50 Fun Facts About The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Which company bought 20th Century Fox in 2019 but let Rocky Horror keep its midnight screenings?

Disney began locking archival Fox titles away in its vault after the takeover, but made an exception for this one. That allowed the traditional midnight showings to carry on.

A red-lips poster for Rocky Horror carried a tagline spoofing which other hit film of 1975?

Jaws came out the same year, so the lipstick poster promised 'A Different Set of Jaws'. The lips on it belonged to a model whose name was Lorelei Shark.

In Rocky Horror, the Time Warp dance instructions begin with a jump in which direction?

To the left comes first, then a step to the right, hands on hips and knees in tight. The song is both a dance-craze number and a parody of one, with lyrics that double as the steps.

At screenings of Rocky Horror, what do fans throw when Frank-N-Furter raises his glass at dinner?

Toast flies because Frank proposes one, a pun that fans act out with slices that should be unbuttered. Many cinemas now forbid throwing anything that is hard to clean up.

Rocky Horror designer Sue Blane says her ripped fishnets helped inspire which fashion movement?

Punk owed its torn stockings and brightly dyed hair partly to the film, Blane has claimed. She did no research for the designs and had never seen a science fiction movie.

Which British actor made his film debut as the corset-wearing Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror?

Tim Curry had created the role on the London stage in 1973 and repeated it in Los Angeles before the cameras rolled. The film made him a household name.

Rocky Horror, first released in 1975, is said to hold which record in cinema history?

Longest theatrical run is the record, because the studio has never pulled the film since its 1975 debut. It has now been playing somewhere for more than half a century.

Which rock singer plays the Rocky Horror biker who bursts from a deep freeze singing 'Hot Patootie'?

Meat Loaf had already played the part on stage at the Roxy in Los Angeles, where he doubled as Dr. Scott. For the film the two roles were split and Jonathan Adams took the doctor.

At the end of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, what does Dr. Frank-N-Furter's castle turn out to be?

A spaceship built to resemble a castle is where the aliens have been docked all along. In the final scene it lifts off into space, leaving Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott crawling in the dirt.

Which US actress caught pneumonia on the unheated set while playing Janet Weiss in Rocky Horror?

Susan Sarandon fell ill because neither the studio nor the country house used as the castle had heating. The studio had insisted that Brad and Janet be played by Americans.

In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dr. Frank-N-Furter's planet Transsexual lies in which galaxy?

Transylvania is a galaxy in the film, not the region of Europe, though it borrows the name of Count Dracula's homeland on purpose. Frank's servants come from the same planet.

Around which holiday is Rocky Horror most often screened, with fans dressed as the characters?

Halloween is when the film is usually shown, a neat revenge for 1975. That year its planned New York opening on that very night was cancelled after poor business in other cities.

What do Rocky Horror audiences throw during the opening wedding scene, copying the guests on screen?

Rice goes up as the newlyweds Ralph and Betty come out of the church. Janet catches the bride's bouquet, and Brad proposes to her moments later.

In Rocky Horror, the 'Dammit Janet' church staff are dressed as figures from which famous painting?

American Gothic's stern pair work as the church caretakers, and during the song they spin the white wedding flowers round to show black funeral ones. A coffin is then carried in.

The name of Rocky Horror's Dr. Frank-N-Furter is partly a pun on which kind of food?

A sausage, the frankfurter, supplies half of the pun, and fiction's most famous monster-making scientist supplies the rest. One of the film's songs is even called 'Planet Hotdog'.

What does Janet hold over her head in Rocky Horror's storm, inspiring the first audience heckle?

A newspaper is Janet's only cover, which moved a quiet schoolteacher named Louis Farese Jr. to shout that she should buy an umbrella. Fans now shield themselves the same way from water pistols.

Which musical TV series built a 2010 tribute episode around a school production of Rocky Horror?

Glee recreated the film's opening credits and gave cameo roles to two actors from the 1975 original. The episode sent the old soundtrack album back into the US chart.

Richard O'Brien wrote Rocky Horror and sings its opening song, but which character does he play?

Riff Raff is the castle's butler, who finally turns on his master. O'Brien wrote most of the original stage show in a single winter while he was an out-of-work actor in London.

Which US actor, later the mayor in the sitcom Spin City, plays Janet's fiancé Brad in Rocky Horror?

Barry Bostwick told an interviewer thirty years on that people would be asking him to say 'Dammit, Janet. I love you' for as long as he lived.

In Rocky Horror, which two words finish Frank-N-Furter's floor-show motto 'Don't dream it'?

Be it completes the line, which Frank sings during a cabaret finale staged around a swimming pool. The phrase was also used as one of the film's taglines.

With which song does Dr. Frank-N-Furter introduce himself to Brad and Janet in Rocky Horror?

Sweet Transvestite is Frank's entrance number, in which he boasts about where he comes from and what he has been up to. Its lyrics make a passing reference to an old Steve Reeves movie.

Dr. Scott arrives at the castle in The Rocky Horror Picture Show searching for which missing nephew?

Eddie had sent his uncle a letter hinting that part of his brain had been removed. By the time the doctor turns up, his nephew is already dead and about to be served for dinner.

Which tap-dancing Rocky Horror groupie wears a gold sequinned tailcoat and top hat?

Columbia is played by Nell Campbell, whose tap dancing while she worked as a soda jerk is said to have won her the part on stage. The gold coat was newly made for the film.

Which word does Dr. Frank-N-Furter split with a long, teasing pause while singing in Rocky Horror?

Anticipation gets a long gap in the middle as Frank sings 'I see you shiver with antici... pation'. The fan club's own guide jokes that this is an audience 'partici-(SAY IT!)-pation' movie.

Rocky Horror make-up designer Pierre La Roche had worked for Mick Jagger and which glam rock star?

David Bowie and Jagger had both been clients of La Roche, who was hired to redesign every character's make-up for the screen. On stage the actors had generally done their own.

Which singer's 2025 video borrows from Rocky Horror, with Colman Domingo as a Frank-N-Furter figure?

Sabrina Carpenter took inspiration from the film for her 'Tears' video, playing a character much like Janet while Domingo appears in drag.

In 2005 the Library of Congress chose Rocky Horror for which list of films worth preserving?

National Film Registry status is reserved for works judged 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'. Critics had largely ignored the film when it first came out thirty years earlier.

What are the costumed fans called who mime Rocky Horror in front of the screen as it plays?

Shadow cast members lip-sync every line while copying the action above them. The first group to perform almost the whole film this way played the Strand in San Francisco.

At live screenings of Rocky Horror, what are people seeing it in a cinema for the first time called?

Virgins are often singled out for a harmless initiation ritual. Having watched on television or video does not count: only a cinema showing with an audience ends the status.

Which actress played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Fox's 2016 television remake of Rocky Horror?

Laverne Cox led the remake, which was directed by Kenny Ortega of High School Musical. The Frank of 1975 came back too, this time as the narrator.

In Rocky Horror, whom are newly engaged Brad and Janet driving to visit when they get lost?

A former teacher is the person they want to tell: Dr. Scott ran the high-school science class where the two of them first met. He reaches the castle later that night anyway.

Dr. Frank-N-Furter's extravagantly posh voice in Rocky Horror was modelled on which famous woman?

Elizabeth II, the Queen, supplied the accent after the actor playing Frank had tried the part as a blond German in early rehearsals. He did not want the character to be merely a drag act.

The giant red lips that open Rocky Horror belong to which actress, who also plays the maid Magenta?

Patricia Quinn only mimes: the voice is Richard O'Brien's, and her head was strapped to a board to keep the lips still. On stage she had sung the number herself as an usherette.

Which actor, Bond villain Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever, narrates Rocky Horror as the Criminologist?

Charles Gray had also been in an earlier Bond film, You Only Live Twice, as a different character. He went on to play a judge much like the Criminologist in the film's 1981 sequel.

Which 1981 follow-up to Rocky Horror recast Brad and Janet as a married couple on a TV game show?

Shock Treatment reunited the writer and director but none of the three stars. After a 1980 actors' strike halted production, the story was reworked to take place entirely inside a giant television studio.

Which 1980 musical film shows its characters at a midnight Rocky Horror screening in New York?

Fame filmed the sequence at the real 8th Street Playhouse, with the audience shouting callbacks and dancing the Time Warp. Sal Piro, president of the film's fan club, appears as the emcee.

Props in Rocky Horror, including Rocky's birth tank, came from which British horror studio's films?

Hammer had made its horrors at the same studio and country house where this film was shot. Rocky's tank and dummy had first appeared in one of the company's 1958 productions.

What does Dr. Frank-N-Furter use to kill the biker who interrupts Rocky's unveiling in Rocky Horror?

An ice axe is the weapon, and Frank excuses the murder afterwards as a 'mercy killing'. The victim had just burst out of the laboratory's deep freeze in full song.

What does Dr. Scott, the castle's uninvited visitor in Rocky Horror, investigate for the government?

UFOs are his official business these days. Jonathan Adams, who plays the doctor, had been the Narrator in the original London stage production.

Which Rocky Horror song, with the chorus 'There's a light', do Brad and Janet sing in the storm?

Over at the Frankenstein Place is the audience's cue to light up the cinema with torches and lighters on the 'There's a light' chorus, within the venue's rules on open flames.

During which Frank-N-Furter ballad in Rocky Horror do fans shower the cinema with playing cards?

I'm Going Home contains the line 'cards for sorrow, cards for pain', which is the signal to throw. Frank sings it as a desperate last plea just before his own butler turns a laser on him.

In the finale of Rocky Horror, Rocky climbs a model of which old Hollywood studio's tower?

RKO Pictures was the studio behind King Kong, one of the old films name-checked in the opening song. Rocky scales the tower carrying Frank's body before it collapses into the pool.

Which Victorian country house by the Thames, now a hotel, served as the castle in Rocky Horror?

Oakley Court was not in good condition when the crew arrived, and it had neither heating nor bathrooms. The film studio next door had no heating either.

Which Australian who staged the original London show also directed The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Jim Sharman spent part of his childhood on Australian showgrounds, where his father ran a travelling boxing sideshow. He co-wrote the film's screenplay as well as directing it.

Which device does Dr. Frank-N-Furter use to turn his guests into statues in Rocky Horror?

Medusa Transducer is the machine's name, borrowed from the Gorgon of Greek myth. Frank then dresses his statues in cabaret costumes and unfreezes them to perform in his floor show.

At which Greenwich Village cinema did Rocky Horror begin its midnight run on April Fools' Day 1976?

Waverly Theater regulars began shouting lines at the screen about five months into the run. The building on Sixth Avenue is now the IFC Center.

Richard O'Brien, creator of Rocky Horror, later presented which British TV game show in the 1990s?

The Crystal Maze kept him on Channel 4 for four series, where he was known for sardonic put-downs and for playing his harmonica at random moments.

In Rocky Horror, Rocky's first song, sung just after his creation, is named after whose sword?

Damocles lends his name to 'The Sword of Damocles', performed moments after Rocky comes to life. The voice is not the actor's: singer Trevor White dubbed it, uncredited.

After Rocky Horror flopped, Fox paired it on college campuses with which other rock-music parody?

Phantom of the Paradise, made by Brian De Palma the year before, shared the double bill. The pairing drew small audiences too, and midnight screenings were tried next.

Which US record producer saw the London show, bought its US rights and co-produced Rocky Horror?

Lou Adler put the show on at his own Roxy club in Los Angeles before the film was made. He had already produced Carole King's Tapestry and hits for the Mamas & the Papas.