. Right. Richard Pat Nell and Meat Loaf. All trekked out to Long Island to the Calderone concert Hall in Hempstead, New York and boy did they put on a show? And what exactly happened at that show? Well, so we know that Sal warmed up the crowd. We know Richard sang science fiction double feature. We know that Dori uh Dori Hartley sang Sweet Transvestite. There was a costume contest and we know that the fan club organized the whole four show for the movie. But most importantly, I gotta know, what did the winner get for the costume contest? Did they get the car from the fucking wedding scene close. According to Transylvania. Number two, the winner won Richard's personal script from the film and get this a whopping $50. One of these things is not like the other. Seriously. Who wants a script? Yeah, exactly. Give me that 50 fucking dollars. Let's go right here. Oh Man. OK. So here's where history gets a little blurry. OK? In creatures. Uh Sa says that there were 10 finalists for the costume contest. Uh The issue with the Transylvanian says that there were 21 yes, they both agree. Sal was a finalist in his Janet costume. Yeah. Not a big deal number. Those are really hard to remember, right. Uh, according to Sal in Creatures, uh, Meatloaf sang Hak Patuti. But, uh, the report in Transylvanian claims that Meatloaf had the flu the whole weekend. So Richard had to step in and sing the song for him. Well, oops. Which one was it? Uh, honestly, I have no idea. Like, I only had time to dig through this and like, research it. You think I also hunted down people who were at the first gen in 1978. Like no, these old fuckers don't grow on trees. Like so a bit of a mystery. But all in all sounds like a pretty good time, right? But I've left out the best part of the Transylvanian review though. So this was written by a guy named Eric Kleman and he reports, uh, that some people insisted on calling the event a presentation and not a convention drama. Uh But that's not even it. Here is what is probably my favorite quote in any fanzine that like I've ever seen. So here read this next one. All right, I'm gonna like, put my, my, my nose up for this one because it's like this person is 100% like one of those people that just looks like this, right? It lacked organization and a good program of events. The rock band twisted sister really shouldn't have been there. More time should have been devoted to Rocky. I'm sorry, like, fucking, what is that? Like, like the actual twisted sister. Like, we're not gonna take it. Like, I want a rock rock, like that twisted sister, twisted sister. I'm, I'm pretty sure like it is. They were based out of Long Island in the late seventies. They did events and whatever gigs they could get and this is not the only source that confirms it. I've heard plenty of rumors around the community that they planned that they were there, that they played the event. Uh They did some of their own songs and they were the backing band for the film stars. But I, I was really blown away when I actually saw this in a period article and one that even on top of that was like, boy, I sure wish that that iconic eighties rock band hadn't been there so we could see them play before they blew up into a big international stars. Like, I mean, to be fair, they weren't famous yet. Maybe they weren't that good. Maybe we didn't miss anything. Sure, Jan. So damn it. After the damn it, it's topical. So, OK, after the success of this first Rocky convention, uh Transylvanian issue three comes out and it also contains a bit of a downer uh it reveals that the fan club uh was going to miss its self imposed deadline to host the Rocky Con one uh in that spring So instead they promise a crazy event to be held at the Beacon Theater on June 6th. And well, a few more promises were made. I mean, you can be the judge on these. That's a lot of stars. I wonder if they'll be able to deliver on that. Yo spoiler alert they didn't. So meanwhile, uh in upstate New York, you have another fan scene that's being published by Greg Kurtz out of Albany. So in the first issue, it teases the second Rocky Horror Convention. Again, this is out of Long Island and again produced by John Mend. John Mandra and Paul Spiegel. So while John and Paul and George and Ringo were putting together the second Rocky convention, the fan club is having a really tough time putting together Rocky Con one in July of 1978 the former Raver League crew finally found its way home to Manhattan this time at the Eighth Street playhouse in the village. And everyone knows about Eighth Street. This was the theater that the New York cast performed at well into the eighties and the home base for the fan club and really the entire fan phenomenon as it exploded into the national consciousness. At the end of the seventies, you saw it in fame, you saw it in all the TV clips and news articles and photos. It was everywhere. And around the same time with the July issue of the Transylvanian, it's revealed that the planned convention for June had to be canceled. South goes into a little bit of detail. So apparently the outside production team didn't give any notice or explanation for why the event was canceled. And anyone who bought tickets through, uh anyone who bought tickets for the con through the producers instead of the fan club, they just lost their money and that sucks, Rick. And unfortunately, it, it set back the fan club for pretty much the entire remainder of 1978. You also have all of the drama occurring with the fan club wars throughout that year. So the the fan club, what we really got time for one next snack today. Sorry, Nicky, we'll have to save that one for the next convention. Roy. We save that one for the next convention for Madness. Ok. Anyway, well, with the fan club having its hands full with whatever that is, it gave the team from Long Island the opportunity to step it up again for a second convention on Sunday, October 8th, 1978. The second Rocky Horror Picture Show convention was again hosted out in Long Island. This time they got even more stars. Jonathan Adams Patricia Quinn, Susan, Sarandon, Tim Curry and Kimmy Wong. Yeah. Uh Sal forgets to mention Kimmy in Creatures of the Night. Uh but we know she was there from accounts in the Transylvanian upstate fanzine. And I mean, here is a picture from the event taken by uh Marie Scuderi. Uh it's courtesy of Rocky horror wiki dot org. You might recognize Pat Quinn on the left. Jonathan Adams is there in the background. Uh You see Kimmy Wong over on the right and the guy in the middle that is John Mania, he looks so much younger than I would have thought that guy put on two Rocky Cons. That's crazy. I want it stated for the record that I think that John Man a fucks. Look at him. He makes love. No, he does. John is hot. I'm not afraid to say it right. No. Yeah, absolutely. And so here from the Transylvanian upstate uh volume one issue too, uh We get the first hint that maybe Rocky conventions and costume contests aren't destined to be best friends or some stupid questions were answered. The long and boring best costume judging began. So with over 200 entries, it apparently took forever to get through by all accounts South tried his best as host. But how you manage a contest with 200 entries is beyond me. So what did the winner get this time? Uh This one's a little more saying an autographed copy of the movie script uh that was won by a dude who dressed as Doctor Scott Jeez. They need to make these prizes less. Cool. No wonder they had 200 entries. Yeah, I mean, OK, so this column, there was also a ton of merch for sale. Uh We know that Patricia sang science fiction, double feature. Uh she did it dressed as stage show Trixie, right? Complete with the US red outfit, super cool uh Jonathan Adams along with Pat Sang the Time Warp uh Dori Hartley again, the famous eighth street, Frank sang sweet tea and of course, the movie played. So by all accounts, it was a great fucking convention. These first two conventions run successfully by John Mandracchia and Paul Spiegel are pretty important in setting the tone for the Phantom. Yeah. And they set the bar pretty damn high for conventions to come. The ability to get starts in the movie. The Giant Merch presents the Q and A sessions, the costume contests. Well, maybe not that one, right? But all these things that started so long ago, they're the formula for that many conventions have since followed, like iterating on that initial idea, but hold on. We're two conventions in maybe three if you count the birthday party in Austin and we still haven't gotten to Rocky Con one. I'm starting to think the first Rocky Con may not have been the first Rocky Con. What else does John Andrea have in store? Ok. So sadly, John only ever threw the two conventions at the very beginning. Uh Fun fact though, according to Mark Tamao posted on the alt dot cult movies dot Rocky horror News group a long time ago, uh John would reappear in 2001 to smooth over some negotiations in booking Patricia for the Frankie goes to Hollywood convention hosted by Midnight Insanity. So here is a picture of him hugging Pat Quinn in front of the Roxy Theater. He's wearing a 69 t-shirt underneath a giant crotch promoting a tomb raider tie in. Nice, nice. I think that picture speaks for itself. So let's get this thing back on track. We had two great conventions in 1978. What does 1979 have in store? Ok. A little bit of table setting here. So early in 1979 a guy named David Hahn, he was a Riff Raff with the eighth street cast and a board member of the fan club introduced South Hero to his friend Alex Gorby. So Alex quickly became integrated into the fan club, uh taking on the role of business manager, he and Sal even flew to L A on their own dime to get permission from Fox to use the lips and the logo for the fan club. They used connections that they made on that trip along with a deal with a magazine distributor to expand the Transylvanian fanzine into a full blown Transylvanian magazine. Their, their hopes were that 1979 would be the year that Rocky Khan won would finally become a reality. But before they could in July of 1979 the first annual Transylvanian convention was held on the west coast at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the fan club cannot catch a break, can they? No, no. So the West Coast, uh first annual Transylvanian convention was organized by Rick Sloan and all of this info uh also comes from the Rocky Horror wiki. Uh The convention apparently featured a Superman Cartoon Marathon, a costume contest, of course, a screening of the spoof film Night of the Loving Dead Spicy. Yeah. Uh and the Rocky Horror Review live performance. So if you aren't familiar with the review, uh it's one of the very earliest floor show casts on the west coast. They performed at theaters all over California during the earliest days of the Phantom. So finally, finally, finally, after three or four conventions, depending on how you feel about Texas. Yeah, they're not doing that great right now. No. Finally, the fan club gets to take its turn with Rocky K one which is probably not the best name for it at this point, but whatever, it's irrelevant. So according to Sal in Creatures, Alex Gorby and David Hahn wanted to produce Rocky K one partnering with the fan club. Of course, they were both already really active members of New York's eighth street cast with Alex serving as the business manager for the fan club. So the two formed a company, they put a down payment and they booked the palladium in New York City for Saturday, October 28th, 1979. They even made a deal with a local promoter to cosponsor a Rocky Horror Halloween party. Three nights later at the Roseland Ballroom, like this thing was gonna be big. I feel a butt coming. Yeah, you do. No. How would that even? No. How, how would that work in, in men? The G spot is the prostate. But no. Yeah, never mind so big. But the name of the company that Alex and David started was called the Youth Entrepreneurial Services, which was abbreviated. Yes. Why would they go with the name that sounds like it should be printed on the side of a church van. You might ask. Well, because Alex was 19 and David was 16. Reggie Hold on 16. Running a convention. OK. Yeah, this is gonna go well, yeah, I could barely put pants on it. 16, let alone run a whole fucking convention. But at first it did go well, like the promoter for the Halloween party gave Alex and David funding to bring the stars from England in exchange for them appearing at his party at Roseland. They both Richard Pat Jonathan Adams, Little Nell Brian Thompson and Sue Blaine. So early promotional materials also teased Dory Sal and Perry Bedin alongside a promised showing of the Uncut Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now, ok. I'm convinced that everyone organizing the event had the absolute of best intentions. So everything about the rest of this story really smacks of inexperienced organizing events making the best out of a bad situation and some poor decision making. So I wanna throw this out here because it might seem like we're poking fun at what happened next. That's not the intention. I would hope that considering it's been over 40 years that everyone can look back and laugh or at least not cry. Uh So anyway, disclaimer over. So the word goes out, Rocky Con one is a go on October 28th at the Palladium in New York City with a follow-up party on Halloween night and the community runs with it. So this might have been a combination of all the previous information that made its way about the fan club's earlier convention. False starts along with the dose of wishful thinking and rumor. But the speculation about the events for the convention quickly as expected spiraled out of control, right? So in an October issue of the Transylvanian upstate, it's reported that the evening will include a showing of a special version of the film complete with outtakes and including a version of Sweet transvestite that was too rude to be included in the final cut. Now, 40 plus years later, we all know that none of that content exists or at least not in the form that anyone reading that description might expect. There are a handful of behind the scenes shots that were assembled into the documentary. From what from that you can now see on the Blu Ray and a few minor bloopers. I'm thinking of the one where Pat has trouble getting Barry's pants off after time warp, which actually, uh, that's a great shot for looking at Brad's pants. So, Ruth pointed that out like years ago when she spotted it on the laser disc, but it still holds up. It is still one of the only places where you can see the construction of the fly on Brad's pants. Mhm. It sounds like a fact that our writer Jacob would know. You'd think you would. Yep. And only a fact that you would fucking care about Aaron. Sadly, my Brad pants do not have a screen accurate fly. Ok. But you looked and that still makes it sad. Or, or awesome. Sure, buddy. So I feel like we're just about to get to the good part. We have a zany cast of characters woefully out of their depths and expectations from the fledgling community that are impossible to meet and then everything turned out. Ok. Right. Wow. Ok. So the day of the con rolls around and it turned out that there was no reserve cash to pay for the venue. See everything had been paid for with advanced ticket sales. Oh, ouch. Right. So the venue not having been fully paid rightfully tells the convention to go fuck off. So, ok, being rocky people, they figured out a way to still make it work. Someone we're not quite sure who had a hook up at club heat, which is a smaller venue in a much, much less enticing part of town. Uh But they struck up a deal with the venue, uh, to give the venue all of the ticket sales at the door and all of the food and drink sales throughout the night. So without this arrangement, the night surely would have just been a bust, but it would have some unfortunate consequences. Uh, I would like to state that for the record that the person who had the hook up at club heat. That was me. Oh, wow. No fact. I know. Right. Can all thank me, everyone. Thank me in the chat. All this more or less is the street account that sal tells and creatures of the night, we do have access to a rather lengthy gy and frankly scalding review of the convention from the Transylvanian upstate fanzine that was published in the two months after the convention. Obviously, it's only one fan's experience, but it aligns with everything that we've seen from the other sources. This allows us some additional firsthand accounts from the event. So when people started showing up at the palladium, they found it totally closed. A few staff members from the con were handing out flyers, directing everyone to the other side of town. When Congo arrived at Club Heat, they had to wait an extra two hours past the scheduled door time to even be let in because of the venue change. And rumor has it some heated confrontations with the convention. Many of the vendors decided it wasn't worth their time. To make matters worse. All the sellers tables were crammed into a small room that barely fit 50 people. And when the show finally did start, it was standing room only for a large part of the audience, but this is where things did go, right. All of the stars were introduced, Richard discussed shock treatment and they all perform musical numbers from the film and bits of their club acts, Richard even pulled out a guitar and sang for a half hour, multiple counts, sing the praises of the stars that attended the event. They definitely made it worthwhile for a lot of the fans that had endured the frustrating venue change. Unfortunately, when the movie was shown, it wasn't the much hyped uncensored cut. No Brad Riff but Fox. No, not yet. No, it was a badly beaten up print now. Ok. One of the reasons that we really, really felt it was necessary to run through all of this setup and give so much context around the lead up to Rocky Con. One is because of this next bit. So about 15 years ago, Mike Russo, uh posted a series of videos to youtube that he shot with Joe Marzano at Rocky Con one. So they the these two guys, they were based out of the mini cinema in Long Island. Uh and he's also posted a handful of other videos that were taken around the same time frame like at eighth Street or like at the mini. Um I'm sure that some of you out there in the audience have seen these clips before, but I was just tickled at the idea of getting to tell this whole story and then have some actual footage from the night that we're talking about it. It makes it feel so real. Um So, uh without their permission at all, sorry. Uh we're gonna go ahead and just play a little bit of it. Uh Right here. Hello, I'm Dori Hartley and this is the face you see without the makeup on, but later on we'll have a lot of makeup and a lot of excitement and here we are. That's Dr Franken the Heat. That's the love of my life. And he originally supposed to be at the palladium Hartley fucks due to circumstances. I swear to know nothing about where it changed to be here. We have little Nell Richard o'brien, Pat Quinn Jonathan Adams, uh me some other things and lots of things to talk about and there'll be a questionnaire. It's a real, real nice place here and uh hopefully we'll get some more footage and coverage later on, right? So I hope you enjoy yourselves. I aspire to be that type of famous so that I can be like, oh, the special guests are Richard o'brien Meatloaf. Barry Boswick and me. She's so fun, but we'll let that keep running in the background so you all can see some of the stars being interviewed at club heat before the general public was let in for the evening. Everybody looks so young, like look at Pat. Oh my God, literally like every single woman that is Pat's age right now had that hair. My nana has that hair actually. Yeah and your nana probably fucks. Thanks John. But you know, so you know what happened? I mean as we can see, Rocky prevailed, the thing all got to see the stars and so do we 42 years later. But what happened the next day? Besides everyone waking up with that post con hangover? Well, it's the same thing that happens the day after every con, not all the bills are due, but this time the organizers were broke. Does this bring back any anybody in the audience? Anyone thinking of Dash Con? Because like this is this is it right? The stars hadn't been paid bills were piling up and a tell all exclusive in the Transylvanian update. I reported that the stars didn't, haven't even been told of the second engagement at the Roseland on Halloween night until they were already off the plane in New York. That's a big fucking yikes, right? So we can't verify that report from the Transylvanian Upstate. But I I think that it's definitely safe to say that a ton of miscommunication occurred during the planning stages for Rocky Con one that article um it's incredibly hostile. Uh And I can't verify a lot of the information in it. So I'm not gonna repeat it all here. Maybe, I don't know. Find me after the panel. That seems like something that I would probably spill over drinks while spilling drinks before like real quick before we move on to the Halloween party. I wanna quickly show my favorite part of this video. Check this out, check this out, check this out right now. You have the laser gun. See it? Original costume is Riffraff space suit size 7.5. What else we got? This is Columbia's boa. Yes, the real one. And we got Transylvanian shoes and over there we got full costumes. There. They are Transylvania costume, Magenta Garden over there, that guy original Frank and Footer floor show shoes, the one that Tim Curry wore in the movie, anything of Ray. Like, can you just imagine how much the people on the Zoom call would pay just to be in the same room as some of those pieces just to like smell Frank's shoes. And you hear the audacity of the guy at the end. You like, you go to the rocky pieces like that wasn't fucking good enough. I mean, we know like a bunch of the items that we just saw are in private collections now, like I'm aware of vaguely the provenance of a few of them, but certainly not all of the pieces in that box are accounted for. It's just so weird to just like, see them all in a suitcase like that, those belong in a museum. Ok. Anyway, Rocky Con one proper wraps up with little fanfare, but only a few days later is the Rocky Halloween party, which feels a lot like Khan part two. But first, there's the problem of all of those unpaid bills in order to salvage his Halloween party, the promoter of the Roseland event ended up paying off a ton of the outstanding charges. This ensured that the stars would show up for his event that he had promoted all of the radio and in print. And in spite of all the obstacles from the con the Halloween party fucking delivered all the stars from the convention were at the party. With the exception of Richard, there was a massive costume contest won hilariously for our story by the editor of the Transylvanian upstate fanzine, Greg Kitz dressed as Brad, everyone danced and partied all through the night and at 3 30 AM, the partygoers spilled out onto the streets and paraded down broadway dressed in full costumes and in the start of a long time Rocky horror convention tradition. Sal raffled off. Wait. Did, did someone say Rocky raffle? Rocky raffle? Excuse me. Sal raffled off Janet's rain scene dress. Yes. The real one because it's 1979 and shit like that is just sitting in Sal's closet and he just raffled it away. Boom. Mind fucking blown. So, I mean, right. So absurd. So in, in the wake of this con, uh, there were certainly a lot of hurt feelings and there was a huge shakeup within the fan club. I mean, even lawsuits were filed between the promoter for the Halloween party and the con producers. And when Sal tells this story in creatures, he laments that the entire experience really left a bad taste in his mouth. Yeah. But I think in retrospect that convention, in spite of the problems and the obstacles and the frustrations, it really puts a nice cap on the early conventions. Like who cares that it wasn't actually the first, depending on how you count. It was actually the fourth or fifth despite still being referred to now as Rocky Con one. And I think nothing demonstrates like how successful it was and how pivotal it was to the fandom that we all love and are here today to celebrate. Then this last clip that we're gonna show. Uh So this last thing is from the Halloween dance party and it really, it kind of speaks for itself. I can't help but smile seeing all of our Rocky family in the faces from that night. You could have told me that this upcoming clip was shot at R K 03 and I would have completely believed you. Like, I genuinely get a little choked up. It's like watching old home movies. You guys take a look. Yeah, fans, you Aaron, I'm offended that that Scott at R Q 03. All right. My bald cap is way better than that. Which one of these two guys are you tag yourself? Yes, I think I'm the, I, I think I'm him. I am. Yeah, that's you. I'm Rocky, smoking a cigarette and casually walking away. Mummy is done. He's out. Yeah, that's this vibe though. Like this is an absolute vibe. Yeah, that Doctor Scott invented the fist bump. Yeah, we're, we're, we're a lot better dancers now, I'd say, yeah, throw back to R 03 where Harley was getting lap danced by like 40 different people at the party. Yeah, but you know, I think with that it's safe to say that's our show. We want to thank Tesser Exxon and all the organizers, Tori Harley and everyone else so much for having us. Yeah, we'll make sure to post links to all the videos and references that we use for this episode to our social media so you can follow us everywhere, you know, Facebook, Instagram, tiktok, youtube, all at Rocky Talkie Podcast. And uh don't forget to check out our website uh rocky talkie podcast dot com. Uh If you've got a question, you want Nikki to ask for Nicky, asked a question or a cool story you'd like to share with the community to let everyone know how magnum your dong is. Maybe a special show you or your cast is doing uh or a fun Rocky project you're working on. We would love to feature it on the show. Just drop us a line by filling out a form over at Rocky talky podcast dot com. And as always, we'll see you all next time. Bye. Oh my fucking God. Doria Hartley. Hit me up. All right. That was fun. You guys have fun, fun, fun. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like we've got some time to do like a brief little Q and A session before we wrap up. Yo, Aaron. Do we get anything? Uh Yeah. Ok. Uh It seems like we've got a few that are, let's see, let me go through these here. I'm gonna read these out. Uh If anyone has more, please feel free to unmute and ask or just like hit us up in the chat, we'll answer them in order. Uh So, ok, let me, let me see what we got here. So see in chat, the people were asking for the links for the videos. Is it safe to say that they'll be in our show? No. Oh yeah, they'll be in the, we're gonna put up show notes uh on the website for this thing. Uh All the links will be on there and I think we might even turn this into a little thing so they might get uh posted everywhere that you can find it. But yes, we'll make those all available. Daddy's show notes. No, we're not doing that. It, it is daddy's show notes. Ok. Yeah. So first question I've got here um from Brandi, from J C C P. Uh I'm fascinated that the, that so much of the book appears handwritten. Is it all like that? No type setting? So all of those uh handwritten bits that you saw were from the actual first four Transylvanian fanzines. Uh Creatures Of the Night is, you know, a fully produced book and whatever. But those original fanzines uh were done with hand done letter printing. Uh I think most of it was done by Dori. Uh I know most of the artwork in there was done by Dory. Uh Some of it might have been by uh what's her name? Uh Lauren, I think who was one of the, the original uh editors for it. But uh yeah, the first four issues are all in that weird ass hand kind of scrawled style. It's this really light font that like, I don't know if anybody out there geeks over fonts, but like, I absolutely love this thing and maybe I'll make a font out of it someday. But yeah, that's what those are. You really should. So OK. Uh Second thing from Steve work, uh He says I seem to remember a wealth of audio that exists from that convention. So perhaps that would clear some things up, pretty sure it's on Madman Mikes, the R files, bootleg. Uh Yes, I would love to see that. Uh I will have to hit mad man up. I am fascinated by, especially if it contains stuff like twisted sister from, you know, the very first con or any of that kind of stuff like that would be cool if anybody out there has any hint about like, yeah. Ok, let me see what's going on here. I haven't seen this. Ok, Rocky from one. Um Yeah, so there, there definitely is the video that's out there from uh Mike and uh uh Mike Russo and John the other one. Uh but that's the only thing that I'm aware of. Uh I would probably, yes, that there's tons of audio. There, there certainly was a huge like media presence. Uh It was well promoted and all that kind of stuff. So uh very cool, very cool. I'll have to hit Mad Men up. I haven't talked to him in a couple of weeks. Give me more content. Mad Men. Uh Rowan asks what is John Mencia up to nowadays? Uh Unfortunately John passed away a few years back. I'm not sure exactly when, but I know it was uh I think 10 years ago or so. Um So one of the last things that he would have done involved in the Rocky horror community was helping out Mark Tamao uh with Frankie goes to Hollywood. Uh I don't really know a whole story there. Uh And Mark's not really around in the community to ask anymore. But um yeah, that's, that's what I know about that. Um Let's see and oh yes, where can we watch the convention videos, they're on youtube. Um They're a little hard to find because the search terms are really bullshit. So we will drop all of those into show notes and honestly, if you can't wait to see them and you want to watch them like right now ping, ping me after this and I will send you the links right away. I just got a couple more meg says we have some more questions in the dock. So take a look at those. You want to read these John? Yeah, I got you. So one of them uh for Alex says I've never seen Rocky Horror and this is my first time watching the podcast. I really fuck with the community, but I'm not sure where to start. Uh Well, Alex, um I would say that the, the first thing that you should probably start with if you wanna kind of vibe with the community is uh watch the movie first. So you know what we were talking about, I think that that might be your uh your number one star and um I'm not gonna gatekeep like the best way to see the show because honestly, I don't give a fuck how you watch it, just watch it. Uh Whether it's in your house alone on your laptop, in incognito mode, I don't know uh whether it's, you know, in, with the Friday night specials, like when they're doing the live performance, do whatever you want first, but just make sure that you have that basis. And then from there, that's kind of, at least in my own experience with people who kind of want to get getting off point. Because then you find one aspect of the show that you really find interesting, whether it's the history like Aaron, you know, whether it's uh the evolution of the performance aspect of the show like me, uh like there, there's always something that I think everybody in the community kind of grasps on it, kind of kind of creates their specialty of. But I think that, you know, really analyzing the movie for itself first and kind of figuring out what you think your niche would be in there, even if it's a niche that's already occupied. I think that that's probably uh the best start and then you should join the shadow cast. Well, and now if you go see the show and that then, but yeah, that's a, that's exactly, you know what I would say. I mean, it's how I got into it. I first was aware of the, of it on VH1 or something was probably one of the first places I saw it and then I just watched it on a loop and then eventually was able to go, you know, join a cast and all of that. So you find the bit that really, you can latch on to for sure. Uh Let's see what else we got here? Oh, a question from Hadrian. You wanna read this one, John uh Hadrian asked, what about international convention? One? I only know the one in Berlin. Do you have some in your head? Aaron? Uh No, I, I am not aware of any international conventions until you get into the eighties. Um There's definitely a ton of stuff that starts showing up in 81 82. Uh and then you have all of the stuff in Japan in the mid eighties and, and all this kind of stuff. Uh The translate or the uh the UK conventions uh aren't until 92 I think is the first one. Um So I'm not really aware of any of the conventions that happened like way in the early time, but I would not be surprised if one did and I just am not aware of it. There's so much info all over the place and especially internationally, it's really hard to kind of find some of those resources. Um There's a couple of books, I actually have them. One of them is in uh Italian, one of them is in uh Spanish. Uh I'm sure that they will give me the answer to that, but I cannot read Italian or Spanish. So I'm gonna have to sit here with like my phone and have it Google translate for me to try and read these stupid fucking books. I have not gotten around to that yet. Uh So we got another question. Uh and it says, how is B B doing? Did we check on him after Jacob went to Florida? I believe our writer, Jacob is actually in the call right now if you'd like to unmute and turn on his camera and let us know if we can confirm B B's safety at this time. Yo, yo. Hi, Jacob. So good to be writer. Nice to meet you. So good to be here. How's everyone doing? So, Jacob, could you tell everybody uh who be B is? Yeah, Barry, that's Barry Boswick. Um my, but boy, my uh audacious Barry, a man. I am very much attracted to and cannot get enough of. I am constantly stalking him with some cameras I have placed in his Florida home when I was down there this past winter and I can confirm that uh he's doing fine, you know, he goes for an afternoon walk about 2 30 every day and I think that's really good for him. Um but I am not interfering with him, you know, he does have the restraining order in place. So what can I do? Not, I not interfering with him while he has cameras in his house. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's one thing to look at a man while he's changing. It's another to grow up his penis while he's doing it. You know. Well, you know, on that topic as well, we have another question from Rowan. Who do you have a crush on in Rocky Horror. I think we all know Jacob's answer. Wait. So, are we talking about, like the community or the movie? Yeah, because those are two very different answers. Both. All right. Um, movie movie for me. I, um, I, I'm for lack of better ways. I'm a slut for Susan Sarandon. Like absolutely a slut for Susan Sarandon, um, community though. Um, it's got to be 13. It's gotta be, I'm obsessed with 13 and I don't care who knows it. I really am. Uh Let's see. It's, it's not Rowan, it's not Rowan a popular opinion and what all of y'all may think it's not Rowan. I'm obsessed with John. Oh gosh. Uh-oh, I'm blushing. I think my rocky crush is probably little now like specifically like stilettos and lipstick era little now. Um shock treatment little now. Right? Really is for me uh in the community. I only have one answer. That would be my wife Meg. Oh my God. I know. I'm sorry. So disappointed. Give a real answer from Well, OK, this is the time I'm gonna tell you Nikki. Um This has all been a no, that's, that's all I got. Sorry. Um I'm dying now. I feel bad because my answer is also little now. Um However, I feel like I like her more than Aaron does because I, I do everything better. Um This is a terrible question. I hate this question. I don't know enough people in the community to do this. Um I'm gonna go with my Rocky Heart. Community crush is Jamie from the Buffalo Cast. I feel like that's my answer. Yeah. So anyway. Oh, wait, yes, Sam said that Meg needs answers. Yeah. Meg does need to answer. Oh Meg, you need to answer. Um Oh um Sam, are you kidding me? You my number one as though I don't talk about it enough on the podcast. I'm talking over there, but I'm looking over here audio is weird. Um, and Eddie, I'm a slut for meatloaf. Hardcore. Please give me a bear. Um, I just wanna, I wanna read this comment out loud because it makes me sad. Uh I will say having now seen her, I'm less afraid of Nikki than I was hearing her on the podcast. She seems less mean now. Hi, I'm just here. That was the point of doing it live. Nicky. Now everyone knows the true you, I guess so. Hi, I'm very nice. No. Trust me. She's still mean as shit. You know what I mean? Fuck you mom. Oh, but I do think that that is just about the end of our time if one more. Oh, we got one more. Yeah. Yeah. Tori and Harley had asked, but who got all those incredible prizes from the raffles? And how do we find them? You know? Well, I mean, we know where the rain team dress is, right? Like, doesn't Larry have that? Maybe not? I know he has the Columbia boa. I don't know, I don't know who has the because Megan Tabor had it for at one point. And then yeah, I don't know. Somebody out there is gonna have the correct answer to that. Ruth. Ruth will probably have the correct answer. Go ask Ruth. Yeah, and that was everything. Thank you so much. You guys, thank you. Thank you so much. And that's our first ever live show. We had a wonderful time getting to collaborate with the Staycation Con Committee to make this show happen. And we are really looking forward to more live events in the future. We hope it was as much fun to listen to as it was to be part of. Thank you to everybody for tuning in. And again, we want to thank Tori and Harley for hosting us as well as the other members of the committee who worked so hard to give us all a phenomenal weekend. We also want to thank our writer Jay. Go for this week's script. You're awesome dude. And we really appreciate everything you do for our show and all you people who came out for the con. You're why we do this. So thank you so much. We'll be back with our regularly scheduled fuckery next week. We promise. Don't worry if anyone has a question they'd like us to answer on air for Nikki asks a question or some community news they'd like us to talk about or even a cool story to share with the community. We'd love to include it in our show. Just go to our website rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to share with us. And if you're enjoying Rocky talkie, please help us out by rating, reviewing and subscribing to the show. It makes the podcast more accessible to new listeners which really helps us grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky 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, see you. Bye, bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye, bye, bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye bye. Hello to All you on Conventional, right? Good night. I'm stopping the recording. It's very exciting, but we have so much unpacking to do that. It is daunting. It's just daunting, maybe. Cheer that up a little bit and nice. So we're so excited to be back in Manhattan. Maybe we don't give them a downer. Well, I mean, he uh he has a text written here. Yeah, you could, you could just flow into that. Yeah. And speaking of having busted my ass this week getting moved and spending the past couple of days trying desperately to transform our new apartment from a box filled storage unit into, you know, an apartment we also wanted, we also want to Jacob. I, I mean, I don't know about y'all but I really want to Jacob right now. Do you know what I mean?