The True Story Of 200 Motels

Two!

FZ:
What?

Lock it!
57, take 1!

Howard: Vroom. Voodn, voodn. Voodn.
Mark: Say Howie, do you like my new car?
Howard: You know, it's real cool. Do you know how to get to the Holiday Inn?

Mark: Which one are you staying at?
Howard: The one by the airport. We gotta get up early and fly out of this burg in the morning, you know?

Mark: Oh, where do you play tomorrow night?
Howard: Palestine.

Mark: Oh, you're so professional. The way you get to travel to all those exotic places. Do you really have a hit single on the charts, with a bullet?
Howard: Listen, honey, would I lie to you just to get in your pants?

Mark: Don't talk to me that way, Howie! I am not a groupie! And neither is my girlfriend Jeff!
Jeff: Bullshit, Howie. One night only we only like you musicians for friends.

Howard: But, I thought you said you got off being juked with a baby octopus, and spewed upon with creamed corn, and that your harelipped dyke girlfriend dug it with a hot 7-Up bottle and she went bananas, what's the deal?
Mark: Oh, Howie, all that's true. And sometimes I dig it with a Jack-In-The-Box ring job.
Howard: Oh . . .
Mark: But we are not groupies! I told Robert Plant that . . .
Howard: But I want some action! I want a steaming, succulent, slimy, ever-widening hole with a teen-age girl attached to it! I mean, I know we're gonna get our rocks off, baby.
Mark: Not until you sing me your big hit record. I've been looking for a guy from a group, with a dick, which is a monster!
Howard: That's me! That's me! Oh, baby! Why didn't you say that before? Take me, I'm yours, fulfill my wildest dreams.
Mark: Oh, anything for you, my most succulent popstar of a man! Bead jobs! Knotted nylons! Bamboo canes! Beef jerkey! Ice cubes! Mazola oil! And/or including an electric pony harness air-cooled, all this and more, Howie . . . All this and more!
Howard: I can't stand it! I can't stand it! I can't stand it! Feet on fire! Feet on fire! No, please! I can't stand it! I can't stand it! . . . I'm going home, I'm going home . . . I can't stand it. Give it to me right here, right here in the car, oh, you little hole . . . Give me the pony harness!
Mark: Not until you sing us your big hit record, Howie. And we wanna hear the bullet.
Howard: What?
Mark: I have a problem.
Howard: Would you like to talk about it?
Mark: I can't come. I can't come unless you sing me your big hit record, ah-hah, and you gotta sing me the bullet, please, Howie . . . sing it, sing the record, Howie, the one, the one . . . I'd do anything, I could sell all my pictures of Jim Morrison, I could sell all my pictures of Donovan too . . .
Howard: Okay, honey, bend over and spread on, here comes my bullet!

Mark: Say uh, do you like my new car?
Howard: Oh, it's real cool! You know how to get to the uh, cheesey motel?
Mark: Oh, which one is it? He he he he!
Howard: The one by the airport. We've . . . Aa-aa-aah . . . Oh, man . . .
FZ: Coming up, okay, "Do you like my new car?"
Mark: Do you like my new car, or what?
Howard: It's real cool. Do you know how to . . . Aaa-aa-aah!
Mark: Aaa-aaa-aah!
Howard: Aa-aaa-aah! Do you know how to, how to get to the cheesey motel with that smashing, you know, the butcher shop?
Mark: Which one are you staying at?
Howard: Oh, the one by the airport.
Mark: Keep it up, Ian! Ian!
Howard: We gotta get up early and fly out of here in the morning, you know.
Mark: Oh yeah, really?
Howard: Oh yeah, really.
Mark: Where do you play tomorrow night?
Howard: Oh, Tierra del Fuego.
Mark: Oh yes?
Howard: And then there's that Barbecue at Mutts.
Mark: Oh, you're so professional.
Howard: Ow!
Mark: I mean uh, wait . . . ha ha ha!
Howard: Ow!
Mark: Ha ha ha! The way you get to travel to all those exotic places. Do you really have a hit single in the charts with a bullet?
Howard: Listen, honey, would I lie to you just to get in your pants?
Mark: Don't talk to me that way!
Howard: Keep your eye on the road!
Mark: I am not . . . ha ha ha ha . . . I am not a groupie!

Tony Palmer: Well, um essentially what we do is to record the whole operation on color videotape. Uh, the color videotape has three primary colors: red, green, and blue. And the old technicolor process had also three primary colors, red, green, and blue.

Tony Palmer: So we put two pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together and said, "A-ha." Well, if the two are the same in this way, it must be possible to transfer color tape to color film using three primary colors red, green and blue. So we began to experiment with transferring color tape in this way. The initial problem was that the poor quality of the television picture didn't stand up to examination when you showed it on an enormous cinema screen. You saw, for example, you saw lines. But fortunately . . .
Roelof Kiers: And distortions?
Tony Palmer: And distortions, yes. But now we've found a way around that, and in fact the color that we are able to make with color television is rather better, we think, than the equivalent of 35mm film.

Roelof Kiers: And that's a new British invention, hunh?
Tony Palmer: Well, it's just . . . yes. He he he he . . .

Announcer: . . . and 58. I'll just go through that once more. We're starting on 57, looking in the groupies' room—where the cameras are now—and then the orchestra comes in at ten o'clock, and we record the orchestra. Also, the pick-up shots of scenes 61, 62, 63, and 64—and 58, which are all virtually in the same area. Thank you very much.

FZ: . . . He makes a secondary grab for the tits on jumbo jets, at which point she kneels on his chest to hold him down. And then finally he starts [...] supposedly really . . .
Janet: Hey.
Tony Palmer: Cough!
FZ: Ha ha ha!
Keith Moon: Ha ha ha!
FZ: Oh man . . .

Tony Palmer: Well, I think Frank has had this dream for so long now, that I think that even he has become unsure as to what exactly the dream constitutes. It's a kind of mixture of childhood fantasies, adolescent fantasies, and now grown-up fantasies, all somehow strung together to make some kind of enormous nightmare that he may or may not have had at some point in his life. And one's problem as a director is trying to unfathom that dream and make some kind of coherent sense of it.

Roelof Kiers: Why are you, as a producer, interested in 200 Motels?

Jerry Good: Strictly because of the uh, the creative aspects of it. I think what Frank can done creatively from a musical point of view as well as a story telling point of view is so fresh that uh, it excited us, that's why we really got involved, and I think he's a brilliant talent, and uh, the whole feeling of 200 Motels from the point of view of what he is trying to say.

Roelof Kiers: Mm-hmm. What is he trying to say?

FZ: It's a mixed-media presentation, a combination of a film, an opera, a television show, a rock & roll concert, various different elements that all tells a story of when you go on the road it makes you crazy.

Roelof Kiers: Do you see any commercial potential in it?
Jerry Good: I, sure as hell hope so! He he he . . .

Tony Palmer: Cue guy! My God, for Jesus Christ sake! Thank you, Barry [...] violet.

Tony Palmer: Stop beating the gorilla sixteen times.

Howard: I've been without female companionship for so long—Monday, for instance—that a career as a Jesuit monk sounds inviting. Ian is starting to look good to me.
Ian?: Eewww . . . Ruth . . .
George: Must be his green velour socks . . .
Jeff (Martin): You just calm down there, Duke.
Mark: Ever since you left the jazz world to seek fame and fortune in the rock & roll industry . . .
Jeff (Martin): Rock & roll! What d'ya mean rock & roll? This fucking band doesn't even play rock & roll, it's all that comedy crap.

FZ: If you're not a professional actor, if you're not trained to act, to be somebody else all the time, the easiest thing for you to do, when you only have a week to make a movie is just to be yourself on the screen. So the lines that the people speak in the film, with the exception of some of the real fantasy characters like the Vacuum Cleaner, or the, or what Theodore Bikel says, are all based on the actual speech patterns and the lifestyle of the people who are in the group.

Jeff: Smurf mee! Smurf mee!
Howard: Smurf meee!
Jeff: Metz. Right Howard?
Howard: Right Jeff, we're going for the money, all the way.

Roelof Kiers: You, you don't use this technique as a kind of psychological therapy for your members of the group.
FZ: Well, some people have suspected that, but I wouldn't say that's a prime purpose of the film.
Roelof Kiers: What is it then?
FZ: The prime purpose of the film? Oh, that's to be revealed later.

Lucy: It's just like home!

FZ: There's one special section that deals with a fantasy that I had one time when I was stranded in Kentucky. That's the section called The Pleated Gazelle. That tells about a love affair between a boy and a girl and an industrial vacuum cleaner.

Miss Lucy: Eeeh it's dirty!
FZ: It also works good on a pie.
Miss Lucy: It does.
FZ: The Atlas Vacmore, ladies and gentlemen.

Roelof Kiers: Do you expect any problems with the censors?
Jerry Good: I can't answer that, I really can't, honestly. I can't answer that.
Roelof Kiers: Well, you are in the business . . .
Jerry Good: I uh, I think there will obviously be, be a problem in the United States, but in the foreign countries I don't think it would be that problem. But in all honesty, beyond the lyrical content of the picture, it is not a obscene picture in any sense of the word. It's, it's more anti-sex than it is pro-sex.

Lucy?: The pin.
[...]
Theodore: The bee . . . pin, pin . . .

FZ: Wait a minute, I'll tell ya! Mark walks over in here, you just come over and stand near the side of the organ and watch in the background. The same with George.

Theodore: I'd better, I may better do it from this side, that should be better. "You are Volman!"
Howard: "No. No, no, no . . . "
Theodore: So, all right, listen. I'll come in, come in with my briefcase, I see all of this thing . . .
FZ: Yeah.
Theodore: I'll go, "Ping!" Everybody wakes up. How do we, how do they know that I . . .
FZ: Do a general, a general sweep so they see that you're getting Mark and back there and everybody wake 'em all up.
Theodore: I will go, "Prn-rn-rn-rn-rn-rng! You're Volman."
FZ: Yeah.
?: You'll go what?
Theodore: I'll go, "Prn-rn-rn-rn-rn-rn-rnng! You're Volman."
Howard: And as he sweeps around everybody . . .
Theodore: Everybody wakes up as I see them. Okay? Go . . . "Well, you may call me Rance Muhammitz."
Howard: "We already did. I called you Rance. He called you Muhammitz. Few minutes ago at the beginning of that song."
Theodore: "Sitting, sitting across the road in the fake night club with an Indian gentleman, suddenly I sensed a need on your behalf to communicate with me. There was a need, wasn't there? Or you wouldn't have called. Would you?"

Roelof Kiers: Theodore Bikel, you've been in many movies. Twenty, I think.
Theodore: Thirty, more like it.
Roelof Kiers: Thirty already! Why are you in 200 Motels?
Theodore: Well, because I was intrigued by the whole idea, it was no more than an idea when Frank came to me first. Uh, he came with exactly, I think it was fifteen pages of an outline. That was all there was, there was no more. But eh, it was intriguing. It was interesting, and uh, Frank himself is a, it's, you met him, you know. It's a very exciting personality, so let's film what either be a complete flop, chaos, or an, an extraordinary film. There'd be nothing in between.

Roelof Kiers: You play yourself in 200 Motels.
Mark: Well uh . . . I play a version of myself as Frank sees me, you know, like, you know what I mean?
Roelof Kiers: No.
Mark: It's not, uh, he sees the group from . . . like we see him from one point of view and he sees us from another place, this was written around like where, you know, the folklore that each member had brought to create the image that we portray.
Roelof Kiers: It's partly true or not?
Mark: What?
Roelof Kiers: Is it partly true or not?
Mark: Well uh . . .
Roelof Kiers: Is it?
Mark: I think so, I think that like, uh, some of the scenes have happened before. You know what I mean.
Roelof Kiers: Which ones you mean?
Mark: Well, specifically the, the hotel room scene where the group sits and talks about how Frank is not important to what the group is and . . . that scene I remember happening many times, uh, just the whole idea that it is Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention has always given us something to talk about, you know, Frank is, you know, our boss and so there's always that kinda management, uh, worker relationship that, you know, that just happens, it isn't like you, you plan for it to happen, it just does . . .

Mark: Hi, friends. Did you ever consider the possiblity that your penis, or in the case of many dignified ladies, that the size of the titties themselves might provide elements of subconscious tension? Yes, weird twisted anxieties that could force a person to have to become a politician!
Howard: Hooray!
Mark: A policeman! A Jesuit monk.
FZ: Dominus vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo.
Mark: A rock and roll guitar player! A wino! A vampire. You name it. Or in the case of the ladies, the ones that can't afford a silicone beef-up, they become writers of hot books!
Howard: "Manuel, the gardener, placed his burning phallus in her quivering quim."
Mark: Or Carmelite nuns!
Howard: "Gonzo, the lead guitar player, placed his mutated member in her slithering slit." Ha ha ha!
Mark: Carmelite nuns. Or racehorse jockeys! There is no reason why the size of your organ should trouble you, or your loved ones. There is enough troubles in the world today, right, brothers?
Howard: Right on! Like Tommy Smothers!
Mark: Now, if you're a lady and you've got munchkin tits, you can console yourself with this age-old line from grammar school. Help me out, brother.
Mark & Howard: "Anything over a mouthful is wasted!"
Mark: Yes, isn't that true! Isn't that true! And if you're a guy, and if you're a guy, and you're in this audience tonight and you're ashamed about the size of your dick . . .
FZ: "Anything over a mouthful is wasted!"
Mark: Yes!
Howard: Yeah, you [...].
Mark: And you're ashamed of your dick, and one night you're at The Fillmore, you're going back to your pad and you got this chick, this guy hits on you, right? And you're sitting there, you're really cool and the guy hits on you, and he says . . .
Howard: "Eight inches or less?"

FZ: So he took the script and he read it and he sounded good and then just quite by accident, we found out that he was a bass player.
Roelof Kiers: And how does he? He does it well?
FZ: Oh, he does very well, I think. I think he's good for the part, is, uh, quite professional on screen and as a bass player he's not astonishing but, uh, he can make the parts.

Ian: Got too many of those. [...] Goes right back down to the E.

Martin: I'm a Mother now, yeah. But don't . . .
Roelof Kiers: Temporarily.
Martin: Temporarily, or whatever, you know.
Mark: Well, we're all, that's the thing.
Roelof Kiers: What's the thing?
Mark: Temporarility.
Martin: Like a very short pregnancy.
Mark: Yeah, working with Frank isn't like working with any other group, it's all very temporary. And uh, that's the way it works. And you just, you just never know, I mean, like, it isn't the final stage for any of us, you know. Like this isn't the final Mothers Frank would have.

Director: Quiet in the background, please! Once again, Ringo. That one.

Ringo: "Each guy has his own speciality of going out to find the . . . " What is it?
Director: "Getting the girl of his dreams."
Ringo: Not "going out."
Director: "Each guy has his own speciality for getting the girl of his dreams."
Ringo: "Each guy has his own little speciality of getting the girl of his dreams."

Keith: . . . get him off, get him off, ooh!
Director: Up into the aisle, Keith. You say, "Excuse me," Ringo.
Ringo: What?
Director: You say, "Excuse me." Keep going, keep going.
Ringo: Excuse me, excuse me . . . Oh, my little nun, show me your little vest . . .

Keith: I play the part of a perverted nun.

Roelof Kiers: Perverted nun?
Keith: Well, I'm male.
Gail: A popstar disguised as a groupie disguised as a nun.
Keith: Right.

Roelof Kiers: Janet, what are you supposed to play in the film?

Janet: A groupie.
Roelof Kiers: What's that?
Janet: Mmm?
Roelof Kiers: What's that?
Janet: What's a groupie? Oh, come on! A groupie is a groupie. A girl who follows groups. Who likes groups. But there are no groupies any more.
Lucy: Are you kidding?
Janet: Yeah, but that's so, that's stupid, that word.

Lucy: It's not stupid, it's true.
Janet: It's just that ugly word. I think that it gets me sick. It's boring.
Pamela: It's outdated.
Roelof Kiers: You play Janet, uh?
Lucy: Janet the Groupie.

Lucy: HA HA HA HA HA HA . . . hhh . . .
Janet: . . . Go-go . . .

Lucy: Ooh, maybe we could give cleanser a new use! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA . . . hhh! Well, we may . . . Rodney Bingenheimer . . .

Lucy: "Look! Over there!"
Janet: "What?"
Lucy: "He's doing it, he's watching us from the fake bandstand with the binoculars!"
Janet: "Who, the English . . . ?"
Lucy: "The rivet-boy."
Keith: "The rivet-boy. Where?"
Lucy: "Over there, wipe that stuff out of your eyes. It looks like he's beating off."
Janet: "Beating off? I knew he was a pervert."
Lucy: "Eww, how exciting. Hey, are you still trying to O.D.?"
Keith: "Yes, this definitely is the end for me! I feel so faint! So weak!"

Howard: From 200 Motels he expects the worst reviews of any movie ever put out, and I said, "Yeah, Frank? Why is that?" And he says, "Well, nobody's ready for it . . . " But it doesn't really matter, you know? He knows that the kids are gonna go see it, because it's a weird movie. By the time this turkey comes out, man, I mean, there still won't be anything out close to it. You know, it's just a very bizarre approach to music and at young people and at being on the road in general, and it's gonna work fine.

Howard: His intention is to create a, a piece of film so bizarre and, parts of it so full of bullshit and other parts of it so technically perfect, that the people are gonna leave the theater going, "I didn't understand it at all! What's he doing? What's, what's the message? What's he trying to say?" Well, that's the message, that he's not trying to say it.