Happy Birthday to Me (& Rocky Horror)

Where It All Began 

Before it was a picture show, Rocky Horror began on the stage in London in 1973. Written by Riff Raff himself, Richard O’Brien, the musical follows the newly engaged couple Brad and Janet as they get caught in a storm and come across gender bending scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter, and his servants Riff Raff, Magenta, and Columbia, who introduce them to his creation Rocky. 

Richard O’Brien had a passion for science fiction and B-horror movies since childhood. He wanted to combine the unintentional humor of B-horror movies with Steve Reeves' muscle films and fifties rock and roll. As one could guess, he was heavily inspired by the glam rock era of British pop culture. He stated that glam rock allowed him to be more himself, and so this glamorous rockin’ science fiction double feature was born. 

When he was almost done with the show, O’Brien took it to Australian director Jim Sharman, who was already considered a local celebrity as the original Australian productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. 

The show premiered at the Royal Court's 63-seat Theatre Upstairs on June 19, 1973, and ran until July 20, 1973. The cast included a lot of familiar faces, including Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Patricia Quinn as Magenta, Nell Campbell as Columbia, Julie Covington as Janet, Christopher Malcolm as Brad, and Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff. 

Tim Curry said this about his first encounter with the script: “I'd heard about the play because I lived on Paddington Street, off Baker Street, and there was an old gym a few doors away. I saw Richard O'Brien in the street, and he said he'd just been to the gym to see if he could find a muscleman who could sing. I said, ‘Why do you need him to sing?’ And he told me that his musical was going to be done, and I should talk to Jim Sharman. He gave me the script, and I thought, ‘Boy, if this works, it's going to be a smash.’”  

Record producer Jonathan King saw the show on its second night and signed the cast to make the original cast recording. After premiering at the Royal Court, the show was then moved to the 230-seat Chelsea Classic Cinema from August 1973 to October 1973. It then moved to the 500-seat King's Road Theatre in November 1973. It won the 1973 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. 

The show premiered in the U.S. for the first time at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles in March 1974 and ran for nine months. It featured an all-new cast except for Tim Curry. The rest of the cast consisted of Abigaile Haness as Janet, Bill Miller as Brad, Bruce Scott as Riff-Raff, Jamie Donnelly, also known as Jan from Grease, as Magenta (Brusha-Brusha-Brusha), Boni Enten as Columbia, Meat Loaf as Eddie/Dr. Scott, Kim Milford as Rocky Horror, and Graham Jarvis as the Narrator. 

Fox executive Gordon Stulberg saw the show at the Roxy and agreed to invest $1 million in the film adaptation. Just before the film’s release, the show became the Rocky Horror Broadway Show, not actually by title, but it did go to Broadway. 

However, it was not as successful as anticipated, and the show closed after 45 performances. Although the show received one Tony nomination and three Drama Desk nominations. It was later nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival in 1991. 

The Picture Show

Filming began for The Rocky Horror Picture Show in October 1974 near Windsor, England. The cast was the same as the original London show, except for the original actors for Brad and Janet. Fox executives wanted two American actors in the roles to get the American audiences to the movie theater. As such, the roles went to Barry Bostwick and one of my favorite actresses of all time, Susan Sarandon. 

And to think she wasn’t even going to audition for the role. Susan only stopped by the Rocky Horror set to say hi to her friend Tim Curry. She was scared to sing, but ended up singing “Happy Birthday” to casting directors and got the role.

The film opened in London on August 14, 1975, and in the United States one month later, on September 26 in Los Angeles. It did well at the theater in LA, but nowhere else. The film was withdrawn from its eight opening cities due to very small audiences. It had an opening night scheduled for Halloween in New York City, but that was cancelled. 

Roger Ebert, a critic from the Chicago Sun-Times, said that the movie was “ignored by pretty much everyone, including the future fanatics who would eventually count the hundreds of times they'd seen it.” He rated the movie 2.5 out of 4 stars and said that Tim Curry was “the best thing in the movie, maybe because he seems to be having the most fun.” 

It seemed that critics at the time just didn’t get the movie. Some thought the campiness of the film was too difficult for audiences to understand, and others thought the movie lacked a dramatic impact. 

In 1975, the film grossed just over $1 million at the box offices in the U.S. and Canada and only $200,650 internationally. But, just one year later, in 1976, the film grossed over $11 million in the U.S. and Canada and over $2 million internationally. 

Midnight Showings & Audiences Acting 

This jump in numbers and the creation of the film’s cult following in general is credited to the introduction of midnight screenings. Rocky Horror wasn’t the first film to be screened after midnight. In fact, movies like Pink Flamingos and Reefer Madness were already making money in midnight showings and inspired Fox executives to start their own screenings of Rocky Horror. 

The first midnight screening was on April Fools’ Day 1976 in New York City. Shortly after the first screening in the city, it began to spread to other counties in the state. Soon enough, Rocky Horror was being screened at midnight in large and small cities and towns throughout the U.S. 

The best part about these screenings is that people could get in for free if they arrived in costume, which began the immersive experience that is the audience participation portion of the midnight screenings. 

According to the author of Midnight Movies, J. Hoberman, it was only about five months after the first midnight showing in the city when lines began to be shouted by the audience. The first person to yell was Louis Farese, a normally quiet teacher. When Janet placed the newspaper over her head to protect herself from rain, he yelled, “Buy an umbrella, you cheap bitch.” 

It was Farese and his friends Amy Lazarus, Theresa Krakauskas, and Bill O'Brian, who began yelling out during the movie to entertain each other. Each week, they would try to come up with something new. Other theater-goers quickly caught on, and the same phrases began to be repeated. 

According to the Rocky Horror fan club website, audience members started throwing things at certain points in the movie in April 1977, beginning the use of props. It should be noted that The Rocky Horror Picture Show Fan Club was created by Sal Piro and other fans of the film in the spring of 1977. 

This is the basic prop list included on the official Rocky Horror fan club website. 

• The movie begins with the wedding of Ralph Hapschatt and Betty Munroe. As the newlyweds exit the church, the audience throws rice with the wedding guests on-screen. 

• When Brad and Janet are caught in the storm, Janet covers her head with a newspaper, and so does the audience. At the same time, water pistols are used to simulate the rainstorm that Brad and Janet have to walk through to get to the light over at the Frankenstein Place. 

• During said light, people will shine flashlights or hold up lighters, which is a bit terrifying because they also have newspapers on their heads. I believe this is solely flashlights nowadays, or those fake candles. 

• During and after the creation speech, Frank snaps his rubber gloves three times. Later, Magenta pulls these gloves off his hands. Audience members have their own rubber gloves and snap their gloves in sync with the movie. 

• Also, at the end of the creation speech, the Transylvanians respond with applause and noisemakers, and so does the audience. They also throw confetti as Rocky and Frank head toward the bedroom. 

• When Dr. Scott first enters, the audience throws rolls of toilet paper into the air; most of the time, it’s Scotts brand toilet paper. 

• When Frank proposes a toast at dinner, audience members throw pieces of toast into the air. 

• Audience members put on party hats when Frank does at dinner.

• The audience rings bells when Frank sings, “Did you hear a bell ring?” in Planet Schmanet Janet. 

• When Frank sings “cards for sorrow, cards for pain,” during “I’m Going Home,” audience members throw playing cards around the theater. 

The Rocky Horror shadowcast follows the movie while it’s screened in the theater. With replica costumes, sets, and props, the shadowcast is literally performing the movie while the movie plays behind them. 

While dressing up, props, and yelling out phrases were a typical part of the midnight screening experience, they were limited to certain, specific moments in the movie. It wasn’t until 1977 that the first documented shadowcast called The Rocky Horror Revue opened in L.A. 

From then on, shadowcasts formed around the country. One of the most famous shadowcasts was the 8th Street Players based out of New York, which was spearheaded by Sal Piro, the creator of the fan club. 

Rocky Horror shadowcasts are still performing around the world. There is an interactive map of current Rocky Horror Shadowcasts online. Other movies have since been screened with shadowcasts, but Rocky Horror was the first and most well-known shadowcast. 

Fun Facts About the Film 

Originally, creators wanted to film the opening portion of the movie in black and white. The film would have burst into color when Frank N. Furter made his entrance. 

The lips singing “Science Fiction-Double Feature” are Patricia Quinn, aka Magenta’s lips, but it’s actually Richard O’Brien or Riff Raff singing. These are all different from the lips on the second film poster, which is probably the most well-known poster from the movie. 

These lips belonged to model Lorelei Shark, and the poster featured the tagline "A Different Set of Jaws", a spoof of the poster for the movie Jaws, which was also released in 1975.

Producers chose Pierre La Roche to redesign the make-up for each character. La Roche had previously been a make-up artist for Mick Jagger and David Bowie, glam rock icons. 

Frank-N-Furter’s castle is actually the Oakley Court in England. It was also home to several horror movies, including Dracula, The Brides of Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, and many more on IMDB. 

At the time of filming, the castle had no heat and barely any bathrooms. Susan Sarandon got very sick on set and caught pneumonia while filming the pool scene. But now, it’s a ritzy hotel! You can stay in Frank-N-Furter’s Castle with heat and more bathrooms. 

While filming, cast members would hide actual Easter eggs on set for an egg hunt. Some of them weren’t filmed and can be seen in the final film. This is rumored to be where the term “Easter egg” in movies comes from. 

Princess Diana was a huge fan of the movie and told Tim Curry, “It quite completed my education.” 

Richard O’Brien has shared that he wrote the play just to occupy his time. He was young and had no prior writing experience, which he believes adds a childlike naivety to the movie, which contributed to its popularity. 

In an interview, O'Brien said the show's innocence is "very endearing and not threatening." He mentioned that every character in the show may appear to be intelligent or "sophisticated, but they're really not." 

When I Get to the Club, I Wanna See the Cult Classic

And it’s not surprising that this campy, silly movie turned into such a cult classic. Because while it’s whimsical and fun, it still explores serious topics and emotions that everyone deals with, especially the young people at the time of the movie’s release. 

With the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the gay liberation movement was on an upward trajectory in the 1970s. The first Pride parade happened in 1970. 

Kathy Kozachenko was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the United States when she won an Ann Arbor City Council seat in 1974. This was three years before Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official in California in 1977, when he was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

This was coinciding with the second wave of feminism and the women’s rights movement of the 70s. This wave of feminism focused heavily on women’s right to work, their involvement in their families, and sexual liberation. 

The film explores serious topics like isolation, self-discovery, and self-worth while openly displaying sex and sexual humor with all genders. 

Feeling isolated is very human. Traveling through space to get to Earth to create your own muscle man to fill that void is not so human. That’s a science fiction double feature picture show, baby.