Ric Ocasek - in Other Media

In Other Media

Ocasek wrote a book of poetry, 1993's Negative Theatre. It was at one time expected to be incorporated into an album and multimedia incarnation of the same name, but those plans were dropped abruptly. For many years Ocasek had a hobby of making drawings, photo collages, and mixed-media art works which, in 2009, were shown at a gallery in his home town of Columbus, Ohio.

Ocasek had a cameo role in the John Waters feature film Hairspray, and had a bit part in the 1987 movie Made in Heaven in which he played a mechanic. He had a non-speaking role (beatnik painter) in Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run" (1969). He is listed in the credits on the DVD, but not imdb.com (which does cite claims that he was actually born in 1945).

Ocasek stated in a 2005 interview in Rockline that he hated touring and it was unlikely that he would do so again. He also stated he would not be reuniting with The Cars again, but gave the okay to his former bandmates to do so with Todd Rundgren replacing him on vocals (the resulting band is called The New Cars).

On April 17, 2006, Ocasek appeared on The Colbert Report and volunteered to put Todd Rundgren "on notice". He appeared again on the July 26, 2006, episode to cheers from the audience as he volunteered to lead a commando mission to "rescue" Stephen Jr., the baby eagle at the San Francisco Zoo named after Stephen Colbert. He also appeared again on April 18, 2007, in order to support his wife during her appearance on the show, after remarks that she found Colbert "extremely attractive". He has been mentioned many times in other episodes as well.

The Cars, with Ocasek, appeared on The Colbert Report on August 9, 2011, to promote their new album, Move Like This.