''Baby Snakes'' is a film which includes footage from Frank Zappa's 1977 Halloween concert at

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's Palladium Theater, backstage antics from the crew, and

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

clay animation Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. Tra ...

from award-winning animator Bruce Bickford.

Release

Initially, the film had particular difficulty finding a distributor. Zappa tried to interest

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

, the company that released ''

200 Motels ''200 Motels'' is a 1971 surrealist musical film written and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer, and featuring music by Zappa. An international co-production of United States and the United Kingdom, the film stars the Mothers of Invention, T ...

'', but they declined. Other studios followed United Artists' lead, fearing that Zappa's "cinematic style" had lost considerable appeal in 1970s pop culture, and also declined to distribute the film. Several European distributors told Zappa that there might be interest if the running time was cut from its original 168-minute length. The film was cut to 90 minutes, but still, there were no takers. Even after Bruce Bickford's sequences won first prize at a French animated film competition, there was no interest. Eventually Zappa took it upon himself to distribute the film independently, via his own production company, Intercontinental Absurdities. Baby Snakes premiered on Zappa's 39th birthday, December 21, 1979, at the Victoria Theater in Manhattan. During this initial New York run it was shown 24 hours a day. (The theater marquee can be seen in the opening credits to the 1980 Italian horror film, '' Eaten Alive!'', partly filmed in New York at the time that ''Baby Snakes'' was playing.) The film was first released on videocassette in 1983 in two forms. The complete edition was priced at $200 and was aimed at rental stores. A 90-minute edited version was available to the general public at a more reasonable "sell-through" price of $59.98. Both editions sold out quickly. After many years of being "out of print" ''Baby Snakes'' was released on

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on December 9, 2003, by Eagle Vision United States in its complete unedited form. This version has a four channel

Surround sound Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener (surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to s ...

mix included. The surround mix was created by Zappa for theatrical showings in 1979 but not previously available on home video. This DVD was also the first time that the film was widely distributed to the public, rather than directly from Zappa.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album was first released on

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in 1983 as a

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, and subsequently on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...

with different artwork. An expanded iTunes edition entitled ''Baby Snakes: The Compleat Soundtrack'' was released on December 21, 2012.

Reception

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called it "a shapeless, inexcusably long concert film made of, by and about Frank Zappa"

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1979 films 1970s musical films American films with live action and animation American rock music films Clay animation films Concert films Films directed by Frank Zappa Films scored by Frank Zappa Films set in 1977 Films shot in New York City Films using stop-motion animation 1970s stop-motion animated films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films

Release

Soundtrack

Reception

See also

References

External links