200 Motels

Synopsis: "Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The story, interspersed with performances by the Mothers and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, is a tale of life on the road. The band members' main concerns are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Music

Director(s): Tony Palmer, Frank Zappa

Actors: Mark Volman, Howard Kaylan, Ian Underwood, Aynsley Dunbar

Production: MGM Home Entertainment


IMDB:: 5.9
Rotten Tomatoes:: 67%

200 Motels Movie Quotes »

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: R
Year:: 1971
: 98 min
: 703 Views

A MURAKAMI / WOLF / BIZARRE PRODUCTION
color by Technicolor
THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION
THEODORE BIKEL:
Music performed by The Mothers of Invention
MARK VOLMAN / HOWARD KAYLAN / IAN UNDERWOOD /AYNSLEY DUNBAR / GEORGE DUKE
Introducing:
KEITH MOON / JANET FERGUSON
LUCY OFFERALL / JIMMY CARL BLACK
MARTIN LICKERT / DICK BARBER
DON PRESTON / PAMELA MILLER
RUTH UNDERWOOD /JUDY GRIDLEY
RINGO STARR:
FRANK ZAPPA'S 200 MOTELS
Music composed and arranged by:
FRANK ZAPPA:
Music performed by:
THE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
Choreographed by:
GILLIAN LYNNE:
Story and screenplay by
FRANK ZAPPA:
Shooting script by:
TONY PALMER:
Associate producers
RAOUL RAGEL / BRIAN HARRIS
Produced by
JERRY GOOD / HERB COHEN
characterizations directed by
FRANK ZAPPA:
Visuals directed by
TONY PALMER:
Ladies and gentlemen!
200 motels
200 motels . . . Life on the road!
Ladies and gentlemen! and here is . . .
Who?
Larry the dwarf!
Larry likes to dress up funny
Tonight he's dressed up like Frank Zappa
Let's ask him "What's the deal?"
Hi Larry, it's good to have you back
on our panel.
Hi Dave, it's really great to be back on your panel.
I'm sure the people at home would be interested to know why such a large dwarf as you is all dressed up like Frank Zappa.
Tell us Larry, eh . . . what's the deal?
He made me do it, Dave. He's such a creep.
He's making me hold this alladin.
And why is he making you do that, Larry?
He wants me to f*** the girl with the harp.
He wants you to f*** the girl . . . with the harp?
No, no, with the magic lamp. He wants me to stuff it
up her and rub it.
Hm. Hm-hm-hm. Ho-ho-ho, ha-ha. A-HA-HA-HA-HO-HO.
Let's ask our studio audience. If you'd just been lowered down here on TV by a wire connected to a brown leather
harness, forced by a crazy person to insert a mysterious, imported lamp into the reproductive-rep-rep-rep into-into
the rep-rep-reproductive orifice of a lady harpist
and you were a dwarf . . . would you do it?
YES!!!
Yay!
Let's spin the big wheel, Larry! Go ahead,
give it a whirl!
What our studio audience doesn't know is that
the reason Larry the Dwarf
is doing all this stuff is because its all part
of the score to 200 Motels. Every word,
every action, the lamp,
the reproductive orifice, it's all in the score, so he
has to do it. This whole event is a fantasy that occurred touring on the road. Touring can make you crazy, ladies and gentlemen.
That is precisely what 200 Motels is all about.
Say!
Ow! Look out!
Ow! Look out!
Ow! Look out!
How long?
How long?
Till that mystery roach be arrivin' soon
Ya-ooo Ya-ooo Ya-ooo Ya-ooo
That mystery roach be approachin'
That mystery roach be approachin' me
La La La La La La La, Oof!
How long?
How long?
Till that mystery roach been gone
Ya-ooo-ooo-oo-ooo
Ya-ooo-ooo-oo-ooo
That mystery roach be approachin'
That mystery roach be approachin' me
La La La La La La La, Oof!
That mystery roach be approachin'
That mystery roach be approachin' me
La La La La La La La, Oof!
Mystery mystery mystery mystery
mystery mystery mystery roach!
Mystery mystery mystery mystery
mystery mystery mystery roach!
Mystery mystery mystery mystery
mystery mystery mystery roach!
Mystery mystery mystery mystery
mystery mystery mystery roach!
Mystery mystery mystery mystery
mystery mystery mystery roach!
Mystery mystery mystery mystery
mystery mystery mystery roach!
Room service?
Ah . . . a mystery roach . . .
What are we SINGING about?
We must be . . . FLIPPING OUT!
Special delivery for Mr. Volman! Mr. Volman?
Are you Volman?
(Sniff sniff) Do you smell somethin' weird? (Sniff sniff)
It's a double cheeseburger from a famous American
burger chain, with a symbol in the parking lot
that's yellow plastic and goes like this:
RANCE MUHAMMITZ . . .
RANCE MUHAMMITZ . . .
RANCE . . .
RANCE MUHAMMITZ . . .
RANCE . . .
RANCE . . .
MUHAMMITZ . . .
MUHAMMITZ . . .
MUHAMMITZ . . .
. . . In a steaming briefcase!
You're Volman!
Yeh-No. No. He's Volman. Who are you?
You must call me "Rance Muhammitz."
"Rance Muhammitz"? Stupidest name I ever heard of.
Yah, but you must remember that within the conceptual framework of this filmic event, nothing really matters! It is
entirely possible for several subjective realities to coexist. It is possible that all things are a deception of the senses.
Right on, Rance! The functioning of our senses has been spiritually impaired and chemically corrupted by the fake,
artifical food coloring.
By the way. Mr. Volman, I have . . . YOUR CHEESEBURGER.
We must evolve.
Yeah . . .
We must progress.
Progress . . .
There must be growth!
Yeah . . . macrobiotic foods and tie-dye shirts!
Hey, ya ain't gonna eat that cheeseburger, Mark? . . . (BURP)
F***ing guy will eat anything.
This is registered delivery, you will have to sign for it.
Sure man, I'll sign. Where's the pencil?
I don't wish to alarm you, my son, but the
signature will have to be . . . in blood.
Listen man, I just wanna know two things. Is there any beer in this fake nightclub, and when do we get paid?
Just-just a minute, just a minute, in a moment or two you'll be able to get your hands on all the imaginary beer that
you want. For the moment, I would like to explain
some of the things that you'll all be doing in this movie.
I've been wondering about that.
For Sherwood, we have a vacuum cleaner scheduled . . .
A vacuum cleaner?
. . . and a potential epileptic seizure during
a production number later on.
A vacuum cleaner!
I thought the two of you would like to get acquainted.
It says here that you are supposed to be in love.
This abnormal relationship will be great for the
big story I'm going to write!
Listen man, I just wanna know one thing:
when do we get paid?
No look, look, look, look, look, don't you
even care what you do?
So long as I get some beer and I get paid, you
can make me do anything, I'm professional!
You should be careful talkin' about that stuff.
Why, does he listen?
He always listens. He always watches and listens to all the guys in the band. I've been in the band for years, and I
know. He always listens.
That's how he gets all his material! It isn't s'posed to be natural, friendly, good-natured, humorous, ha-ha-ha-ha!
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, YEAH, WELL FINE!
. . . and then he rips it off, and he sneaks off into a secret room someplace, and boils it in ammonia, and he gets it
perverted, and THEN he brings it back to us at
rehearsal and makes us play it!
Hey man, what's that over there?
It's HIM. You can see him, he's watching.
D'ya think he heard us?
I've been in the band for years. You can
bet that he heard everything.
Yeah, let's go over and pretend to be nice to him.
Yeah, let's go over and pretent we don't know he's watching.
Yeah, and rippin' off all our good material.
Hi, man!
Hi, Frank!
Hi, man!
Hi, Frank!
Hi, man!
Hey, Frank!
Hey, that's a GREAT new song you wrote, you know, the one about the penis and everything? I was laughin' a lot

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Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, activist and filmmaker. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse rock musicians of his era.As a self-taught composer and performer, Zappa's diverse musical influences led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical composers such as Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, and Anton Webern, along with 1950s rhythm and blues and doo-wop music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz or classical. Zappa's output is unified by a conceptual continuity he termed "Project/Object", with numerous musical phrases, ideas, and characters reappearing across his albums. His lyrics reflected his iconoclastic views of established social and political processes, structures and movements, often humorously so. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Unlike many other rock musicians of his generation, he personally disapproved of drugs and seldom used them, but supported their decriminalization and regulation. During Zappa's lifetime, he was a highly productive and prolific artist, earning widespread acclaim from critics and fellow musicians. He had some commercial success, particularly in Europe, and worked as an independent artist for most of his career. He remains a major influence on musicians and composers. His honors include his 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 1997 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000, he was ranked number 36 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at number 71 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and in 2011 at number 22 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". more…

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200 Motels

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