Late night double feature picture show
Last night I went to Rocky Horror for the first time in years. It hasn't changed! I didn't remember most of the call-outs, but a lot of them were familiar once I'd heard them.
AUDIENCE: God said "Let there be lips," and there were. And they were good. Sing, lips, sing! This is a little long but since it's the first one in the movie, it's pretty easy to get everyone in the audience to chant it. And it's a nice epic one to start the movie off with, to give the misapprehension you hare having a religious experience on this Sunday morning. A
LIPS: Dr. X...
AUDIENCE (making X's with arms): Sex sex sex.
A lot of Rocky Horror call-outs are just contextlessly yelling out words you're not usually allowed to say. Pretty stupid. But I kind of like this one. It's got an associated motion, it's rhythmic, it's repeated, and it sort of becomes part of the song: it's one of the few I remembered for that reason. I like that it can get the whole audience involved, not just the few diehards. But it's still completely stupid. C
AUDIENCE: Lick it, bitch!
LIPS:(lick lips)
A lot of other Rocky Horror call-outs are just yelling what's going to happen and then it happens ("Now snap your glove and scare yourself.") This one is short and punchy and it's got a logical rhythmic place in the song which makes it a little better than some of the others in this category. I might just be biased towards the ones I remembered, but this one seems to me a Rocky Horror essential. B
LIPS: Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes
AUDIENCE (overlapping): --the shits
See, that's the joke they were MAKING. TO BEGIN WITH. I know it's hard to restrain yourself from displaying that you understand poop jokes when they are made, but it really adds nothing. Admittedly, I don't like poop humor, but that's not even the part that annoys me about this; I also don't like it when the audience overlays "mindfuck" over Riff saying "mind flip" in the Time Warp. It's not clever to decode subtext that obvious. Call-outs should build on the existing content, not just recognize it. F
LIPS: And passing them used lots of skills
AUDIENCE: Yay skills!
What? I guess contextless exuberance is okay, too, but there are enough call-outs that we don't need to be just parroting what was just said in the movie. D
LIPS: By RKO.
AUDIENCE: RK who?
LIPS: Oh-oh-oh-oh....
Another category of Rocky Horror lines is to say something to which the person on screen seems to respond. This is a pretty tame example, but in general I like these because they are a bit more clever than just saying what is going to happen. B-
[Running up to the screen to hop and point at the name "Richard Pointing" in the credits]
Well this is just good clean fun. A+
NB on the above: when I remembered, I did even the call outs I intellectually acknowledge to be stupid. That's what Rocky Horror is all about.
AUDIENCE: God said "Let there be lips," and there were. And they were good. Sing, lips, sing! This is a little long but since it's the first one in the movie, it's pretty easy to get everyone in the audience to chant it. And it's a nice epic one to start the movie off with, to give the misapprehension you hare having a religious experience on this Sunday morning. A
LIPS: Dr. X...
AUDIENCE (making X's with arms): Sex sex sex.
A lot of Rocky Horror call-outs are just contextlessly yelling out words you're not usually allowed to say. Pretty stupid. But I kind of like this one. It's got an associated motion, it's rhythmic, it's repeated, and it sort of becomes part of the song: it's one of the few I remembered for that reason. I like that it can get the whole audience involved, not just the few diehards. But it's still completely stupid. C
AUDIENCE: Lick it, bitch!
LIPS:(lick lips)
A lot of other Rocky Horror call-outs are just yelling what's going to happen and then it happens ("Now snap your glove and scare yourself.") This one is short and punchy and it's got a logical rhythmic place in the song which makes it a little better than some of the others in this category. I might just be biased towards the ones I remembered, but this one seems to me a Rocky Horror essential. B
LIPS: Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes
AUDIENCE (overlapping): --the shits
See, that's the joke they were MAKING. TO BEGIN WITH. I know it's hard to restrain yourself from displaying that you understand poop jokes when they are made, but it really adds nothing. Admittedly, I don't like poop humor, but that's not even the part that annoys me about this; I also don't like it when the audience overlays "mindfuck" over Riff saying "mind flip" in the Time Warp. It's not clever to decode subtext that obvious. Call-outs should build on the existing content, not just recognize it. F
LIPS: And passing them used lots of skills
AUDIENCE: Yay skills!
What? I guess contextless exuberance is okay, too, but there are enough call-outs that we don't need to be just parroting what was just said in the movie. D
LIPS: By RKO.
AUDIENCE: RK who?
LIPS: Oh-oh-oh-oh....
Another category of Rocky Horror lines is to say something to which the person on screen seems to respond. This is a pretty tame example, but in general I like these because they are a bit more clever than just saying what is going to happen. B-
[Running up to the screen to hop and point at the name "Richard Pointing" in the credits]
Well this is just good clean fun. A+
NB on the above: when I remembered, I did even the call outs I intellectually acknowledge to be stupid. That's what Rocky Horror is all about.