That One Time I Almost Saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I've never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

That's right. I've never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show -- well, in its entirety.

That one time happened in my freshman year of college.

It was early October 1983, I believe. I'd settled comfortably into college life, especially what little of a social life I had: Well, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights were typically spent gaming and I was GMing a Star Frontiers campaign with my friends. It was a lot of fun, very good times. A tight knit bunch, we hung out a lot and cruised comic book stores and hobby shops, fast food runs and the like.

One night, during a game session, some girls stopped by the dorm room we used; one of them was crushing on Brian, one of my friends, and she wanted to see him.

Of course, she had her entourage with her.

There was that awkward moment when we explained what we was doing and, to their credit, they understood. Anyway, one of the girls suggested we all go to the on campus movie night, which was The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Now, you have to understand some of us lived in Central Nebraska and all of these girls were from Omaha -- so, sometimes there was cultural disconnect. However, we geeks had the 411 on things. One of the girls said, "I bet you guys have never heard of it."

That's when I launched into an overview of the plot, the ritualistic audience participation and so on. One of the girls asked if I had seen it.

"No. I saw it on 60 Minutes and read about in Time and Newsweek."

There was an awkward pause . . . and there was an agreement to see it as a group.

Now, many students showed up in full costume, especially Frank-N-Furter. A number of cornfed football players were in the crowd and some were already tense and edgy -- some had hit on a few of the Franks and were visibly distraught to see they had hit on a guy.

Oh. It got worse.

With all of the singing, dancing and everything else, the jocks were not happy. After a "Great Scott!" and a volley of toilet paper pelted them, some jocks -- most a bit drunk already -- were thrown into an alcoholic, testosterone-fueled rage. The air was filled with sodas, popcorn, rolls of toilet paper, wigs and gold-colored hats. Fists were flying and I do recall a squad of Rockys, Magentas, Brads and Janets pummeling a downed jock. He'd been abandoned by the others during the melee, fleeing campus security.

It was so surreal but ever so poetic justice, looking back at it now.

Meantime, my gamer crew and I, along with our Omaha dates, were quite amused by what went down. One of the girls was weekend house-sitting for a cousin, so we went there for a party.

Heh. It was some party but that's a story for another time.

So. No. Never saw the entire movie ever again. After a night like that, how could I?