Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. And hello to all you unconventional conventions. You're listening to Rocky Talkie, the podcast about everything going on in the Rocky horror community. I'm Aaron, I'm John. And we've got a fantastic show lined up for you today. We've got a ton of global news. We got a bunch of community news and we've got a really interesting question that came to us from one of our fans. So before we get started, how you guys doing, what have you been up to this week, John, I'm so tired. Hi, tired. I'm John. I uh really need to get my sleep schedule back on track for work because I'm regularly completely dead when I'm working just because, you know COVID is a thing. I'm working from home. It's been spicy. I've been tired all the time. Uh, last night we had a few people over all COVID tested, of course, very small group of individuals and we had a twilight watch party and I hated every second of it went to bed, shut up and, and I went to bed at like five and Savannah got up at like nine for work and I told her to wake me up when she got up. So they did and uh I'm so sorry, John. Ok. So while John takes a nap, I'll uh no, Nikki, what have you been up to? I'm very excited. I finished all of my holiday shopping so I no longer have that weight on my shoulders and that's just like the best thing ever for me. Like I'm never on time with holiday shopping and now I am and it feels great, so proud of you. Thank you. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I did a bunch of holiday shopping myself this week. I did some Rocky horror related projects and mostly uh you know, knocked everybody off of my Christmas list. I'm happy to say that every single person I know will be receiving a giant bottle of malot for Christmas. Oh, no, I like how you said I knocked everybody off my Christmas list, which just makes it sound like Aaron was just said, fuck everybody. I'm buying shit for myself this year. Oh, he absolutely did that. That's correct. It was mostly just an excuse so I could buy myself some nice liquor. All right. Well, let's kick it on over to some global news for today. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. We're starting this week on a bit of a downer. Uh Richard Corbin passed away this week. He was the illustrator who created the cover for Meatloaf's album Bat out of hell. He passed at the age of 80 following heart surgery. First of all, I, I just want to say how bummed I was when I found this out, I love this album. The art is a huge part of the reason why I like it. It's just so cool. If you haven't seen it, go look it up. There's this really hot muscly guy on the coolest motorcycle you've ever seen just being chased by a giant bat. I've had the poster hanging in my bedroom for years because I've always been such a huge fan. I remember when the New York City casted a tie and release event for bat out of hell three, we had representatives from the label, we played music, we did giveaways. It was a really fun event according to the bio on his website, Richard grew up in Sunflower, Kansas. You know the tourist destination of the world that is such a wholesome name. Honestly, I want to live there. Go ahead. You do not. Apartments are probably like 300 for a one bedroom. Yeah, that sounds about right. So in Sunflower Kansas is where Richard learned his love of drawing very early on in his life. His first big comic project was a black and white horror series called Creepy, Eerie and Vamperella, which pretty much set the tone for his entire career. He began to create art for the French magazine, Metal and the company's American sister magazine, Heavy Metal, which is where he published comics that were like really dark and like stylistically gritty. A lot of his work is super sexual in nature. There's a lot of nudity and sexual situations. So thus his work has at times been accused of being pornographic, which is a statement that Richard disagrees with preferring instead to call his work sensual. Ah In addition to the art for Bad out of hell, Richard also created poster art for Phantom of the Paradise. He's worked on the Punisher ghostwriter and Hellboy comics and he even created his own mini series called Haunt of Horror based on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe and H P lovecraft. And a lot of his work was notably good. He won several Shazam Awards and War and Awards for his art. He was brought into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame for his work on Hellboy and was inducted into the ghastly Awards Hall of Fame in 2015, primarily for his art on the Allen Poe series. In 2018, he won the Grand Prix at on GM, which is a really prestigious international lifetime achievement given to the authors of comics. And in 2019, he was granted presidency of the Alem International Comics Festival which again is a very big deal in the comics world. Nicky mispronounces International, which is an English word but nails on GM twice the fuck up Richard is survived by his wife Donna. They met in 1964 working on the set of a film called Sigfried Saves Metropolis in a contest held by a magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine. They were together for 56 years. This guy had an amazing life. He got to be really fucking talented. It's something that he loved to do. We should all be so lucky. Thank you for your amazing work, Richard. We'll see you on the other side. Well, speaking of amazing work, the Brooklyn acting Lab released their first ever music video this week. Did you guys see this? No. The only thing I saw this week was Twilight. I'm sorry. Oh, well, uncultured. They released a music video to Time Warp. Oh my God. My favorite song. Well, anyway, Jerks the Brooklyn Acting Lab is an after school and summer workshop for kids in pre K through 11th grade. And their focus is helping to introduce Children to theater and performance. They've been active since 2007. And although they aren't able to hold classes inside anymore because of the apocalypse. Obviously, they're still holding socially distanced outdoor classes in Prospect Park and over Zoom. Since the start of COVID, they've been producing talent shows working on improv and sketch comedy with their students. And they've even put together their first Zoom Sickle, which is a Zoom musical. I love it. And now their first music video like ice cream, I'll have a Zoom Sickle with two scoops. It's a Doctor Seuss musical, but in all honesty, the music video is absolutely adorable. So the description reads, our young players put on their campus costumes and learn performed the moves for the iconic song, Time Warp and oh boy Campy is right. There were a lot of metallic leggings and sequins and matching masks. There was one little girl who was obviously the theater kid in this group of theater kids who had like a top hat and a big fluffy tutu and leg warmers. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. That is exactly what I would have worn. I will wear that today. Nikki outing herself as the theater kid in the group of theater. Shut up. It was super cute. They obviously had an awesome time dressing up and learning the time warp and getting to perform and have fun in the park. I'm really glad that they used Rocky to introduce the kids to the idea of camp. Yeah, the Brooklyn acting lab is an amazing program. It's so important for kids to be exposed to the arts from early on both of my parents teach theater and I was exposed to the world of performance and theater at a very young age and it's been absolutely critical in all of the interest that I've shown as I've become an adult. So I started doing theater regularly when I was in high school, my freshman and sophomore years, I just was part of like their one act festivals. But then my junior year I tried out for the musical and it was once upon a mattress, you know, traditional high school musical, really easy, uh, cheap, you know, all that stuff. The audition process was, you know, you go in, you sing a song and they cast you based on your quote unquote voice and quote unquote stage presence. A K A whether or not you're a senior. Right? Uh, so I ended up getting the role of King Sexist. And for those of you who are not aware of what a one spot a mattress is. King Sexist is a supporting role in the show who is mute. And I was happy to get like a decently good sized part. But the audition process had me sing and they gave me the mute character and that hurt a little bit. Not gonna lie. It's ok. That's why you're doing podcasts now, John. No, honestly though, I can certainly say that. I mean, I've been doing theater since elementary school and one thing I've learned is that I should stick to podcasts because you can only be cast as The Yellow Brick Road and The Wizard of Oz. So many times before you start to take the hint, you know, like it just starts to hit and that's when Nicky found out she was a bottom. It really is unfortunate how much of an impact the pandemic has had on. Well, you know, everyone but especially Children like I think it's great that programs like this are still finding safe ways to continue helping Children be creative even when it seems impossible. Yeah, I agree completely. They have this super cute theater pods program where parents can organize their own small safe pods and Brooklynn acting Lab will customize a program based on your group size and the space you plan to use. So the park, your house, et cetera, so that you don't even have to interact with the people who aren't in your social pot at all. It seems like a fantastic program for kids. Congratulations to the Brooklyn Acting Lab on their first ever music video. You guys obviously have some very talented students with fantastic taste in music and maybe we'll see some of them at our show in about 10 to 15 years. If you want to check out this adorable music video or learn more about Brooklyn Acting Lab, the video and their website are in our show notes. Speaking of adorable music videos, we're gonna switch over to community news where we're gonna talk about the ordinary kids show. If you've been following the podcast, the past couple of weeks, we've been plugging the ordinary kid show like crazy ordinary kids is doing an encore performance. It's gonna be held on Zoom Friday, December 18th. It's this coming weekend at eight PM and 11 PM Eastern Standard Time as, as well as Saturday, December 19th at nine PM Eastern Standard Time. This performance is going to be an encore of their O G virtual Rocky horror shadow cast experience. But it's also going to include bloopers, which I'm super excited about because like, who doesn't love a blooper? Can I just say how proud I think we all are of Adrian and Polly and everyone on their cast for keeping on with the show this weekend for those of you who may not have seen Adrianne and the whole cast really suffered a huge loss. Lately, Adrian's mom, Joanne passed away, which is absolutely heartbreaking. She was a major supporter of the ordinary kids. And from what I understand, one of the driving forces for the creation of the cast in the first place to Adrian and to everyone at the ordinary kids, our hearts are with you and we are very, very sorry for your loss. Joanne's family has a go fund reset up in case anyone is able to help them cover costs of the final arrangements if you have the means and you would like to help them out. The gound me is listed at the very top of our show notes. We know our community is amazing at showing up and showing out when it counts. So if you're listening and you have anything that you can spare, I know it would mean the world to Joanne's whole family and it would help a lot. So let's switch over to a little bit of a lighter note and let's go into Rocky Talkie's back. We have so many write ins this week. Yeah. All right. Our first letter today comes from red from the New York City cast. Their message reads as follows. Hi, Rocky Talky. I have a fun follow up for a tidbit you talked about in episode four. Where's dinner when I was studying abroad in London? Way back in 2010, I took a directing class from a man named John Gory. He has the most amazing stories about working with all sorts of people from Dame Judy Dench to William Harne. That's the first doctor on doctor who on the last day of class, he asked what we were excited about returning to in the States. And I mentioned that I do Rocky Horror. He said, oh, I, I know someone from that movie. He was my flatmate back in the seventies and he came home one day and says to me, he said, John, my friend just asked me to work on this little upstairs show of his. I don't know though. It sounds like a fun time, but I don't know if it's gonna go anywhere. It's too weird. I don't think I'm gonna do it. I told him to do it. Why not? Neither of us was doing anything else at the time. And then he went on to be in the movie too, I think, do you know who Tim Curry is? Jesus Red Rights? I just about lost my mind. I just thought y'all might enjoy that anecdote. Love the podcast and I miss your faces. That's such a cool story. I miss your face too red even though you're kind of anonymous. But I know you're cute as hell. Right. That's fun. I don't, I don't think that's been documented before. It's a, it's a fun glimpse into the context surrounding Tim's initial thoughts. You know, when he was first considering playing The Sweet transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania. So our next write in is actually from a student that I work with at my, my current job. This is Angelica from the cast at a undisclosed college in New York City. I just don't want to dox myself. Starts by saying hi John, hi Angelica. I hope you're keeping safe and doing good on your school works. Uh God, I hate myself. All right. So before we get into this one, I want to provide a uh a content warning of transphobia and talking of sexual assault. So if you'd like to skip this, we'll provide an appropriate time stamp in the show notes to the next part of the show. So Angelica writes, my question is, what do you all think about the conversations going on about denouncing or canceling the Rocky horror picture show for being things such as transphobic, outdated and or not being a good representation of the LGBT Q community. I heard this all over Facebook and Twitter as well as participating in these kinds of conversations. So I want to know what are your opinions on this? Love the podcast so far. Thanks Angelica. I appreciate you. And I think that this is really like an interesting and timely topic and we really want to talk about it, but in a way that brings light to the entire issue, so we aren't going to be giving our personal opinions here because let's face it. The bottom line is that if we felt Rocky Horror should be canceled, we wouldn't be sitting here recording a Rocky Horror podcast. This is meant to be an educational podcast. And while our own opinions on larger issues like this one are certainly interesting to us, we don't feel they're particularly informative or helpful to our listeners. So as we discuss this question, please keep in mind that we're discussing the answer to this question in a very holistic way, not voicing our own personal opinions. Furthermore, none of us identify as trans. So even if we were voicing our personal opinions on this matter, our hot takes are not substantial in the slightest. So let's get into kind of like if we're creating like a side A side B, let's talk about side A and like why people would consider Rocky Horror to be transphobic and outdated. So just as a brief introduction, Rocky Horror was made in 1973 and in 1973 nobody was thinking about transphobia on a grand scale transphobia itself. As a word was actually only introduced into the Oxford dictionary in the early 20 tens. Not saying that just because a word is made into the dictionary means that it is all of a sudden relevant, but it just gives you the idea that like transphobia is a contemporary topic. So nowadays, some people believe the show and the movie to be pretty offensive since a cisgender man plays a for all intents and purposes, a rapey murder trans person. And that's if you even want to consider Frank a trans person that is like he's an alien. And we can't really say for sure if gender even exists on his home planet to begin with. But I guess that's another question for another time. A lot of people find fault with the plot and the characters. So the show was often called out for upsetting trans people serving as a negative image for trans people and pushing a really defunct stereotype. A lot of opinions come down to. It's an old movie with old ideals and it shouldn't be able to keep its place as like the ultimate LGBT Q movie. There are other forms of media that more accurately portray and discuss trans issues specifically better than the Rocky horror picture show. Yeah. To piggyback off of that point, many people really take issue with Tim Curry, a Cisgender man being cast as a trans character. They feel it diminishes trans actors as a whole and promotes an untruthful image of trans people and following the trend of an untruthful image of trans people. A lot of people think that Richard o'brien is transphobic. They take a pretty major issue with his comments about trans women. He's made comments stating that a trans woman can't be a woman. You can be an idea of a woman. And there's a lot of people who find that sentiment, not just untrue but flat out hateful. There are a lot of people who feel it's wrong for someone with that belief to also be the creator of a work that's so important to the LGBT Q community. People also take issue with how Rocky adds to the negative light. Trans people have historically been painted in where they're seen as murderers or rapists really just the drugs of society, see Silence of the Lambs or psycho or any of the other movies that paint trans characters in this light. There are certainly points in Rocky horror that push this negative stereotype. That's part of the character that Richard o'brien wrote Frank is a murderer and a drug abuser. He engages in nonconsensual sex. He is an antihero villain and as such is an ugly mess. This can be viewed as disrespectful to trans people that he might be representing. And there are quite a few personal anecdotes out there of people seeing this movie watching, seeing like a crazed trans person, act like this on screen and finding themselves too scared to come out and people feel like they're gonna be associated with this like deranged lunatic because a lot of people in the Rocky community, especially those that play Frank can agree with like Frank is a powerful character to portray, but like, let's break it down to brash tacks people, he's a lunatic and people feel slighted to imagine that anyone enjoys being a big mockery of a trans person. So in conclusion, these are some of the main points that people bring up to say that Rocky should be dead issues with the cast issues with the script issues with the writer Richard o'brien and his ridiculous old man opinions. Maybe the show has hurt more than help the trans community, right? So all of that is side A but let's, you know, flip the proverbial cassette over and talk about Side B that was a joke for you, Nicky because you've never seen a cassette before in your life. Yeah. Why are we flipping it over? We get, making sure the other side gets like an even girl. Yeah. Anyway, undecided bean. Oh my God. Oh God. Anyway, so um don't you just hate when you make a joke? And it backfires? Damn. Yeah. So now we're gonna talk about side B which is the idea that like Rocky horror is not transphobic is not outdated. Some people feel that while it's important to be aware of the evolving world that the show exists in that doesn't necessarily mean that it's right to assume that the show is bad. People have felt insulted or pushed aside but others have been made more comfortable by the show. Rocky Horror in the surrounding community brings people into a comforting circle that accepts everyone. A lot of people feel that though the show itself may have a lot of issues, the impact of the shadow cast culture, counterbalances that some even go as far to say that it's unfair to co-op the movie as a victory for trans folk, as well as the greater LGBT Q community at large. When people of a variety of underrepresented backgrounds have found refuge in a shadow cast. Everybody who is listening, I'm sorry that you're if you hear random jingling in the background. My dog is very itchy. Today, we mentioned that interview Richard o'brien did where he said trans women can't be women. And a lot of people found that incredibly distasteful o'brien gave a follow up interview in response to the negative reception from that quote. While he sticks to his guns, he tries to ease the implications of his wording saying quote, I think anybody who decides to take the huge step with a sex change deserves encouragement. And a thumbs up as long as they're happy and fulfilled. I applaud them to my very last day for some this quote in interview really eases and puts the first quote into context. Although he certainly doesn't show a modern understanding of trans culture, Richard and his works have been and continue to be considerable advocates for the wider LGBT Q community. When you look at the Rocky communities, you see that generally the show brings people together and makes people more accepting of anything non conforming. Plenty of people connect to the show and bring that experience back to their families and friends which can have a positive impact and bring a sense of LGBT Q plus acceptance into households that wouldn't necessarily hold those more liberal viewpoints otherwise. And there's also the argument that some people will make that it's not just the trans or even the LGBT Q plus community that has been impacted whether it's negatively or positively by this movie. There are lots of people who struggle with issues of identity who have actually said that they find belonging in Rocky Horror. So despite the subject matter, a lot of the actors and tech workers backseat transylvanian's find an acceptance and belonging within the movie's built in culture, regardless of their gender identity or they assigned sex. And there are certainly people who would consider it a disservice to Rocky Horror to consider the movie in a vacuum without looking at all the other aspects of the culture surrounding it. For a lot of people, the calls to cancel the movie sort of disregard the greater existence of it as a cultural phenomenon, how it involves massive communities of people, how the audience participation and even the different callbacks can shift the tone of the show. It's important to consider the show in a context and not take the movie itself as a standalone product. You can like a show or a cultural phenomenon while still holding its problematic ideologies accountable and critically analyzing it. I think the takeaway is that there's a lot of people who have incredibly strong opinions about Rocky Horror. It's a loud and proud show and a movie that doesn't apologize for itself. This has created a lot of clashing opinions. A long time, Rocky veteran might be positive that they have the context and experience to write off all of these complaints. And a newcomer to Rocky might have only heard that the film and show are an icon of the queer community and be hurt and offended by the representation that they see. There are many experiences in between all of these feelings are valid. We here at Rocky Talkie, appreciate our audience's ability to think for itself. So we want to hear what you think. Let us know your thoughts and write to us all at Rocky Talkie podcast on Instagram, Facebook and tiktok. Hit us up at our website rocky talkie podcast dot com and thank you to Angelica for writing in. Finally, we have another message from our fave our bestie, our number one fan. That's right. It's snook sins, buddy. We love you to the moon and back, but you went a little nuts this week. So this time around we're gonna be reading, let's call it the abridged version of your letter. We'd hate to accuse anyone in this community of having sensibilities, but John might want to run for president one day and we'd hate to have him saying anything too shocking alive on air, my fellow Americans. So why is it me? Why do I have to be the one that wants to run for president? Why can't it be Nicky? Because you're just so goddamn hot. I don't have the face for presidency. You are America's ass John. I'll take it, I'll take any semblance of a compliment. And to our listeners, we promise that while we may have redacted some of the spice of this write in, we haven't cut any of the actual content. We know our journalistic integrity matters to you and we don't want to disappoint. So John without further ado take it away. Name. You know who? And the return of that bit of cum that is dried in the opening. Oh I'm so upset. Yeah. Message. All right. You sick. Fucks. It's time for the main tit and cock squeeze. It's gonna be a long uh no hard. No and downright deplorable. Oh Yeah, I'm quitting the podcast. I just threw up in my mouth. The only reason I'm reading this is because Meg is paying me. You're getting paid. Yeah, I heard you loud and clear though this time blasting your sensual sound. Waves over so no speakers that were perched on the edges of my bathtub ball. I jacked it, splashing soapy everywhere. I loved it. The threat of whilst banana, it'll be the new. You want to know who I am. I'm not completely sure if I'm willing to divulge to this info. I might need to be convinced. I mean, I could just be some stalker in Shermer, Illinois that has followed the casts of the east coast awaiting my moment to finally make contact. Or I could be someone you've known your entire life who you have come to terms with is a complete and disgusting, sexy, creative old pervert. Or what if I'm your wife and have been dropping hints this entire time. I just don't know. Fellers and Lassie. I have to think about it. Thankfully, I have a huge session coming up that involves a handle of gorg gorg or I think that's spelled wrong. Five sticky fat a plug and a few toys not legal in the South. Damn though, Aaron, if you can last as long as you did digging for the answer to the striped shirt rule mystery as you will be when I dig into that sexy ass and you call me grandma, then we're off to a great start. Oh, for fuck's sake. Also asshole from New England. What up number two, wanna step, wanna dance want me to while singing the star spangled banner? Let me know. Yeah. Ok. I like when you call me sins. Have a blessed day heart emoji. Ok. First of all, let's make sure it's not our wives. Just give me a sec. Josh. Are you sending anonymous emails to Rocky Talkie? No, I usually just send those to Ben Shapiro. Are you writing emails to the podcast about your humongous dick? I'm actually filing a complaint about the podcast being unholy sexual and offensive to God meg. Are you what? No, I would just write that straight into the show if I wanted. Ok. So it's none of our wives. That's good. I went a little crazy. I did some digging, did a little bit of a masked singer, esque analyzation of your letter. I have some theories. First of all, I think you're a boy, you might be a girl, but I think you're a boy. We've referred to you as a boy a bunch. You have not corrected us. This grandma thing is kind of swaying me, but I think you're a boy. Uh The Jay and Silent Bob references. I feel like no one outside of the east coast knows Kevin Smith. I don't know why. I feel like Kevin Smith just does not exist on the west coast. So I feel like you're from the east coast. You're exclusively addressing Aaron in all of these letters that you've written to us. You've not mentioned me. I think you've mentioned John once. I think you might be closer to Aaron than anybody else on this podcast and that opens up a lot of options. So also I think you're not from the South. And if you are, I would not mention the fact that you have some sex toys that are illegal in the South because I don't know what they do out there, but I don't think the South is very nice. Um And you also specifically mention Shermer Illinois by name. So I feel like that's not where you're from because I certainly would not mention my exact town if I wanted to remain anonymous. So I'm getting super super east coast vibes. I feel like you're absolutely either on R K O or in New York. I don't know why I have no proof for that. You just have Rhode Island or New York vibes. So that's where we're at with that. I think we now see why Nicky asked the questions and shut up. I got more. I got more. OK? So you also mentioned that you're going to spend your weekend with a handle of vodka. No one born after 19 nineties has a handle when referring to alcohol. So you're old, I'm sorry, you're old. Fucking called out. So that's what we got. Honestly, anybody who's young uses the phrase handle to refer to their fucking Instagram name. Yeah. So here's my theory. You're old, you're a friend of Aaron's, you're either from New York or Rhode Island. Absolutely. East coast. If you're not from those places and you're probably a boy but you could be a girl. I don't care sins. I am on your tail. I am on your ass and I'm going to find you. I absolutely love sins coming out the asshole from New England. But like come on, there's more than enough of us to go around. I've got a question for you sins. When you dig into my sexy ass. Will I be calling you grandma because you're a girl or is that just a fun bedroom name? I mean, I'm down either way. I'm just, you know, want to clarify sins. I think we all know the Kevin Smith references are a major hint, right? Yeah. Tell you what give us a little more to go on and when we finally get to hang out with our number one fan, your first drink will be on Aaron. Hey, I mean, yeah, sure. But you know, I wonder if I've bought sins a drink before. Could be. We love you sins and we'll talk to you soon. You cheeky bastard. Go fuck yourself. Hi, I'm Kelly. And I'm Leandra and we host Rocky Horror Minute, the podcast where we discuss the Rocky Horror Picture show in excruciating detail. One minute at a time. We're doing this show to share our love of the lyrics. You've never seen a prune in real life? No. And the same with Raisins, right? Our passion for performance. Oh my God. I was like bad knees stupid. Sober into detail. I know that everybody's curious. That car is a 1964 Ford Falcon deluxe sedan Ford or 54 D and to unlock secrets that would otherwise be lost to time. Oh, are you asking if I know the name of the cheetah and why it had such a problem with the snake? Visit us on the web at rocky horror minute dot com for more information or look for us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, and with that, I think it brings us to Nicky asks a question. Ok, so last week you talked about the first online Flame War about Rocky Horror. I want to go there, please give drama, Nicky. He's just going to give you a history lesson, drama. How about both? I'll be boring first and then we can do some delicious dramatic readings of the first online Rocky Horror, Flame War. This better not be like the fucking Shakespeare that we had to read. I mean, they're basically emails, right? So we can just make them as dramatic as we want. That's the goal, right? So let's bring a little bit of context into this. The emails we're talking about are from the S F lovers mailing list. So this mailing list began on Arpanet and Arpanet was created in the late sixties as a way for military funded scientists to share computing time and computing power at the time only a handful of universities had computers. The only way to use one or to transfer a file back and forth was to travel to the facility where the computer was. I B M even had planes whose job was just to fly computer files back and forth. So Arpanet promised to solve this problem in October of 1969 the network got its start when researchers linked a computer at U C L A to a computer hundreds of miles away at Stanford University. By 1971 15, university computer labs had been stitched together as more universities and labs also linked themselves together. They didn't all join Arpanet but instead began forging their own little mini networks. Each one had their own set of infrastructure and governing rules and that made it really difficult to link them together. So this is when a young computer scientist named Vince Surf and his friend Robert Kahn designed a single common protocol that covered the transmission of data across an ever expanding network of networks or an internet as you might call it, their protocol was called TCP/IP. And it allowed the original Arpanet to bind together all of these little mini networks. And that remains the backbone of the internet to this day. But the network was still limited to helping scientists perform government funded research and do math for each other, right? But that finally changed in 1979 4 years after Rocky came out, Rocky created the internet. Yeah, 1979 the 10 year anniversary of the Sex Year, 1969. Nice, nice. On the 10 year anniversary of the Sex Year Surf, uh, logged into his workstation to find an unopened message from the M I T Artificial Intelligence lab. It had been sent over the network using the new electronic mail system because more than one person was using each computer on the network. The scientists created email so they could share information directly from one person to another. Rather than just between computers. They realized they needed a system of addresses to send the messages. And thus the at symbol was born. It served to separate the mailbox identifier from the serving host and that single character saved typing time and scarce computer memory. Ah yes, an early version of what one might think of as a hack. You're a hack, you're a hack. So this message that surf opened wasn't a technical request and it hadn't been sent just to him instead, an email with the subject line S F dash lovers had been sent to researchers scattered all across the United States. It asked them to send a list of their favorite science fiction authors because the message had gone out to the entire network. Everybody's answers could be seen and responded to by everyone else. Users could also choose to send their replies to just one person or a subgroup, generating scores of smaller discussions that eventually fed back up into the hole. That's so crazy. That's the start of people using email to like just chat with each other. Yes. Surf is quoted that this was the moment he realized that the internet would be something more than every other communication technology before it. He said, quote, it was real clear we had a social medium on our hands. So after the original S F Lovers mailing list came Yum Yum, another chain mail that debated the quality of restaurants in the New Silicon Valley. Yum Yum. After that wine tasters appeared, I think that that mailing list is pretty self evident what it was about. So as more of these lists were created, the use of the computer network created all kinds of problems. One was the fear that a user might share information that someone else didn't want to see. So this led to the very first online spoiler alert, which the author put above his message to Warren readers before he described uh spoiler, the death of a certain Vulcan at the end of the wrath of Khan. And more serious was the fact that the military was concerned about all the chatter on their expensive network. They discussed how to get rid of it, but gave up when the engineers convinced them that the increased traffic made for a good stress test for the infrastructure. That is the best bullshit excuse ever. It's fine. They investigated themselves and found they needed to keep doing what they were doing. It's, it's partially because it was government funded though that the archives of these early mailing lists even exist today, they're available for download from places like archive dot org. So we filtered through the decades of posts on this science fiction lovers mailing list and we were hunting for all of the references to Rocky Horror and consolidating them into a brief glimpse of what the pre internet online chatter was focused on. This is the decade before the conversation shifted to news groups. There were obviously other discussions going on at the time through the publicly accessible pre bulletin board networks in the early seventies, but nothing that's preserved as well as this is and nothing that covers such a widely distributed group of people. Yeah, we know there are much better sources for the Rocky community at large from the period from the late seventies through the mid eighties. We've mentioned that before, you know, South Hero's Creature of the Night covers that time period. Yeah, there's all of the fan club magazines, the Bill Hanken book all that stuff and hell. I mean, there's tons of members of the community at large that you can just ask, what was it like in the summer of 1983 right? These records are interesting because they represent a very specific slice of culture and their perceptions of Rocky only a few years into the phenomenon. Not that there's particularly any new information here. More of a time capsule of the pre internet in the early eighties. So the first message is from four years after the movie was released. So this is like 2 to 3 years into the well developed pop culture cult phenomenon. It's from Brodie at Park Max in October of 1979. It's a review of the 1979 film time after time, Malcolm mcdowell, David Warner and Mary Stein Burgeon star in a film where H D Wells uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the 20th century. And Brodie compares a line said my mcdowell to doctor Scott's through time itself bit. He concludes his review with time after time is not a movie to miss off handedly. It is entertaining and rewarding especially for $1.50 before two pm at the cinema 1 50 in Santa Clara which incidentally the Rocky Horror Picture show plays Friday and Saturday and midnight. It is not believable science fiction but hell see it. Anyway, we're not proud. There's not much conversation through 1980. A few comments about the stage show and references to other movies that are like so bad. They need the cult treatment with audience participation and throwing props star Trek, the motion picture got a lot of attention. It feels pretty much like the whole cats is the next Rocky thing. Good to know. They started saying that kind of stuff way back at the beginning in 1981 though, there's a report about the third annual Transylvanian convention and this is from Sam at M I T and is titled, what goes on at a con. This is a report on the third annual Transylvanian convention held on 12 July down in Anaheim. As can be deduced from its name. It was a Rocky Horror convention actually billed as a six hour Rocky Horror party. There was the usual group of dealers dealing Rocky collectibles and a fairly unusual array of films like chainsaw chicks, clown whores of Hollywood Night of the Loving Dead, you know the classics along with some live entertainment fame groups performing Rocky horror picture Show in its entirety. Sapiro was there to give a presentation on shock treatment. The Rocky Horror picture Show sequel the afternoon was pretty fun for Rocky Horror fans. Although I suppose virgins would have been somewhat confused. The costume contest brought out some very well done costumes and South Hero's rendition of Taa Taa Touch Me was quite remarkable. In August of 1981 you have someone interested in the lyrics to the time warp that spawns a whole big discussion about where people can get copies of the script. Alice, a researcher at Berkeley writes to let everyone know that she has a copy of the script on tape and subsequently has the biggest dick in the world. Sure, I have most all of the script to the movie on tape, some minor portion toward the end. Never got transcribed. If anyone would like some or all of it, the whole script runs about 30 to 40 line printed pages as I remember. Let me know Alice Nez go and perhaps I can mail it to them. What does she mean? She has a script on tape? Does she have a cassette? Yeah. See that's why I brought that up earlier. You see what I did there? It's, the podcast is now cyclical. Is she going to grill it? Yes, quite literally. So in the seventies and eighties audio compact cassettes were frequently used as like an inexpensive data storage system for home computers as a cheaper alternative to floppy disks. You know the thing that you click when you click save on something. Yeah, compact cassettes are even still used today for offline archive cold storage. They're still super cheap. Eventually, John, not to be confused with me from R S X DEV at Deck Marlborough responds with all of time warp typed out and even types out the instructions for the time warp that were included with the program from the comedy theater. So this would have been sometime in 1979 or 1980. The Comedy theater was where Rocky finished out its original London run in 79 80. This means that they most likely saw Tracy Oman as Janet, who would go on to create the Tracy Oman show, which spawned The Simpsons and was a pop culture Touchstone for an interesting glimpse into sci-fi pop culture. In 1980 a gentleman writes to the list about all the new movies that have been announced and coming out soon and he's read articles about these. So this is stuff like Blade Runner, dark crystal Tron, the stand. John Carpenter's the thing alien two Superman three and a little movie called The Revenge of the Jedi buried in the middle is a note about what would become shock treatment where he says there is work being done on a sequel to Rocky Horror picture Show. So the community had been aware of shock treatment since 1978. It had already been filmed by 1980 it would be released in August of 81. The writer here is citing a Fania article they read in July and you can really see the lag in information sharing that's like just unthinkable today. So as we move into 1982 the discussion becomes about shock treatment and how it effectively bombed at the box office. Here's an interesting example from Chris at M I T. Not long ago, the movie Shock treatment, Richard o'brien was released which failed horribly and was shortly removed from nearly all theaters of which it had started. There is to my knowledge, only one theater in the US currently running it the Tiffany of Hollywood, which also happens to be the theater that kept Rocky Horror until it became popular as a cult film for those of you who saw the movie and are rather observant. The opening credits have the line book by Richard o'brien. Does anybody know where I can find this book? Price is no object? And I'm looking for about six copies. At least I could find places for 20 or more. Chris Bill at New York University tells about shock treatment still playing in New York City and corrects Chris's misunderstanding about the word book and shock treatment is still playing midnights at the Waverley in the village in New York after closing for several weeks and moving uptown to the New Yorker, both old R H P S midnight theaters. It is back at both of them on midnight Friday and Saturday. As for the credit of book buy and every musical for the stage or film has a book by someone. This refers to the story that is being presented, it has nothing to do with a real book in any sense. As for the movie itself, I've seen it twice the second time to see the movie as the first time I was distracted by the stage show. It's not a bad movie but it's not a good movie. Either there are too many pauses for the audiences to react by throwing in their own questions or answers. Bill go off this foreshadows, what would be like the hot button topic of 1985? So Rocky fades from the general discussion on the group for the next couple of years and occasional reference or like requests, but nothing really interesting. But in January of 85 mark from M R C at Zeus score dot Arpa lights the powder keg by posting his innocuous bad S F movies post. So I'm sort of an authority in the subject of bad movies. I'm well on the way towards acquiring the definitive Edward D Wood collection. So here's my list of bad science fiction. Number one, plan nine from outer space, the king of bad sci-fi. Number two Rocky horror picture show, the queen of bad science fiction, a bunch of movies that no one has ever heard of after 1990 followed by war games. Public understanding of computers set back 20 years. And with this, I'm pretty sure we have the first evidence of gatekeeping on the internet to which Mary from Xerox takes great offense. Now, wait just a minute here, Mark Rocky is high camp outrageous on purpose. Rocky shouldn't be on a list of bad science fiction movies for many of the same reasons that dark star is exempt. I know you just included it on the list so you could call it the queen of bad science fiction, right? To really be considered one of the worst movies of all time. I think a movie has to be a, a ridiculously pretentious attempt at serious movie making b a low budget and poorly thought out attempt to jump on and exploit the science fiction market bandwagon or C A blatant insult to the intelligence of the audience. If you've only seen Rocky Horror, once go again, the movie grows on you after a while. After about the 10th viewing, when you can sing all of the songs and recite all of the lines as well as you can. For every Star Trek episode, you may find that you enjoy it. Then again, you may no longer be sane anymore, Mary. So Mark Fires back, I have seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show more often. Most of the people on this list, I lost count after 100 or so very early into my Rocky Horror picture show career for a few years. I played Riffraff in a local group which did the stage show simultaneously with the movie. This ended only with the closing of the theater. Rocky Horror Picture Show has a special place in my heart, but it still must be considered bad science fiction. There are several glaring flaws of continuity. Anybody who actually tries to act to the parts will quickly notice how characters make major shifts in their position without any explanation, not to mention a major cut to a scene. Some minutes earlier when Rock, he is about to come to life, several of the effects are flawed. What about the wires pulling? Doctor Scott's wheelchair up the stairs? Many of the flaws make for great shout outs such as the observation that Janet never took her panty hose off in spite of several sexual ades and Mary wants none of it. I always wake up the next morning, regretting having made a light hearted response to a topic that others take seriously. Gosh, did I say to see Rocky Horror picture show in a theater to shout things back at the screen in unison with others to conform to anything. I just said to see it a few times. I accomplished this in the privacy of my own home with my V C R A machine with which I have managed to maintain a civil, non shouting relationship. I would also just like to point out that in this general discourse, not one point. Did anybody say your mom's a whore? This is, this is such a like uh an intelligent flame war? I feel like I'm getting smart, like I feel like I'm in school right now listening to this, I mean, you got to remember these are academics. This is, this is professors and students at Ivy League Universities arguing about Rocky horror. There's a lot of discussion about fame, the fame television show and a misunderstanding about if fame brought Rocky its cult following or if it had a cult following before fame. So everyone listening to this show knows Rocky has a long history beforehand. But even in the educated science fiction loving community, it wasn't common knowledge. There's a funny note from a guy who talks about the first time Fame was shown on television. I didn't know this. So I just saw Fame for the second time. The first in the theater where it first came out on its TV debut. The movie was hooked up to leave some scenes out ruined for television and the dialogue was worked over. I don't recall what happened in the uncut version, but it was really stupid watching a theater full of R H P S fans yelling idiot at Brent idiot. You went from British to Russian back to British Brent. A idiot, stupid idiot. So in 1983 the audience participation album comes out. Uh That's the one with the recording from the Waverly theater in New York. There's someone who posts a review, but apparently the audience participation isn't everyone's cup of tea. So Stephen Bruce writes H P S was a sheer delight as a film until it was destroyed by the audience participation to which Henry from the University of Toronto replies. Well, Mister Bruce, one person's meat is another's dioxin. There are certainly some of us who think that audience participation enhanced our enjoyment of the film. And please don't let's start another bout of discussion on whether this is good or bad smiley face. What the fuck is that some ultra nerd joke? So saying one person's meat is another's dioxin is basically a smart version of one man's trash is another man's treasure. Dioxin is a chemical compound that's found in meat and an overexposure of it creates like cho acne and like excessive body hair and like skin rashes and skin lesions. It was basically the biggest ultra nerd burn. Nice. Well, clearly things on the forums are getting heated when Elliott chimes in. Uh it has been the audience that has kept R H P S alive all these years. If it were not for the audience, Rocky would have gone in and out of the movie theaters, just like any ordinary movie. The movie itself is not that funny. It's the audience that makes me laugh. However, if you do not like the audience participation, try renting a V C R tape and seeing it at home that way. No one can spoil your movie and Jerry is having none of that. Oh, give me a break. Are you trying to teach your grandpappy how to suck eggs? One for a good many of us who have seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show many times over the course of like three or so years without the audience participation A P, the movie is a delight on all its lonesome. The A P is hardly essential. Maybe it's preferential to you but not for everyone. The A P was funny and enjoyable the first few times. But after a while it got very annoying. There are those of us who like the movie and would rather see it than the audience. I haven't seen the Rocky Horror picture show in oh, probably 5 to 6 years precisely because of the annoyance of the audience. The A P is not the be all and the end, all of the movie, the movie existed without it before. And it can do so. Again, two, it's debatable whether or not The Rocky Horror Picture Show would have become a cult film without the A P other cult films like Harold and Maude and King of Hearts to name Two certainly don't require A P. And it seems to me that the A P started after Rocky Horror Picture Show achieved cult status. Three. Rocky Horror Picture Show did indeed start out as a stage play but without A P, the movie was first released in 1975 and the A P didn't get into full swing until like 1979 or so three. As for renting a video tape, I wish I could. But contrary to popular belief, Rocky Horror Picture Show has not yet been released on tape in the US at least. And it's probably because 20th century Fox is afraid that it will cut into theater rentals. Thus, it's quite likely that the A P is preventing Steven and I from enjoying the movie in the privacy of our homes. This person has the smallest dick. I hate him so much. He's not actually wrong though. It was the movie running in theaters that stopped Fox from releasing it on V H S. Yeah, but A P is good and he's just a little baby back, bitch. You could tell Jerry. I said that we weren't going to say that we were going to talk about our political opinions here and not to get political but Jerry, you're a baby back, bitch. No, but thankfully thankfully, Elliott shoots back. If there were ever something bored of it would be seen a Rocky Horror 70 plus times without the audience participation As for not being able to rent the movie. Well, life sucks. And then you die. If you really miss Rocky Horror, get the film, find a friend in England or something. However, contrary to your beliefs, many people will go to the movie for the audience participation and probably would not go without it. And then a real heavy hitter enters the conversation identifying himself as none other than Franken Furter, real name. Alex. Actually, it was a stage play first, presumably with audience participation. Perhaps you're in the wrong generation to enjoy the sheer brilliance of R H P S Happy Face, which would not be the same without audience participation. It is essential to the whole ethos to have participation. So this essentially shuts down a lot of the conversation and the Flame War kind of peters out but not before a couple interesting side notes come up. So Hank writes him with an interesting telling of some of the original audience participation bits from the original London run of the show. Yeah, these are actually kind of fascinating because while they've been kind of documented before, we don't have an exact first hand witness from the audience's perspective. So these are cool. He writes, I believe the play ran in London for eight years. As long as Jesus Christ superstar ran there closing at the comedy theater in September of 1980. That's correct. A few audience participation bits that he writes that he liked the ghouls wandered around the audience before the play began and came up behind the ODDD patron to scare them silly. Some people in the audience tried insulting the narrator. He dropped out of the text but not out of character long enough to insult them beautifully and then continued with the play. After Rocky's arrival, he showed off his muscles to the audience and let someone in the first row or two. There was a short runway which extended into the first three rows of seats, squeeze his bicep. When they did, he falls over and whines in pain. And when Frank sings, I'm going home, he sits on the edge of the runway and reaches out his hand to someone in the audience. During one performance, the patron refused to take it after being refused by that person a second time. And while singing all of the while he tried someone on the other side of the catwalk, that person took his hand. Frank kept on with the song, smiling at the person holding his hand and occasionally turning to give a dirty look at the one who refused the audience loved it at the last performance in London. He says a friend of mine attended things got rather more out of hand when Brad was divested of his clothing and given the lab coat to wear, he discovered that someone had sewn the sleeves shut. Somehow he managed to keep going. What? And then Steve writes a shadow cast review of Boston. I recently saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Harvard Square Theater in Cambridge Massachusetts with the Boston Rocky Horror players. I don't have to add performing simultaneously. There was as is expected audience participation. I did not find the audience participation to interfere with the movie much at all. Only the scenes with the criminologist were inaudible under the remarks about his having no fucking neck. In most cases, the A P occurred during repetitive moments and the film could be heard as well. Also the A P changes are, for example, as the camera panned across the Transylvanian Conventioneers watching Frank and Feta creating Rocky. Someone called out we are the world. This must be a recent edition. The unprepared person could however be upset over the showers of rice, the toilet paper and the squat guns. To those I suggest sitting off to the side, the showoffs all seem to be in the center. It is, I suppose also possible that someone could be upset over the fact that many comments are obscene but they would despise the movie too. I will leave out any review of the movie or the locals acting out the movie in full costume. I do feel that the audience participation does not hurt the movie and may improve it. Isn't it fun? Calling Brad an asshole. So don't dream it. See it, Steve cough. I really wish I read that before. I decided to do that fucking voice for that. I, I just fucking astral projected. Oh P Jimmy's mom is thick and has a dumb truck ass. Oh oh God damn it. Oh And with that, I think we can bring the eighties to a close. The online discussion list became a lot more common and diversified and the conversations about Rocky Horror started shifting to other groups. So while this list continues to go on with general science fiction discussion, it's relatively sparse for rocky content and becomes pretty much barren by the late eighties and early nineties. At that point, we have the beginning of the news groups where we get a lot of the historical conversations within the community all the way up through the early two thousands. So to put a cap on this whole audience participation debate, there's an announcement for Alcon 88 that's a science fiction convention. It goes. Alcon will have the full program and facilities expected of a large national convention including over a dozen science fiction films, talks and panels. A book, auction, art show and the Rocky Horror Picture show with and without audience participation. I don't think anyone in the community thinks of Rocky without the participation. At least not in the last 20 years or so. But you have to remember that a lot of people are experiencing Rocky right now at drive in shows and online streaming shows where audience participation is minimal or even nonexistent. I wonder if we'll see eerily similar threads over the next few years as people who first saw Rocky in one of these nontraditional ways first gets to see a live shadow cast. Well, this has certainly been a very interesting slice of history. I can see why they call these mailing lists like the forerunners to modern social media. Like you can kind of see the same things on Facebook today. Fun fact, these lists are also credited with the invention of the first emoticon, like the smiley face. Oh, shit. Well, how about that? Ew. Well, that's it for today. Everybody. But before you go, we just want to thank everyone who wrote us this week. Please keep it coming. We love hearing from all of you except you sins. If you're enjoying the show and want to help us spread the word about it, please take a moment to rate review and subscribe on itunes. It helps make our show more visible to others, which is a big help for us. We love you guys and we really appreciate all of your support. We're on Facebook, Instagram and tiktok, all at Rocky Talkie Podcast. So if you liked us, please go check us out. We're performers. We thrive off of your validation and please come right to us. No, we want to hear about all the cool rocky stuff that you and your cast are working on. We want to share it on our show too. So if you're working on a Rocky related project that you're excited about or if your cast is doing a show and you want to spread the word. Go to our website rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to share with us. We cannot wait to hear from you. We'll see you guys next Thursday. Bye. See you. No. Hell yeah. Oh Wait. All right, everyone. That's our show. Good, good show. Some people I hate you. Oh My God. Stop being itchy. What is this now, John, give me some jerk off instructions to the tune of the B movie. How did you know that J O I stood for jerk off instructions. I mean, who doesn't? Yeah, I guess, I guess we're in different. I was like, what's a joy? Our porn hub is in a different algorithm. John give me some joy. Um So is Aaron supposed to say this or are you or is this you meg asking me to do that? Put your whole fist inside of your ass and thank you to Angelica for writing in. Hold on after y'all. No, I recently saw the Rocky Horror Picture show at the squat theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which took such a long. How do I say that? Harvard Square? Oh Harvard, ok. Oh God, I'm doing fucking Carl weezer. But as a fucking Boston. Yeah. Good luck God. Get me. Some of them Rocky Horror. I really don't want to do this anymore. It takes so much effort these days to produce a smile. The amount of bones that are needed to do. This is too damn high. I'm out of bones. I have lost all bones. I'm a boneless woman and.