SUBSCRIBER WOW: APRIL WOWMANAC

Deep Disk Pizza, Captain Midnight, and a very stricken looking potato!

Hi and welcome to another edition of the Wowmanac, a curated collection of pop culture connected to April! Here we go!

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April 1

Everyone talks about April Fools’ Day as the one day you get to prank people. (Weirdest holiday ever. What are we, five?)

Something way cooler about April 1st is that on this day in 1976, The Rocky Horror Picture Show had its first midnight showing at the Waverly Theatre (now the IFC Center) in Greenwich Village. Based on a musical that crashed and burned when it came to Broadway, the film had also fizzled when it came out in 1975. But the manager of the Waverly was obsessed with it. She started posting photos of it in the box office window, and she’d play the soundtrack in the theater before the midnight show, which created a fun atmosphere in the room. Suddenly the audiences were booing when the villain came on and cheering the heroes.

A group of regulars started coming every week, including a kindergarten teacher from Staten Island. They’d sit in the front row of the balcony, dressed as the characters, and began the practice of adding one liners or talking back to the movie.

Because of that manager, Denise Borden, and that group of fans, Rocky Horror became a cult hit.

This song from the show is often on repeat in my brain.

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April 3rd