Hello to all of you, unconventional conventions. Welcome back to Rocky Talkie. It's a Rocky horror podcast that talks about anything and everything Rocky horror related. I'm John and I'm Aaron and joining us on air this week, we've got Tori from the test rock players of Boston, the full body cast and the R K O Army. Hi, Tori. Hey, what's going on? Hello. So, Tori, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your time with the Rocky community? I would love to. So, hi, everybody. I'm Tori. I am a complete stage who, as you can hear since I'm part of three cast. Uh I am, I am the creative director at the Test Rock Players and I perform regularly with F BC and R K O. Uh whenever I get a chance to, I've been doing Rocky for about 11 or 12 years now. And yeah, I'm super excited to be on Rocky Talky. I listen every week because I am a creature of habit. So every Thursday I listen to rock talk and I can't believe I am here. Thank you guys for inviting me. Oh, that's really cute. We're famous, Aaron Yay. Tori. Thank you so much for joining us today. Truly, we're thrilled that you could be here with us. Now, before we get started with the show, we would like to take a moment and ask each other. How was your week? Did you guys do anything fun? No. Yeah. I, my life is pain and misery. What's so miserable this week, John, actually. No, this week is fine. Aside from the fact that I think I've gotten like maybe seven or eight hours of sleep throughout the entire span of the week. My sleep schedule is like royally fucked up. Harley and Arthur are here, which is fun. It has nothing to do. I mean, like it kind of has something to do with Rocky because they are guesting with us, but they just kind of came down to hang and it just so happened to be on a rocky weekend. So we're gonna go get some food and then we're gonna go get some food again. It's gonna be great. I'm, I'm really excited to, to see them and to actively get to hang out with Arthur because I feel like he and I always just cross paths but never actually intersect. So now I got him exactly where I want him. You're gonna get that quality time. I get it. What about you? What's going on with you? Oh, I mean, unfortunately, this week, all I've got to say is a bunch of rocky stuff. I mean, we had a bunch of rehearsals with some people taught, taught some brad majors, taught some Frank, taught some riff. That was as fun as it always is. Um But no, it's great. Uh Did a bunch of that. Um I had a lot of work this week. Uh There is some, some big stuff happening at work, so I was stuck glued to my computer for a good part of the week. Um Other than that though, you know, just, just excited to be here talking with you guys to what, what did you get up to this week? Uh I worked and then uh just like you guys, I have Rocky tonight. Uh Tonight, I'm playing Frankfurter at the full body cast, Saint Patrick's Day show. We absolutely love the Saint Patrick's Day show at F BC. It gets wild every year. Uh I'm so excited and I realize that's Rocky related but non Rocky, I actually just got my absolute favorite Polaroid camera back from being repaired. So I am so excited to start shooting with it and the people I sent it out to did an insane job restoring and replacing the very important things that were broken. So I'm excited to have that back to shoot. Oh, yeah, I saw the uh the post you made on social. It looked so pretty coming out of its box. It like I, I did that unboxing video, but it was my first time actually opening it. So uh, it was so gorgeous. I paid a little extra to get some clear housing on my flash unit because I am a sucker for any of the like seat through clear technology that early two thousands apple aesthetic. Absolutely. I couldn't say no. And I was already paying a pretty penny to have it fixed. So I figured, you know what's an extra $50? Very cool. All right, y'all. Now that, that's out of the way, how about we dive into our first segment of the show first up, get your noisemakers ready for a major Rocky milestone. Celebrated riffraff of the stage. Christian Lacomb has just hit 2000 performances of the Rocky Horror show. Christian is a Welsh actor and singer and has been performing in the Rocky Horror stage show since 2010. He attended college and trained at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art in New Zealand before getting his start originally playing Franken Furter. I mean, I've been performing since 1936 but yeah, sure. I guess 11 years in the game isn't too bad either. My dates might be slightly wrong there. Well, since then, Christian has performed in a multitude of Rocky stage shows most commonly is Riff Raff Richard o'brien has called his performance, quote, fantastically talented. Clearly, he has never seen me play Riff Raff, but that's neither here nor there. Christians got a pretty cury Rocky resume. He appeared in the 2010 international tour. He toured in Australia from 2014 to 2015, performed in UK S 40th anniversary tour and graced audiences in the South Africa tour just before the pan bread sent the world to shit. Now he's back at it again with the 2022 UK world tour where he hits this coolest fuck milestone in his rocky career. But that isn't all so apart from the Rocky Horror Show. That's right, Aaron, there's a world outside of Rocky Horror. Christian has had leading roles in over 30 professional stage productions. Some highlights from his equally girthy non rocky resume include Jesus and Jesus Christ superstar Bobby Strong in, you're in town and cripple, Billy in the cripple of Inish quite a diverse range. He's got there right? And as of March 15th, Christian has officially been in 2000 performances of the Rocky Horror Show. This includes six performances as the narrator, 43 as Franken Furter, 72 as Brad Majors and a whopping 1879 as everyone's favorite handyman riffraff. All right. What are y'all's character breakdowns? Look like. How many eddies have you had, Aaron? What about Riffs? Well, I'm gonna make up some numbers here because I, I, you know, when I very first started, I created a spreadsheet like this was like the first week I, I ever saw Rocky, I created a spreadsheet because I'm a fucking nerd and for like a good solid six months. I tracked every single show that I went to who I performed as, who I went with, like the size of the audience meg thinks it's really cute. But it's, uh, it's kind of a little sad but I, I dropped off tracking that. So, I don't know, I'd have to do some napkin math here. Let's see. So, we'll call it 15 years or so. There was a period for twice a week. I don't know. It's got to be in, in the mid hundreds or so on. Eddie and like Scott. Um, Riff's probably a few less than that. But I don't know. I mean, there's, it's, it's, it's a lot, it's a lot. I've done Frank twice. Uh, I've done everybody at least once but the vast majority is, is definitely gonna be Eddie Scott. Uh, and, and Riff, you haven't done me? Well, have to add it to my list of to dos. Yeah. What about you, Tori? What are your numbers looking like? Oh, man. I mean, I'm not gonna, uh, be able to figure out too many specifics, but in order of characters I've played the most, it probably goes frankfurter then Eddie, then probably Colombia who I haven't played in a long time. But there were, there was a couple years span where I was our casts, only Colombia. So I had to play Columbia every show. Uh, and then probably Magenta because I've only played Rocky once. Janet two or three times and then I still need to knock Brad and Riff off my list and then I'll be the hottest riff in town. So watch out John. Nice. What about you? Who, Janet? Damn it, Janet John. What character have you done the most? Do you think? It's, it's probably Brad regrettably. There, there was a time where I was Brad for like two years in a row, uh, every Friday and Saturday night, so most likely Brad is probably my most played character. Probably followed up by either Frank or Riff to be my number two. I started out playing Riff a lot. But then after I got added to playing Brad and Frank, we had a lot of Riff Raff. So I didn't really get to play him too much even though he is my favorite. So, um, in that order, probably Brad Frank Riff Rocky, I guess. No, Brad Frank Riff Trixie, I've done a lot of Trixie and then probably Rocky. I think the character that I performed the least of is probably Columbia because I just recently got like a full amazing screen accurate Columbia costume. Thanks Megan Aaron. I'm a, I'm a wedding consultant for hire and I take payment in screen accurate Rocky costumes if anybody would like to hire me. Yeah, it's a joke, but it's true. It is. Yeah. So that's probably my breakdown. And then like Eddie Magenta Janet Scott, they're all in some order. Kind of like in that lower echelon. But Brad is by far the character that I think I've played the most nice, well, keeping on brand with, uh, you know, going around the circle. In an interview on this record breaking milestone, Christian said I've had a reasonably varied career, but Rocky Horror has definitely been the theme of my working life as an actor. I've played a few different roles in the show, but Riff Raff was unexpectedly the perfect fit for me. Now, with 2000 performances of the show, I've performed with 14 different casts and I spent 18 months of my life rehearsing it full time. What many people find hard to grasp including myself is that my enjoyment and attitude towards working on on Rocky Horror has remained the same since the beginning. And like every Rocky Horror interview ever, the fans were given special attention with Christian saying I was a fan of the movie long before I was in the show. And I think Richard o'brien's performance as is absolute perfection. The Rocky Hurricanes have been very kind to me over the years and I think it's because they recognized that I'm also a fan of the show. And as a result, I treat their much loved characters with respect. He also talked about the growing sensation of becoming Riff Raff, which I'm sure some of us can relate to. He said, as I get ready for the show, I spend hours a day looking in the mirror as rath. I certainly don't look at myself that much. So I think my brain now recognizes him more than it does. Me. It's safe to say that he has become part of my identity. And I can't really remember life without him. He's reached old friend. Status. Riffraff is constantly evolving, but it's a little like aging. It occurs in such a way that I never notice it's happening. Jesus Christ. It's like he's turning it into Heather's Joker. Is that better or worse than? Yes. So when asked about the recent challenges with coming back to stage after the panda express, Christian responded, the Rocky Horror fans have been incredibly respectful since the tour started back in June. Traditionally Rocky Horror stage doors are a bustling hive of activity after the show. But throughout the last year, the avid Rocky Horror fans have stayed away to protect the performers and to keep the show running in the circumstances. We've been very thankful for that and they have definitely played a big part in Rocky Horror surviving and thriving this past year being on tour and performing eight shows a week during a pandemic has definitely been an experience. But aside from the obvious challenges, our audiences have continued to come along and show their support, it's also become obvious that we all now have a refreshed appreciation for what an important part, theater plays in all of our lives. That's about it for the interview. Don't forget for all of our friends across the pond. You can still catch Christian as well as all of his castmates like or a Duba as Brad Majors and Stephen Webb as Franken Furter and The Rocky Horror Stage show. Currently on tour across the UK, it's soon to play in Belfast Pool, Bromley Aberdeen, Wycombe, Swansea, Liverpool, Richmond, Bristol, South End Stoke on Trent Cambridge Glasgow, Northampton and Newcastle. Tickets are available via what's on stage. And as always, the link will be on our show notes, we wish the show and the cast all the best. And to Christian, here's to the next 2000 shows. Let's do the time warp again. Next up, one of our most beloved movie cast members and you know, Jacob picked this story. That's right. We're talking about Barry Bostwick. Yep. This past March 19th and 20th, Barry Bostwick and Sharon Glass starred in A R. Gurney's Love Letters at Lynn University in the Keith C and Elaine Johnson World Performing Arts Center from the Boca Observer. Love letters quote follows the friendship between rebellious Melissa Gardner and straight out Andrew make peace. LA the third through their notes, cards and letters from childhood to adulthood. Their friends share their hopes, dreams, disappointments and victories through their intimate missives. More than 50 years later, the pair wonder if their bond is more than friendship. Sharon is an American TV star who got her big break in 1975 through the eighties she starred as Cagney and Cagney and Lacey and more recently was on the Showtime series Queer as Folk and Burn Notice. She's also been nominated for 10 Emmys and seven Golden Globes. She won a Golden Globe in 1986 and Emmys in 1986 and 1987 for Cagney and Lacey as well as another Golden Globe in 91 for the Trials of Rosie o'neill. She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1995. So Barry's definitely punching up on this matchup. Oddly enough, this won't be Barry's first performance of Love Letters. Back in 2020 he performed it alongside Barbara Eden of I Dream of Jeannie for a touring production. So good on Barry for scoring both a sixties and seventies star to play opposite in Love Letters. All right. So who's he gonna get for the next production? That's from the nineties? Like what's the peak nineties star that could play Barry's will. They won't they crush? I don't know John. Who do you think? Hm. Nine star that could play Barry's will. They won't they co-star? How old is Barry right now? Google? Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Why can't I think of his last day? There it is, he is 77 77. Ok. Let's see. We're gonna Google. Famous women that are in their sixties. Let's see. No, no, no, not from the sixties. They gotta be a nineties star. Yeah. That's what I'm, I'm trying to. Oh, what about, uh, I mean, uh, ok, hear me out. Ok, a late eighties star, I think, but I think would probably murder this role. Ok? Are you all sitting down because you're going to stand up because this is going to blow your fucking mind? OK. Guney Weaver? Oh, well, that's a good one. Yeah. Like, like, I mean, like, yes, she's known for Ripley and Alien, which was like early eighties but like Alien went into the nineties. She was still really relevant then. Oh, yeah, I think we could wait. Is Weaver taller than Barry? Not that it matters. But like here, how tall is Barry Bostwick? Oh, no, just kidding. No, he's way taller. Ok. I didn't know that Barry was that tall? Yeah, he's 64. Yeah. And Seney Weaver is 5 11 again. Not that it matters. But, you know, the dynamic is there also in that relationship. Seney Weaver would totally be the top. Yeah. Something, something laying eggs. Oh, no. All right, Tori. Who do, who do you got for us? Who do you think could be Barry's nineties? Co-star? All right. I have two that I think could work. So first I'm gonna go with Meryl Streep. Oh, yes, he would be the bottom I get. Yes. Meryl Streep is big, top energy and then my second choice is Shelley Wong. Ok. Yeah, I could see that. I just always, he says he, who Shelley Wong. I, I just always think of true, Beverly Hills and like, I don't know, I, I think she'd be fun for Barry but, you know, not as dumb as Meryl, but he would still be the bottom. We're Barry Bostwick with a bunch of these just like older women and he's always the bottom. Barry. If you, if you listen to this, we're not sorry. You know, we're right. Speaking of him being in the bottom, I, I just want to see him play opposite Ellen. I think that that would be like the most Ellen degeneres. Oh, yeah, I ain't not that I want to give her work, but I think that that would just be like uh the most hateful interaction between the, you know, like will, they won't, they got, I hope they don't, you know, kind of thing. I hope they won't. I'm on the wrong side for, for that interpretation of love letters. Well, if you are listening to this and you are either a Barry Bostwick or B a community member, please write in and tell us who you ship Barry Bostwick with. You can find our contact on rocky talky podcast dot com. Wow, that was, that was a good little impro there. I want to see. I want Barry Boswick to write it. Well, for only $45 you can have him tell you, ok, I will go of you. I'll be like, who would you ship yourself with? He's gonna be like, what the fuck does that mean about my underwear? That's an additional $50. Well, best of luck, Barry, you go get yourself a nice nineties girl to write some love letters too. And with that, let's move on to our next segment. Come. Unity news. Come first up in community news. It seems like Jacob must really be missing Uncle Barry because we're doing another segment. Good old bear. Bear. Can't say I'm all torn up that we haven't had to cover the asshole for a hot minute. What about y'all? I always miss Uncle Barry. I never miss Uncle Barry because he's always with me in spirit. Anyway. Well, if you're not a total weirdo and would like some actual Uncle Barry Facetime, none of this spirit nonsense. We've got some great news assuming that you live in or around the law in Oklahoma area. Of course, that's right for one night and one night only our favorite asshole will be making an appearance at the Apache casino in Locken Oklahoma as part of his Rocky horror picture show. 47th anniversary spectacular tour on Friday May 13th at 7 30 PM. LA Rocky fans will be granted access to quote, see the original unedited movie with a live shadow cast and audience participation, plus a costume contest and more end quote. Oh, unedited you say, does that mean it'll have once in a while? I hear they even left in the Brad Riff but, well, if you're interested in catching up with Bear Bear seeing a, a fantastic performance by a fantastic shadow cast and possibly even seeing the Brad Riff. But Fox scene, you can get tickets to this spectacular tour stop at Apache casino hotel dot com. Tickets will run you between $20.40 dollars depending. Of course, on how close to Barry you actually want to be. Are they actually going to show the butt fuck scene? No. Are they actually going to play once in a while? Probably not. Now, does Barry know that he can say no to some of these tour stops? I, I, I, I don't know. Well, speaking of traveling to weird places for Rocky, did you all see that spicy hot tea that dropped in the winter hangout group this past week? Wait, there was spicy hot tea. Oh, yeah. A spicy hot pole. In fact, last Tuesday, Hank Johnson made a post to the group asking about everybody's availability for a Vegas trip. I'll see you next Tuesday. Am I right? Hey, it's your boy. Uh skinny penis. Goddamn it. So, Hank was involved with Rhode Island Rocky back in the eighties and nineties and now he does a lot of event planning for like conferences. He made a post to the winter hangout group a few weeks back, introducing himself and volunteering as tribute to lend his professional know how to put together a 2023 hangout in Vegas that's fun and affordable for our community. Also, we should note that his primary day job is teaching in public health at a university. So COVID safety would of course be on the forefront of his mind while putting this together. It looks like enough interest was piqued about the trip because last week, Hank made another post, letting us know that he's in the scouting and quality control phase of planning this hangout and offered up a poll to the community asking who would definitely probably probably not or not attend a Vegas hangout that would potentially take place from February 2nd through the fifth of next year. As of right now, his numbers are looking pretty good. He's got about 30 answers so far and it looks like most people are interested in taking the trip. Excellent. I didn't get a chance to make the last Vegas hangout. It looked like everybody had an absolute blast and I was kind of on the fence about it ultimately though. And like this is no shade whatsoever meant to anyone who helped plan the thing. What kind of pushed me off the fence was the fact that it wasn't held on, you know, the Las Vegas Strip proper. Like I haven't been to Vegas and I really feel like if I was gonna go spend all that money and make the trip, you know, I really wanted the full Vegas experience and I didn't really want to have to choose between staying on the strip and staying at the same hotel as you know, the rest of the hangout who I wanted to hang out with. So I'm really looking forward to this one though. Meg and I have both talked about making it out to Vegas like forever. I, I really hope that this one moves forward and is able to take place somewhere, you know, in the middle of the action. What about you guys? Do you think you'll make it out if it happens? I mean, what would you guys be looking for in a Vegas trip? Uh I mean, I probably won't just because I'm traveling like eight million times this year anyway and making a lot of large purchases this year. Um That's fair. That's fair. But if I were to be going, what I would be looking for in a Vegas trip is an evening that leads me to being stranded in the middle of the desert with my arms tied behind my back and a paper bag over my head halfway between Vegas and the bunny ranch. Yeah, exactly. That's, that sounds like a great Vegas trip for me. What about you, Tori? I would like to go out to Vegas for the winter hangout. Uh Like you ain, I haven't really been out to Vegas and been able to enjoy it the last time I was there, it was for a music festival and I was there for the music festival. I was gone. I didn't get to experience anything. So anything that's kind of quintessential Vegas. But you know, it doesn't have to be like the most insane things, you know, something that's still affordable for everybody. And I mean, John, if you want to be found out like in the middle of the desert, why don't we just have like Rocky horror burning, man. I'm game. Let's do it fucking. All right. What is a good Vegas trip for you then? Aaron Hookers and Black Jack? Ok. But you can do that in the middle of the desert at Rocky Horr burning, man. I mean, I can do that at the casino out in like I'll see you there, right? No. Um Yeah, I mean that, that's really it like when I go somewhere like and this is like for any kind of rocky thing, I always just love to make sure to get to go do the stuff that's around, you know, that you can only do there. So yes, I'd want to go to all the big casinos. I'd wanna, you know, ride the stupid touristy rides that they've got mega would not allow me to go to Vegas without a trip to the bunny ranch. So that would certainly have to happen. Uh That would probably be really awkward but you know, I'd, I'd wash it down with a healthy dose of liquor and cocaine back in uh Las Vegas and you know, it sounds like a party. I just, I just want a party. That's all it really is. Oh. Right. Meg. Really wants us to get Vegas married. So, we'd have to also do that. Does that mean that you would have to be unmarried and then remarried? Oh, no, they'll do it as a second. I mean, they'll take your money for anything. Right. It's Las Vegas. Is everybody gonna be in costume? Oh, there's this place actually that does like themed weddings. Uh, and like they usually do it with like the Elvis and persona stuff. One of their packages is actually to have Rocky Horror themed where like Frank marries you as the minister and like the, the flower girl and stuff is dressed in like Columbia costumes. Like, don't tell them, but I mean, they're clearly bag costumes. So, I mean, I, oh, that's cute though. Yeah, it's actually super cute. It uh Meg and I might have looked at that before. We eventually decided to just go get married at Oakley Court instead. So it was definitely on our list and like that would be one of the things we'd have to go do in Vegas. So from all of us here, we certainly hope that all of Hank's planning comes to fruition and we're able to lose a bunch of money at craps with all of our lovely listeners sometime next winter craps. And speaking of spending a bunch of money on Rocky, we just talked about some spicy hot tea. And now we're gonna talk about a spicy hot tea, a tea shirt that is, I fucking hate you. You can't say anything that would hurt my feelings. I went to Catholic school, Aaron do better and prides itself on being the most nefarious limited edition t-shirt site on the internet every Monday. They feature a new collection of spooky designs from different cult movies and fandoms. How long the designs remain on sale? Depends on their popularity. But once the run ends, it's done, Finito Gonzo forever. So plus at midnight when the darkness swallows the previous day, the site will puffer forth one brand new featured shirt bathed in the ominous glow of the moon with it. A new timer will begin counting down destroying all traces of the design once it reaches zero. Oh my. Sorry about that guys. You're getting old buddy. Yeah. Well, almost forever. The site keeps a gallery of its past shirts and they let customers know that if they see a design, they simply cannot function without, you can get in touch with them and they can probably make it happen for a fee. Of course, this site is pretty great. They've got lots of really cool designs featured right now. Like Donny Darko Little Shop of Horrors House of 1000 Corpses. Oh and Rocky. Of course, there's this one T shirt they have that. It's, it says visit the castle of Franken Furter and do the time warp again and it's in this gorgeous purple and red and it's reminiscent of those postcards that are out there, you know, like Visit Las Vegas, Nevada and it's the curved bold font and then there's a character in each letter and there's the hot Janet naked statue on the side with the castle and freaking furter with ax. I definitely think I want the shirt. Yeah, I didn't even realize that that's what it was cribbing off of like that totally is what it is. It's, it's literally like the the visit Niagara Falls, you know, postcard thing. I love it. So all T villain shirts are offered in a pretty wide range of sizes from extra small all the way up to five X as well as a robust variety of styles including long sleeve tank tops and even some button downs, Aaron. Yes. Did you buy a rocky button down? I I I might have, do you need more button downs? Well, kind of, do you need more rocky shirts? Well, kind of young man. I work very hard to put food on the table for this family. Yes, sir. Well, if you need a new rocky shirt, definitely check out this design on T villain. It's super cute. It's got a naked lady on it and because it's limited edition, you're almost sure to not have any awkward run ins at a convention where you and someone else are trying to rock the same t-shirt and one of you has to go back upstairs and change. Or maybe you will meet someone with the same super exclusive shirt and scream. Oh my God, twining at each other and take a million selfies together. Then you've got yourself a best friend for life. I mean, this just sounds like a win win to me. So, head on over to T villa dot com to check it out and maybe find yourself a best friend. We'll link that for you in our show notes. We got you. And with that, I think it's time for tax snack. Yep. Tory asks a question. I know how this bit goes. Now, did you learn to read? No, we've just done this 68 times. I think I figured out the formula by now. I am just so honored to be your 69th snack. It's delicious. You're delicious. Thank you for letting us have you, John Phrasing. I said what I said. Yeah, nice. So, ok, you guys certainly remember about six months ago. There was a little thing called the Test Vacation convention. Never heard of it. That's, that's a shame John, you were in it. You should probably see a doctor that tracks. And one of the panels for that con was about using skills from Rocky Horror in real life. And if anybody wants to see these, we do have recordings we can share, but we had incredible people talking on the panel like we had Ruth Winter and we had mix Universe and from the J C C P and myself and Harley was on it as well. It was our last one of the weekend and we had the most and I, I went into the panel thinking it would go one way and all of the information that people had to share about the different skills from Rocky in their life was really eye opening. But the biggest takeaway from the panel was that if you're looking to learn a skill, no matter what it is, someone out there in the community is most definitely an expert. Be it sewing or art or underwater basket weaving or Milk Polaroid. Yeah. Milk Polaroid Me Daddy. I love that panel. Like I, I thought there were some really great insights from the community there. So today I'd love to talk about what I do. You know, when I'm not running around in fish nuts and heels or organizing a convention or running a cast or directing other shadow casts or I, I do a lot of Rocky said do do. But when I'm not doing all of those things, I am a professional photographer. And for the past seven years now I have worked with this great New England company called Newbury Comics. And I started off as a photographer for them when they first hired me. And now I have kind of turned into the self proclaimed marketing wizard where I send out newsletters and I run social media and just kind of do all of our communicating with our customers. Uh, Erin, I'm sure you're familiar with. We've done, we've done a number of vinyl pressings of the Rocky Horror picture Show album on clear and color splattered vinyl over the last few years. Oh, yes. I absolutely picked up a few of those. I used to have this whole wall of Rocky records in our house back before we moved back to the city and the Newberry Records were just some of my favorite ones to put up there. So a lot of my job involves marketing and let me tell you, marketing now is so different from marketing throughout the history of Rocky Horror. So let's talk about that. Rocky is pretty much the quintessential example of viral marketing before anyone even coined the phrase and it did it all without the huge reach that the internet provides. I mean, it's so true. You know where we're gonna start back at the original Rocky Horror stage show? Oh, I love this part. Shut up John, or we'll talk about shock treatment and fan of the Paradise. I have a feeling we're going to talk about those both anyway, but I can't get a break. All right. Where are we going? The theater upstairs? The Chelsea Classic, The King's Road. Which of the original originals is where they really started to promote the original stage show originally. Well, originally, it, it's definitely the Chelsea classic. Uh that's where the production team realized they had a hit and they just started promoting the crap out of the stage show. So the classic for anyone out there that doesn't know was the second theater that Rocky was performed in. It transferred there in August of 1973. The stage show had only been at the theater upstairs for two months during its initial run and it would again move to the King's Road theater three months later as the Classic had been scheduled for demolition in Rayner Burton's the Rocky Horror Show. As I remember it, he recalls the opening night at the Classic. Arriving back at the Classic for the performance, I was amazed to see two World War two arc lights positioned across the road crisscrossing their extremely bright beams of light into the sky and a red carpet stretching from the curb into the foyer, either side of which were two gorgeous blonde model girls. They were dressed in extremely short white flimsy skirts and tops, wearing blue pillar box hats and light blue jackets giving them the appearance of fifties. American candy box. This was a deliberate attempt by the market people to give the impression. A major film premiere was just about to take place. Fun fact later that night, as the after party for opening night, wound down, Michael White had been cheap. So they held it in the theater. Rayner remembered spotting one of the candy girls from the front of the house, sitting alone in the stalls, smiling at him. He recalled, I just had to go over and chat with her. She was welcoming and looked very sexy. I thought I was so cool in my approach to chatting her up. When out of the blue, she asked, were you nervous tonight? No, that's my character Rocky. He's nervous. He's just been born. I know that, but you looked nervous momentarily. She had deflated my ego, dented my confidence and burst my bubble. But then she leaned forward and just before kissing me full on the lips, whispered, never mind. You can take me home if you'd like. Nice. So, uh, so did he take her home? No, they actually went to her place. Nice. And the next morning they were awoken by one of her fabulously gay roommates bursting into the bedroom to tell her that she had missed the orgy the night before I had a nickel for every gay orgy that I've missed after that opening night. And apparently the night some random dude had a huge orgy. Rocky was the hottest ticket in town. The two are not related. I disagree, but the show was so hot that everyone who worked on the West End was clamoring to get tickets. They obviously couldn't go to the regular performances working their own shows. So the producers scheduled a special midnight matinee exclusive for the West End community. They knew that an exclusive celebrity filled event would amplify the already substantial buzz around the show. Rayner recalled that everyone from leading artists to understudies were there. Two of the biggest stars in attendance were Angela Lansbury and Lauren Bacall. Two huge Hollywood stars Lauren. Of course, the widow of Humphrey Bogart, both were in town appearing in west end shows and attended the first midnight Rocky Horror matinee. It was so successful that they scheduled a second midnight matinee This time, the box office vetted the celeb purchasers attempting to verify that they were only sold to people who had not seen the show before to call that marketing success would be an understatement, but it's not exactly all that hard to promote a hit. Just get the hottest stars on the West end and have them show up at your critically acclaimed production. Have everyone write amazing reviews, release a sold out cast recording album. It's so simple. Why don't we all just do that right? But for as successful as the stage show was, oh, the movie was a whole different matter. It was really clear from the get go that Fox had no idea what to do with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Film executives had already been wary. In 1974 Fox had released Phantom of the Paradise. A film that appeared to ooze with cult appeal but failed to produce results. Reportedly, the senior management at Fox had even tried to stop production of the film but Jim Sharman was committed to push the movie over the finish line even though it was already a quarter million dollars over budget. And when they did release, Rocky, Fox promoted it with a mismatch of indecisive marketing materials. There was the press kit that was published but it was basically the industry standard with accompanying photos, background information, the logo, nothing unusual. There critics were baffled by the film. It made little sense that Fox had tried to release Rocky as a mass market movie. When many thought it would have been a shoo in for the late night b movie midnight circuit. And speaking of bees, what was even more baffling was the be style movie poster. Yes, this is the yellow one with Frank on the throne and the kick line of fishnets with the he is the hero. Yes, the hero slogan. Completely out of touch with the film. And as we all know, Rocky flopped on release pretty much everywhere except a handful of locations, particularly like L A. After the failed launch, Fox temporarily tried to run Rocky on the drive in movie circuit as a double feature with Phantom of the Paradise, which like good idea but nobody was going to see Phantom anyway, everyone knows. The main reason you go to a drive in is to watch some quality films. That's why I go. It wasn't until Rocky was brought to the midnight movie circuit that Fox found its marketing footing. You have the different set of Jaws lip poster spoofing on Spielberg's Summer Blockbuster. The official film trailer also leaned into Rocky's weird side. It featured the lips telling audiences that you've seen all kinds of movies, but you've never seen anything like the Rocky Horror picture show. It had the time warp. It used the different set of Jaws slogan. It sounded weird. It looked weird and it oozed Rocky. I'm really excited for Tim Deacon's book. If it lives up to my expectations, I'm guessing we're gonna find out a lot more details about this whole period, the internal studio conversations and maybe even what other crazy ideas the studio had considered before bringing Rocky to the Midnight circuit and Fox now found itself in that inevitable position of getting to promote a hit or at least an underground hit, which is probably even better though Rocky still wasn't invincible. The failed 1975 Broadway show for among many other reasons, failed because it promised too much with its marketing. Lou Adler took out a full page ad in the New York Times saying give our regards to Broadway and tell them we're on our way. Rocky. It also boasted that the show was acclaimed on two continents, which if you've ever met a professional Broadway critic, which I have not, I assume that they would just put on their sensible shoes and declare challenge accepted with Broadway, a flop. The movie, not yet a sensation and the original stage show long since having rotated cast members, a lot of the original actors found themselves able to branch out beyond Rocky, but like with any hit, they couldn't quite escape Rocky's orbit. Tim Curry released his first solo album in 1978. Read My lips was an obviously nod to Rocky with the back cover even featuring Tim on a background that totally isn't Frank's lab coat on tour. Tim often concluded performances with a live version of I'm going home if you got it, use it, you know, speaking of slow Gin, one of the songs on Read My Lips has a course where Tim repeats the phrase, I'm so fucking lonely over and over which hilariously allowed the record company's marketing department to put a warning sticker on the album's front cover that said Dear Programmer, the songs slow Gin and Alan each contain one of the seven dirty words and are not suitable for airplay, which is just a wonderful bit of foreshadowing for the parental advisory stickers that adorned records, cassettes and C DS after the Ria A made them compulsory in 1985. Shit piss, fuck cock sucker, motherfucker and tits. Nice. And if you are blink 1 82 fart, Turd and nice. Goddamn it, John, what it said? There were seven, I didn't go see what the other six were just like one of those parental advisory things on this episode or don't because it's a podcast and no God can censor me. OK. So while John sits in potty mouth, time out Tori, let's talk about that. Give us some eyes into that process. If you're promoting a mass market rocky product, something like the new comic soundtrack release, something like a Tim album, what are you looking to do to appeal to both the community and to the wider non cult obsessed audience? I mean, if Tim curry says fuck, I guess it sells but like we can't all be that lucky. We're all lucky. Sorry, I, I couldn't leave. No, that's fair. That's fair. That's fine. Can we get, uh can we just get shadow or on the call? But anyway, when you're promoting a mass market product, it has to be something that kind of already has a similar cult following. So like with the Newbury Comics vinyl releases, you know, we press those in different colors and they're in limited editions and there's already a huge vinyl community out there, which is just as wild as the Rocky community because I'll go on the Reddit forms at work to see. You know, people are upset that something sold out too fast or the, you know Reddit boards are wild. But the key is to make something that's Rocky that appeals to, you know, the larger audience. But you know, you, so you get people that are invested in those other items, but you're also getting the Rocky Horror community by default because it's Rocky, you know, makes sense. Yeah, totally. But there's always some unexpected angle you can find to promote something. Just look at stuff like the pet rock or my Little Pony or, I don't know if you guys get these sponsored ads, but I get croc sponsored ads for additions that are like lucky charms or, uh, there was a pair of like, K F C Crocs that have like a literal fried chicken thing on top of it. Like if there's a, if there's a brand out there and you can like slap a license on it, you know, why not? I would much rather get those targeted ads. The only targeted ads that I get are ads for like mattresses and blankets and rugs that show women's bare feet in them. And then all the comments are just people in all caps saying feet located, you guys don't get them diabetes ads. I don't have a foot fetish. We're not. And it's like if you're listening to this and you have a foot fetish, I'm not, I'm not kink shaming you at all. Like rock on. It's just not my thing. But we, if you want, we can switch targeted ads just hit me up. Uh You can find me on Instagram at Hi John, I'm Dad. J O N. I really don't want my targeted ads anymore. There's too much feet. Is there like some kind of branded object that you guys would absolutely like have to buy? No matter how ridiculous it was if it was Rocky related, like, Crocs or something, like, like, would you wear Rocky Horror Crocs if they had, like, little lip glit and like, or something? And, like, have a fish net pattern on them? I mean, I'll wear Crocs regardless. That don't bother me. I'm fine with that. Yeah. And I'm, I'm one of those guys that'll buy almost anything if it's cute and it's got something related to Rocky on it. I mean, I, I skip out on a lot of like the socks and, you know, the, the, that kind of stuff, although I think I did just buy a pair of Rocky socks recently. Yeah. No. Yeah, you could put the lips on anything and I'll just buy it. I think one of the like better examples of more recent Rocky marketing to the mass market was that Matte Cosmetics line that they did a couple of years ago, you know, because, oh, yeah, people there's already the huge makeup community and us folks in Rocky Horror need a lot of makeup. So, like you said, if there's a pair of lips on it, you know, we're gonna buy it. So that's another example of like, it's another example of a product that appeals to the greater community, but it definitely gets the Rocky community. Oh, yeah. I mean, just a couple of weeks we did that Snag Tights, did that line of Rocky Tights and fish nets and stuff and like knowing that they specifically had the community in mind definitely sent me over the edge to go buy a couple of those like that. That was great branding on their part. Yeah, I absolutely bought a couple pairs and I am waiting for mine to come in. Uh, but when you have something that sells itself, it certainly becomes a lot less complex to market. And I mean, that was kind of what led to the out of control monster that the stage show became in the eighties through into the nineties. The interactive nature made it just so much easier to self promote, but it definitely kind of led to feeding into its own self image. It became a campier party piece. The audience was rowdy. The show's narrator was often played by an inexperienced seedless celebrity that had very little acting chops. And at the end, the actors just kind of struggled to keep control of the whole show. But if you were promoting, Rocky Boy was 1980 a good year because that's when fame came out and boy did fame make Rocky look fucking awesome. Nice. Oh, yeah, just get your show featured in a big budget Hollywood movie. It's so simple. And I mean, with the success of the stage show and the movie on a meteor rise in the pop culture consciousness, Fox had everything they needed when they produced shock treatment. Just a year later, an already captivated audience of diehard fans, several of the original cast members, the director, art designer, the composer from Rocky and yet and yet they made shock treatment. And when they went to promote shock treatment, they really marketed it heavily to the Rocky community. There was a TV special, the Rocky horror treatment hosted by Sapiro with a behind the scenes look at the film and as a love letter to the fan community, Fox also partnered to do a number of fan collectibles. These are things like posters and fliers and buttons and bumper stickers. You guys might know that creepy cereal box style like paper mask with Richard's head. But overall, they were just really hoping to appeal to the Rocky Horror fan community. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the original studio notes for the Rocky Horror shows his heels. These notes in the film cover of the unfinished sequel where Richard had originally written several of the songs that ended up in shock treatment and these include breaking out little black dress looking for trade and I want to be an ace in shock treatment, looking at an ace which I would know if I'd ever seen it. The studio executive revealing the Rocky horror shows his heels draft summarized the piece with this. There is a modest but loyal audience for this film and the first draft shows enough promise the little Polish as yet to make the project worth pursuing. Rocky Horror shows his heels of course was never made but morphed instead into shock treatment through several rewrites and honestly, just a bunch of production challenges. Shock treatment was given a limited general release. And in their attempt to set fans expectations, the famous, it's not a sequel, not a prequel, but an equal campaign really pushed the narrative that Fox still wanted to manufacture another cult hit. Not to mention it's fucking shock treatment. Go sit back in time out with a horse and your mother up my with a colander and shock treatment would eventually find limited success. A subset of the Rocky community really embraced the film, several regular shadow cast performed throughout the eighties and the movie still makes an appearance at every convention and plenty of performances crop up several times a year. The real failure, at least from a marketing perspective was in hoping that Rocky fans might expand their midnight shenanigans at the will of the studio marketing department that flies directly in the face of Rocky's entire rock and roll attitude. But don't think that that has stopped studios from trying to manufacture cult films long after Rocky and Shocky. I mean, Rio is probably the most successful. The original promotion for that film really tried to play into the shadow casting angle with a repo road tour on its initial release featuring the cast and the crew. At least that one caught on not like Rocky, but better than a lot of the others. There are several repo casts around the country and the community even performs it in most conventions. But even as recently as 2017, we've had studios try to do cult tie ins for upcoming releases. Our old theater in New York ran trailers before Rocky for Anna and the Apocalypse back when it was getting released, that one didn't get any traction. So, Tori I'm curious about this one over at test React. Do you guys do a lot of non rocky shows? What do you find works when promoting shows that yeah, Rocky people are interested in but could also have a much broader appeal. So when it comes to promoting the non rocky shows, I think it's definitely important that, you know, you promote your flyers and you make sure the audience knows when they can see the show. But it's helpful to include kind of like a movie trailer for the show that they're about to see, you know, at we of course, do Rocky, but we also do Buffy once more with feeling and doctor horrible pretty regularly. We've also done the Princess Bride for a number of years, which is pretty fun. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of roles. But the show, what we were able to do with it, it turned into a really great interactive experience like how we went about them, like you know how the Princess Bride opens and it's the grandfather reading to the son. So we cast the grandpa and then they treat the audience like the grandson and we'll do a lot of like breaking the fourth wall where every time the kid interrupts the story, you know, the actors on stage kind of like, like what the fuck man, or what the heck, you know, when you're approaching a new show that isn't rocky, if it's especially one that no one's done, you can kind of do whatever you want with it. But aside from those, we also did a run of grief once, which I personally wasn't involved with. But we also did The Nightmare before Christmas a couple of times, which was a lot of fun. So when it comes to stuff like that for The Nightmare before Christmas, you know, we did those shows in December. So I, I think we only did them two years, but they were always December shows or we did them one of our regular conventions called, which happens every January and is also where we do Buffy and Doctor Horrible and all of our extra shows. So promoting to that audience for us is pretty easy because the audience loves and they love Rocky and our shows are always full. But when it comes to doing those shows in other locations where we don't have the people who know what's about to happen if you do them in places like bars or something where you can, especially with Buffy and Doctor Horrible where it's only a 45 minute show that's really appealing because, you know, it's only an hour at a bar or something. You know, you can just kind of watch it and then go back to drinking and doing stuff, like, was approached over the summer and we unfortunately had to decline it. But someone wanted to do Princess Bride at this gorgeous castle that was literally on a hill with like the ocean underneath. So, I mean, yeah, those, those are great tips. Yeah, you know, find, find the audience, find, find the venue, make it something unique, all that stuff. Yeah, like um kind of how have you guys seen, you can watch Jaws like in the water some place in Texas, like if you can kind of create that kind of like more of a unique experience. I think that definitely also helps draw people into the non rocky shows. But at the end of the day, just like with Tim before and shock treatment, you can't really ignore the fact that a lot of your audience is going to overlap with Rocky horror fans. And the state show certainly acknowledged that just advertising to the already enfranchised crowd wasn't enough. It has rebranded itself multiple times over the years with varying degrees of success from the 1990 West end revival. It was decided that Michael English's instantly recognizable Columbia Head logo would be retired in favor of a fresh promotional campaign featuring pop art, comic images of the main characters and along with the new look was a new name, Richard o'brien's Rocky Horror Show which certainly upset a lot of the collaborators on the original stage show, including designer Brian Thompson, who famously commented on the new title, Richard o'brien's Rocky Horror Show. Give me a break. In 1992 the Australian production rebranded as the new Rocky Horror show. There was a bit of an ironic counterpoint to the branding of the 1980 us tour that build the show as the original Rocky Horror Show in 2000. For the Broadway revival, the marketing uniquely embraced the film's cult following a smart move considering the movie had always been more popular than the stage show in the States. Press ads teased audiences with slogans like you're all verin to us and you haven't seen it until you've seen it live across the pond in 2003. For the stage show's 30th anniversary. The show was billed as an over the top party. They had a nightclub sponsorship and they took full advantage resulting in the tour feeling a lot more like the eighties incarnation, more than the modern takes that walk the line between being a big budget musical yet still embracing audience participation. And it's around that era, the early to mid 2000 s that the methods of marketing, Rocky start to look a lot more like what we're familiar with today, lots of social media, lots of pictures and video constant engagement and so on. I always look to the 2016 remake as a great example of how Fox thinks when they aggressively market Rocky Horror. They had TV, tie ins and tons of videos on social media about the costumes and interviews with the actors. Mick Rock was on set to photograph the whole thing. They even sent out prop kits and had a big Hollywood premiere. If we want a preview of what the 50th has in store, I'd take a good look at the attention that the remake received from Fox. Well, that got dark. I mean, honestly, I don't think so. I would contend that Fox didn't do all that bad with the remake. At least not from a marketing perspective. They got a massive audience, they got a lot of press and they got a ton of community involvement. Well, at least up until we all watched the thing. But at that point, I mean, the marketing folks had done their job. What do you think Tori, what's your favorite official Rocky promotion could be old? Could be new stage show, movie, whatever. What is your favorite bit of Rocky propaganda? I'd have to say my favorite bit of Rocky propaganda. You know, I think would be kind of what you guys talked about on last week's episode with Harley, the iconic Columbia rebranding that they did because, you know, it's so iconic and no matter what language it's in or promoted, like if you see a Rocky horror poster with that Columbia face on it, you know exactly what that poster says without having to understand the language that's on it. That's a great example. Yeah. As far as like other, more like tangible promotions, whatever anniversary it was where you got the DVD, like with the gloves and the little like shit bag. I thought that was a super cute way to, you know, introduce the rest of the world that doesn't necessarily understand or know what goes on at a show. Like, hey, here's all this stuff and then you're sitting at home and you're like, why do I have a pair of pink gloves and you know, do I have to wash this or some? I don't know. Yeah, I, I think, I think the first time they did that was like a V H S release where they bundled it and it was really weird if you'd never, if you had no idea, you're just like, there's a little bag of rice in with my cassette. What's happened? Do I cook it? Do I like, oh God, you know, somebody did, right? Somebody in their house just was like, oh, well, I cooked some rice. It came with my Rocky horror video. OK. But what if someone came to a show to throw cooked rice instead of dry rice that has never happened to me. But it has to, it has to slushy. No balls of rice. No. And then they explode. Uh Well, John. John Fair's Fair. Can you even name a single Rocky marketing campaign? Well, that's not very nice sitting here acting like, I don't know anything about Rocky. I mean, you're right. But damn no, I think one of my favorite Rocky marketing campaigns schemes designs is because here I really like minimalistic designs, which is funny because every single time I play like any video game that has any level of design, I have to maximize it because I, I have to fill everything, you know, but I think my favorite design that I think has ever come out through just Rocky is one of the older posters for the movie and it's just the lips, it says the Rocky Horror picture show and then the bottom, it says a different set of jaws. I love that tagline so much and I wish that they ran with it more because it's short. It's catchy, it nails exactly what Rocky is about. It's provocative like, but it doesn't give so much away that, you know, exactly what the experience is going to be. I love it. I absolutely love it. It is one of my favorite pieces of advertising that I think I have ever seen. I'm there with you because, you know, everybody recognizes that poster, everybody knows it. I think I've even read somewhere that Lou Adler is actually credited with the one coming up with that specific slogan, which is just all Right. Good job. Lou. Uh But I mean, it just hit at such a right time, right? Like it, they started using it in 1975. That was the year that Jaws came out. It was already a huge blockbuster. Like it was, it's such a good tagline. All right. And now I'm sure that Aaron has some obscure, stupid bullshit. So, go on. OK. Yes, this is obscure, stupid bullshit. But I think one of my favorite, like marketing tie ins that they ever did was um had to have been about 10 or 15 years ago. Uh They did a tie in with Budweiser and they had all of these flag banners, you know, that they sent around to all of these grocery stores and you would just go to the grocery store and there the, there'd be the big tower of Budweiser, you know, uh uh cans and it would just be completely Rocky branded all over. It. Was it a great campaign? I don't know, but like, it certainly put Rocky in front of a bunch of faces that would just never see it otherwise, right? Like everyone goes to the grocery store, everyone probably wanders past the beer aisle. Like, and you just had Rocky Horror just everywhere during that Halloween. I think that was a great campaign. Uh I personally really like the, the branding that they did on it. They also did a bunch of like little bar standee that got sent out to bars, uh, that was promoting Rocky. So you'd have like, just a little, you know, like a little, uh, promo sitting on the bar that talked about Rocky, you know, and Budweiser, of course, I, I thought that was great. I, it, it certainly was one of those, like, big mass market things that I thought was a really clever idea and I'm hoping that's the kind of stuff that we see a lot more. You know, as the 50th rolls around, some of these big brands getting into like let's do crossovers, let's tie into Rocky and get this in front of the faces of a bunch of people who otherwise wouldn't be aware of the film. Well, I don't know about any of that. I think everyone out there knows what's left. Let's take a look at the community frankly, in my accurate and completely true opinion. We're fucking crazy today. Almost every cast has their resident social media manager. We're all taking photos and posting the videos to Instagram and tiktok promoting a show or a con. Today is miles beyond photocopying a couple of flyers and calling up your local radio station. So Tori, this is literally your wheelhouse. You ran an entire higher online convention for the community, you run the R K O on social media in addition to everything you do for the test players of Boston and F BC. What are the trends that you see today within the community? And what are some tips for everyone out there who might be doing promotions for their cast? So, marketing and design and photography and all of this, I could literally talk about all day. So I will try to keep it brief when it comes to promoting a lot, you know, like everything branding is pretty key. So if your cast has certain colors, you know, incorporating that stuff into all of your marketing, any way you can kind of coins it as your cast. And a lot of what people are doing today and trends I've been seeing is like we're kind of in the shit post era of marketing when you think about it because you know, memes are hitting everywhere. You know, that's essentially what Tik Tok is, right? That's what like the incredible people at R H P S Buffalo do with tiktok, they take these trends and they him, you know, that's kind of like what I do at work. You know, if there's, you know, if there's someone, if there's a famous artists, birthday, do we have a record I can post about and you know, kind of bring it up that way. One of the big key points in marketing is definitely timing. But the shit posting, you know, if you can turn it into a meme, people wanna share those memes and if you make a really good meme about Rocky and then the caption is like players of Boston, June 25th in Salem. You know, when that meme gets shared 50 times, that's 50 promotional posts for my show without, you know, having to do much work. Even, you know, big companies. If you look at tiktok, they're, it's very hello, fellow kids. But, you know, it works because people like it and they share it. Oh, yeah, totally. I know that lots of cats have been really leaning into that. I know. Um, J C C P just is cranking out meme related content. You know, if there, if there's a hot meme on the internet, they've got a rock fight version of it, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, you can always count on somebody in the community to create the meme for it. We love, we love shit posting here. It's, it's what keeps us alive in the bread. You know, one of the bigger trends right now, all of social media, especially Instagram and our platforms, you know, everything that's under meta, everything's kind of going more towards video promotion these days. So, you know, videos are getting shared a lot more and we have Tik Tok to thank for that. I I'm pretty sure for the majority of it because you know Tik Tok happened and now there's Instagram reels and you know, I've been doing this kind of experiment at work where I'll make a post about, I'll, I'll make a post about something and then I'll share a reel of that same thing and it usually gets more engagement and you have to kind of cater to the social media gods to get in people's algorithm. Oh yeah, totally. I mean, you even see youtube doing this right with youtube shorts. They're pushing them really hard now Instagram like added the short form video previews that like to go to the Instagram full length videos like everybody is pushing video because it's just so it, it, it, it gets so many more eyeballs, you know, oh for sure. And with something like Rocky, you know, video is something really easy to be captured and shared because we do have so many great outlets like Instagram and tiktok. And if you're lucky enough to have the spare person on your cast, if you can schedule someone to post on Instagram stories or take photos so that you can share later, anything you can do to constantly be engaged with your audience is always going to help. And here we are doing a podcast. Hey, that's engagement with our listeners. I know over here in New York it's at like at least a three person job. Often even more. Me and Aaron do a lot of the promotional materials because they have the time to do it. And I fucking don't, I used to do it but I, I ain't got no time to make flyers and promos anymore. I've done a few, like I said in the past and I often manage our social accounts. And at the show, we're always grabbing cast members who aren't performing to take photos and do live posts. I think one of my favorite things that we do that I don't think I've seen another cast do and tell us is we actually have highlight reels on our Instagram of all of our active cast members. And every single time we have like a, a live video that is like taken and put it on our Instagram story after the show, I'll go through them and I'll actually save them into their little individual Instagram reel. So that when people want to get a taste of what the show is about and, you know, there's somebody who's on the cast who's telling them about it, they can be like, oh, you know, go to the Instagram and you can find my little highlight reel and you can watch a little bit of the show from the characters that I play. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's an absolutely great method of, you know, not only engaging with the wider show with your audience, but a lot of the times people come to Rocky and they're like, oh, I love that Columbia. I love that Magenta, you know, who's that Frank? Do? They also do drag, do they do who, who is that person? You know, and that's, that's a fantastic way to engage. It's the same reason that, you know, a lot of casts will on their website do cast bios. Um And that kind of thing which we need to update. Yeah, that's uh give me access to it again. I'll do it for you. All right. Yeah, one less thing for me to do. Um But yeah, I mean, we've been focusing a lot on, you know, um making what Tori was talking about, making our branding consistent across our shows. Um using our logo in like the best light as possible to make sure that like everybody recognizes it and it's iconic. And we've been doing a lot of video, we're um we're promoting one of our upcoming shows with some video content um looking into doing some more short form stuff with it. It's, it, it's the trend, it's what you got to do to, to get those eyeballs on it. And I think that that's the direction that a lot of casts are doing, you know, moving forward. I think the long and short of it, it's a lot of work and there are a ton of fantastic members in the community out there putting their heart and soul into making sure everybody knows about their local cast. And on that note, what do you guys think is substantially different about promoting to the Rocky community versus the broader world, the audience? Right? Fox always knows that they can make a quick buck by slapping a new cover on the Blu Ray. But what can community members do to make something appealing to the already diehard fans. So when it comes to the already diehard fans, I think obviously you have to go in the opposite direction of the more broad blips appeal that you try to get when you're talking to everybody that's not the rocky community. And I think a lot of that comes more from all the great artists and creators in the community which, you know, kinda is nice because then, you know, you have to be, if, you know, you know, you have to know who to talk to, to get this really cool pin or this really cool art print, you know, for sure. Uh And yes, and I think another great way to market to the die hard fans is to straight up ask them because, you know, when it came to a and we were trying to figure out that pin, you know, we had, we pulled the cast to see what folks wanted and, you know, just like Rocky is a whole whole, you know, with Rocky as a whole, it's a very welcoming community driven thing. So why not have the people who love it the most have a say in what can be done or made? Absolutely. I think that that's like one of the most important things, finding out what the community wants and delivering on those expectations or creating something that is just so unusual or so like, I didn't know I wanted that, but I definitely do want that. Now that I hear about it, you know, this is kind of the whole thing with like icons, right? Like they're a unique experience that's crafted for the community by the community. Like they did one on a cruise ship or like in Las Vegas, like we were talking about or out in L A where you can go to Disneyland. Like there's all these kind of things that aren't necessarily like directly about Rocky, but you can just knowing that you're already talking to a Rocky audience, you, you can kind of go outside of the normal wheelhouse and kind of advertise or market or just craft these kind of events or products specifically for something that like, you know, community members are gonna be like, oh yes, I can go and put on fish nets and I can also go right the til world like, you know, that kind of thing that, you know, give them something that they haven't been able to do before John, what do you think? I don't, right. I don't, I don't think about Rocky horror this hard er and you know, this, yes I do. You're always gonna put me in these situations. One event that I think would be like, really insane. That would absolutely only appeal to the diehard fans is kind of along the lines of, you know, those haunted houses where you have to like sign a waiver that like, you know, people can do whatever they want to you or whatever. Like, imagine a completely, like, immersive Rocky horror experience where, you know, it's like a very small group of people but like, you're in a car and it breaks down and then you have to, like, walk to the castle and then, like, the small audience becomes Brad and Janet and then you kind of go through the world of the movie and then there's like an actual dinner scene and then, you know, they're not the character of a random audience. Do they have to pay? Yeah, wait, wait a minute. I don't remember the Brad riff butt fuck scene being in the movie. But I love that. I, I, you know, if somebody, if somebody could figure out how to make that work financially, boy, I would be there for it. Yeah, same. And on that note, I think that wraps up Rocky Talkie's 69th snack. Nice. A nice, nice. We want to thank Tori for joining us on air this week. Thank you so much, Tori. And as always, we'd like to thank our writer Jacob and our editor Aaron from Tennessee. We appreciate all of your work. If anyone has a question they'd like us to answer on air for whoever asks a question or some community news they'd like us to talk about or even just a cool story to share with the community. We'd love to include it in our show. Just go to our website. That's Rocky Talky. Podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to tell us all about it. If you're enjoying Rocky talkie, please help out by rating, reviewing and subscribing to the show. It makes the podcast more accessible to new listeners, which really helps grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky talkie content, check us out on Facebook, youtube, Instagram and tiktok all at Rocky Talky Podcast. We'll talk to you next week. Bye bye. You know your press is really awakened something in me. Would you call it a uh repressed childhood? Fuck. What did she say? Hold on, let me scroll up. Would you call it a deeply repressed childhood crush? Something like that? I hope she never finds this. I hope she does. It'll be a great time. Hm. Right and right. And as, oh boy, Cagney, is that right? Cagney's nuts. Oh, God, I'm done. I quit. Do you have, can Jacob, like, read the rest of my life? Oops. Nice on Friday May 13th at 7 30 PM. La la la la la. It's pronounced Latin. So la la nuts. So, ok. You guys, uh well, before we do this, can I run and use the bathroom real quick? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. Well, well, that's too bad. I'll be. No, I only 20 pages left 20 pages. It, it might have gone a little, it might have gotten away from me a little bit. A little bit. Yeah. Just, just the just a little bit. Where's my? Oh, my food is here. Are we eating at like, three hours? Why did you order food? I ordered food like, two hours ago and then we recorded so I didn't eat my food. It's fine. I'll only eat some of it.