Well . . . the Phillips clan here in Taiwan has been looking forward to the Rocky Horror episode of Glee since we first heard about it. The Rocky Horror Glee Show was worth the wait . . . but . . . it left us wanting more, much more actually.
Now that we’ve seen it . . . I originally thought Mercedes as Frank was odd but see now that the edits made some sense within the story and in terms of creating a workable adaptation for young people (the real kind, not the twenty-somethings playing fifteen and sixteen-year-olds) and despite the copout of not showing it to the school, some progressive high schools could work with it. She really blew the song away and while I originally had some issues with the casting, it makes some sense (and they did change out the transexual and other risque words from the lyrics . . . both because they are portraying high school students which makes some sense and because the network wussed out).
It was nice to see Barry Botswick and Meatloaf doing cameos although I had hoped they would be meatier than what was shown . . . especially since Botswick did an amazing cameo in Cold Case which had wonderful meta elements galore. It was a treat to have Kaye see what Meatloaf looks like today . . . Meatloaf is one of my all time favorite musicians and for a long time we would let his complete discography repeat in auto mode in the car stereo for long drives.
Kaye enjoyed the Rocky Horror Glee Show but was upset that they didn’t do the whole show . . . she saw it on DVD years ago and we used to play it in the car as our driving music . . . yes, I know . . . according to the so-called message of the episode we’re evidently bad parents but then they copped out and didn’t have real values in the first place.
We told Kaye that there were two main reasons they couldn’t do the whole show . . . one, Glee is about 45 min. per episode and it’s a ninety minute to two hour musical (Kaye said they could just do a special long episode) . . . and . . . two, the show was in part about how the content for Rocky Horror was a bit too risque for high school kids to perform (Kaye said that they could still do it as the actors aren’t real high school kids either which is a pretty fair point since as of 2010, the actors portraying these high school kids who evidently will never actually graduate from high school are not spring chickens; the youngest is Kurt who is 20 . . . the others . . . Quinn 24, Rachel 24, Mercedes 24, Tina 24, Artie 22, Puck 28, and Finn 28 . . . these folks could perform Rocky Horror, no problem . . . honestly, a few of them are a bit too old for the characters they might perform . . . albeit, not as too old as Will or Carl . . . seriously, having the characters of Will and Carl even contemplating appearances in a high school musical with a bunch of kids was well beyond creepy . . . especially, Will as he was intending to perform Toucha-Toucha-Touch Me with a high school girl . . . dude, well beyond creepocity . . . especially with the blocking he and Emma were evidently running though).
Since she’s grown up in Taiwan, Kaye has never seen a real showing of Rocky Horror (I saw mine back in high school) so she asked if people really threw things . . . I told her yes and also told her that IF she goes to university in the US, she should go (with friends, seriously, always with a group of friends for my daughter).
Well . . . in any case . . . we quite enjoyed it.
Now . . . let’s hope they do Evil Dead the Musical some time (we also use that one as one of our driving CDs for the car, although lately it’s more SJ Tucker than anyone else, although the multi-disc player currently has Tucker in addition to Train (Kaye’s band is doing a cover of one of their songs so I got her some more CDs from the band which I am quite enjoying)., Harry Nillson, and the ever present Paul McCartney and one of Kaye‘s own CDs with her original music).
All the best,
Brian
