Believe it or not, I never saw Rocky Horror in the theatres, let alone at a Midnight showing. I was at *other* type Midnight movie showings instead. I saw “Flesh Gordon” really messed up one night with a bunch of band mates. Funny as hell, especially in an altered state.
1977 saw a resurgence of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in Midnight showings. Not sure when the full on dressing took place, but I get the idea soon enough that Bud and gang are not entirely out of place. The items they’re holding… toast, toiler paper, noise maker and Jeff’s party hats… are all things you bring to throw or wear, plus a whole lot more I understand. If you’ve been, pass along your story!
Also, drop over to the Facebook page and leave a comment under the picture of Bud and his sister Rhonda, the best caption wins a free Volume 1 print edition! Oh boy!
Being as this entire comic is about me time warping back to 1977, what better song from Rocky Horror to have as today’s title? Time Warp indeed!
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In addition to the dress-up there are also stock rejoinders to the dialog on screen. When the Criminologist talks about Brad and Janet, the remarks focus on the fact that Brad and Janet “Have necks!” When B&J are walking toward the castle, the audience holds a newspaper over their heads and squirts a water pistol upwards also holding up a lighter (these are both often banned). When Brad says, “Great Scott!” on seeing Dr. Scott, the Toilet Paper rolls fly. There’s a LOT more and I expect you can find the stock responses on the net.
It actually sounds like a fun ol’ time. I’m too old I think to do one now, but in my day that would have been a blast!
Yeah, I’ve Googled a few sites on Rocky Horror and have read a few details on what goes on. Interesting how it all got started after the film flopped in 1975 then goes on to become this huge cult Midnight movie event.
Byron, you are NEVER too old for RHPS!!
I’d fall asleep… old farts do that…
Classic stuff. Nice page!
It was the 70s…
Bwahahaha! It’s Jeff Raff! Pure gold. And of *course* Bud gets the corset and fishnet stockings, since he’s experienced in that department
The Rocky Horror Picture Show isn’t a patch on the original cast live production and never will be. I saw the former at the Roxy in Hellay, went to the premiere of the latter and had to spend the evening biting my lip because it was so weak and sterilised and ‘ARRGH, WHERE THE FRAK IS MEATLOAF AS EDDIE?!?!’ And half the magic of the original stage show was the close-up-and-personal audience interaction. At least the RHPS fans made up for that somewhat by doing the dress-ups, ritual answers, throwing of stuff etc. for years…but even so, it could never be the same…
Speaking of doing the Time Warp, it’s a shame Quantum Leap never tackled that. Just imagine Scott Bakula in full Frank N. Furter costume – and just imagine all the cracks Al would undoubtedly make. ‘Oh boy!’
LOL! Sam as Frank N. Futer! What a blast! He too is qualified to pull it off…
Of course Bud is FNF… not only has he had the joy of being a woman now and then, remember he grew up with three older sisters (like me) and was dressed up as a woman more than once in his childhood. I didn’t get a boy’s bicycle until 4th grade. Played with Barbies as that’s what was in the house. And of course, in 2nd grade was told that I was *not* going to grow up to be a girl like my sisters. I was waiting…
Me, I played Frank in the floor show a few times and for a while was a regular at the midnight shows, good bawdy fun!
LOL! “Frank in the floor” ? I’m assuming another name for Frank N. Futer? Or I am being an old fart and missing something…
Nope, Fank is short for Frank N Furtur, and the floor show is the people who dress up and act out the movie in front of the screen as it plays.
I have never seen that movie all the way through. And working at a movie theater in HS, I could have gone done the road to see if for free. Nice rendition though.
Saw the movie in like 1994 on video in a friends house. It was bizarre but fun to watch. I think the interaction with the crowd would have been a plus for me… I’m a tad outgoing…
I did the show at the New Yorker theater, which was a trip and a half. I wanted to see everything, so I chose a strategic spot to watch it all from.
Then the theme played, and the audience participated:
THEME:
At the late night, double feature
Picture show
In the back row
AUDIENCE:
F&&K THE BACK ROW!!!
Oh yeah, guess who was in the kill zone…
Still had fun, though.
I’ll remember *not* to sit in the back row… thanks for the heads up! So what did you get hit with? Toast? Spaghetti?
I’m a founding member of the Queen William’s Players (Williamsburg, VA cast). We went to a Rocky convention in DC my freshman year. At the last rest stop in Virginia we stopped to get into costume. A state trooper from the K9 corps pulled up, saw us, and decided to do some fag-bashing. He walked up to our Magenta, a nebbishy Jewish boy from New Jersey who’d only been in the south a few months and still half thought Deliverance was a documentary. “Boy,” the trooper said. “You are a boy, ain’t ya? We don’t haaave this shit in Virginia! There’s only one day of the year you can dress up like that? You know what that day is?”
“Halloween, officer?” Magenta guessed. When the officer informed him he was “raht” Magenta started jibbering that we were going to get out of the state immediately, and told me to run to the bathrooms and get the others. When I started to walk Magenta screamed at me to go faster. “Not walk, run!”
Turns out the law the officer was using to threaten us was an old anti-Klan statute against wearing masks or concealing make-up. I just love the irony of a bunch of Pagans, Jews, Yankees, homosexuals, and assorted combinations thereof almost being arrested under an anti-KKK law.
We got to DC, had a fine time at the convention, and got pack to the parking garage to discover it was closed for the night. So there we were at three AM in Washington, wandering the streets in costume waiting for the damned thing to open up so we could get into our car and head back home. Fortunately it was the weekend of a major gay rights rally so we were safe as kittens — unlike in Virginia when people yelled at us from cars they were cheering.
Three AM in Washington DC? Yeah, the politicians are still out doing “fun stuff” so you’re not about to get arrested…
Oh, some cops just can’t leave well enough alone. I won’t open that bag but let’s just say I’ve had my run-in with a few unfriendly police officers over the years. They’re none to pleased with drunk college students running around “their town” being loud and disruptive. Heh, if they only knew what we really did to their town… and daughters…
Possibly the funniest AND saddest Halloween EVER was ’08, when we went to a Halloween screening of Rocky at the local half-closed second-run theater in Hamilton, MT (population prob. under 5K). We were short Dr. Scott and the Criminalist of an entire costumed cast, and when I asked Brad & Janet about it, they said “What do you mean, live cast? Huh? We just thought costumes would be fun.” TWO ppl in the theater besides me knew about shouting back lines, one of them my sweetie–we’re from Seattle, and I’ve attended live Rocky in the Pugetropolis area on a couple of occasions. Sadly, due to having every cop in town at the bar across the street after the movie, we didn’t get to use our “Spank The Monkey In Public, 25 cents” sign, printed to be pinned to my sweetie’s full gorilla suit, as everyone saw the cops and bailed.
Again with the cops. They don’t have real criminals to chase so they have to hassle the Rocky Horror bunch? Did they not get the memo about this movie? Man, in my day cops generally left you alone unless you were really doing something stupid… but I did have a number of Park District “cops” try to shake our tree more than once.
Got busted by some Chicago cops in a forest preserve… in the middle of the day… for driving my car off the road up to our picnic table. I wanted some tunes and drove the car up to the table to crank it up. I guess this pissed them off so I got busted. I had a bail bond card (insurance companies provide these sometimes so you don’t have to give up your license) and with my record with cops, I had one… but apparently Chicago Cops are real dicks and they refused to accept it. That’s when I learned not to argue with them as they started to try and haul me in… I settled down and they just issued me a ticket.
I did move the car, then went to another forest preserve that was NOT in Chicago and was able to park my car by my picnic table to enjoy my lunch with some rock and roll. Man…
Man, I absolutely love that movie. My wife thinks I’m nuts. I’ve tried a lot of times to get into a Midnight showing, but they book up pretty quickly. We used to get together with a bunch of friends (about a dozen of us) when I was in College and watch the video and interact with it as best we could like we’ve heard they do in the theaters. It was great fun, but I long to enjoy it at a theater. I’m hoping that one of our newer theaters will do a Midnight showing again around Halloween. Usually it’s Austin that does ‘em, and that’s just too long a drive. I hope one day to get my wife to go with me to one of the Midnight showings, I’m sure once she interacts with the crowds she’ll understand the love for the film.
Man I miss hearing Meat Loaf on the radio. His ballads are always so great. I’ve enjoyed his music since I was little. It was great seeing him in the Jack Black film a few years back. You don’t get Rock Opera’s anymore, which is a shame.
LOL! Yeah, I am intrigued to go to a live show as well. Most of my friends (who are really old farts compared to me) won’t do it… so I’ll have to find some “youngsters” to do it with me. My 20 year son is into Anime Conventions and dresses up all the time, so he’d be my first pick.
I saw a stage production of it in Southampton, England in high school in 1988. Poor teenage repressed me was utterly HORRIFIED by all the overt sexuality. Later saw it at an outdoor showing in college. By then, I had discovered narcotics, and LOVED it. Seen it a bit post narcotics phase, and became a big fan.
Ah, Rocky Horror is fantastic viewed slightly bent. Why do you think my gang is there?
It’s just a fun time for all for sure!
Welp, now we both know what each of our characters look like time warped back to the Rocky Horror Picture Show!! http://www.jynksiecomics.com/2009/10/31/halloween-time-warp/ (I thought you might enjoy seeing this if you haven’t already!). In 1977, I was 8! *grin*
“I may not be smarter than a 5th grader but I sure can kick the shit out of one!”
– Larry the Cable Guy
So you were 8, eh? So you were that annoying kid behind me at Star Wars then?
True story: My best friend and I went to see Empire Strikes Back and some Mom with a young kid sat right behind us. The little boy asked constant questions and was not using his “indoor” voice at all. “Why did Darth Vader do that?” “Is Luke dead in the snow?” “I want more popcorn, Mom!” I finally snapped, stood straight up and yelled at the kid to shut his f***kin’ mouth. I believe he left crying. I was *not* let back in that movie theater after that too. Hey, I was working the Midnight shift at the time and was really tired and just wanted to relax, not have some kid ruin a really cool movie.
I still behave like that NOW!! Nothings changed and most likely, it was me!! I can annoy the shit out of people like nobody’s business!! o.O (its a gift)
In 1977 when I was at the University of NM, one of my roomies was a theater major, & I remember him excitedly (almost to the point of wetting himself) informing us that they’d made a movie version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show that was going to be released at one of the art film theaters near UNM. We all went to the opening night, & while there wasn’t a big crowd initially & only a few people were dressed & “paticipating”, I became a fan of the film right away. We went on successive weekend showings for the next many weeks whenever I wasn’t playing, & it was amazing how quickly it gained notoriety… I never dressed or participated beyond shouting out dialog, but we’d get tanked up & go watch the fun. At it’s height. people were bringing in bags to hold all of their props – toast, hotdogs, playing cards, water bottles or squirt guns, lighters, newspaper, etc. After awhile, the health dept. put a nix on the food items being tossed around, and the fire marshal nixed the lighters & matches, but folks still had fun & switched to plastic items & flashlights. We’d sit in the balcony tho, to avoid being whacked by flying debris & water, or jostled by people dancing & flailing about (besides, it was easier to spike or cokes with smuggled in booze up there anyway).
Ah, boozin’ it in the balcony! My kind of man! I use to get tanked on spiked hot chocolate at college football games. If I could get it in, I was usually drinking…
I envy all these stories of having seen the movie in it’s prime. Ah, well, I was off “creating” this comic, so I guess my time was well spent back in 1977…
when you mentioned doing a Rocky-themed update, I though, “Ohhhh boy, that’ll churn up a bunch of crazy stories in the comments.”
Right again! *pats self on head*
And, um, where’s yours? Hmmm? You did more than climb trees as a youngster I bet…
Thank you so much for this!
<3
You’re welcome, man! I’z aims to please… it made me laugh too, so bonus all around!
I’ve only gotten in to RHPS in the last few years, but it made for a very interesting time. You did well with this strip.
So that was *you* dress as Frank N Futer then? I thought so…
Damn Bud looks good in a corset and stockings.
I always looked good in women’s clothes… having older sisters the hand-me-downs were a bit unusual to say the least…
I love Rocky Horror. I’ve been to a few of the Midnight shows, but I tend to sit up in the balconies now to avoid getting bombarded by all the thrown material. The first time I was in the crowd participation, I got pelted by hotdogs. LOL.
Man, I missed out on some fun. I would love to see a theatre full of people just start throwing hot dogs around. I’m sure the theatre owners must *love* it…
Hi! Your comic is one of the best comics EVER! Definitely in my top 5. I was a teenager in the 70′s, and this reminds me of so much.
I wanted to leave a comment on facebook for the contest, but couldn’t get a comment. I’ll just tell you! Here goes…………..
Rhonda:”And mom said it was ok to tell you now…. I’m really your long lost twin brother Trevor!”
Bud:”glurp, glub…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”
Hi Tracy! Welcome to the party!
Thank you very much for the compliment! It makes me happy I’m bringing a smile to so many faces with 1977 and I still find it amazing when folks like you chime in and say so! It’s really great to hear!
You couldn’t comment on Facebook? Odd. If it gave you an error, let me know.
Byron
I saw it in a theater with a group all of the guys in trenchcoats, fedoras, and dark glasses, we did not want to be recognized…….how immature is that and we were all in our 20′s
You probably stood out more in the trench-coats then if you were dressed up as Frank N. Futer himself. Fedoras are just cool hats.
Oh, Rocky Horror, that brings back fond memories. I went several times in the heyday when I was going to University in the early 80′s. One of the local theatres would always do a midnight showing on long weekends. It would end up being almost the entire residence going, with a lot of dressing up. Did I mention that this was in deepest redneck Edmonton, Alberta, so we got some interesting reactions on the bus. I later introduced my future wife and brother in-law to the magic of Rocky; and now it has come full circle, with both my kids big fans of the show. We own the DVD (and I have the old vinyl record with the audience lines included, carefully packed away) and I have downloaded the lines from the net. They are in university now and are planning to go to the next midnight showing, I think I just might go with them. And yes, it is the same theatre, 30 years later.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term “redneck” referred to anyone from Canada, but then, why not? A redneck is a redneck, and doesn’t have to come from the deep south of the USA. Learn something new everyday…
I *love* passing traditions on to my kids, regardless of what they may be. None of them have picked up on my bad drinking habits of the 70s, so I’m glad for that, but things like classic rock and movies are really cool to share.
Thanks for stopping by! Diggin’ all the comments on this one!
Ah, Saturday nights at the Roxly on Danforth in Toronto. The double bill was Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” followed by “TRHPS”.
A couple of numbers before leaving the apartment, a subway ride and then a lot of fun. The audience participation started before Rocky Horror even started. “…hey teacher! Leave those kids alone!”
I never dressed up, I was in my thirties, and most of the rest of the audience was in there 20′s, “dammit Janet”, but it was still fun. And at least I had all the SF movie allusions down pat. Right up there with laughing your way through an Ed Woods film festival. {aren’t familiar with Ed Woods, check out the brief clip from “It Came from Hollywood” : http://www.in.com/videos/watchvideo-it-came-from-hollywood-part-4-salute-to-ed-wood-3255966.html