Appearances in Media
- Zappa made an appearance on The Steve Allen Show in 1963. This appearance featured Frank demonstrating the wide scope of percussion by playing the spokes of a spinning bicycle wheel with drum sticks.
- He made a cameo appearance in the 1968 film starring the Monkees, Head, with a talking cow. He also made a cameo appearance on an episode of the Monkees' TV series entitled "The Monkees Blow Their Minds" (air date: 3/11/68). Here, he was shown "playing" a car by beating it into submission. This is done in a Monkees-style montage to the Zappa song "Mother People" after being interviewed by Monkee Michael Nesmith. Zappa agreed to appear on the show provided he could "be" Nesmith; Nesmith, in turn, liked the idea, so long as he could "be" Zappa. The two wore cheap, exaggerated disguises and the interview was performed as if Mike was Frank and Frank was Mike, in a manner analogous to Ringo Starr's appearance as "Larry the Dwarf, dressed up like Frank Zappa" in 200 Motels.
- He appeared on What's My Line? in 1971, during the show's syndicated run, as a mystery guest.
- Zappa was the host and musical guest of a Season Four episode of Saturday Night Live in October 1978. His odd sense of humor and constant mugging to the camera once led Lorne Michaels to ban this episode. This, however, proved to be temporary as the Zappa episode has been rerun a few times on NBC. In the same show he portrayed Connie Conehead's date. He was also part of another skit, entitled "Night of Freak Mountain", in which Zappa met with a coupleof hippies who offered various drugs to him, which he declined, stating "I don't do drugs." The hippies regarded his statement in awe and surprise. As part of the musical performance of "I'm the Slime" (on an earlier episode hosted by Candice Bergen), the transparent screen of a fake television monitor fills up with a slimy green goo.
- He played Attilla the Hunchback in Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre, in the episode titled "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers" (1984).
- He played drug dealer Mario Fuente in episode 19, "Payback" of the TV show Miami Vice first broadcast 14 March 1986.
- Zappa was the voice of the Pope in the 1992 Ren and Stimpy episode "Powdered Toast Man".
- The Zappa moustache also made an appearance in the popular TV show "SpongeBob SquarePants" episode "Summer Job".
Read more about this topic: Frank Zappa In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words appearances and/or media:
“The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves.”
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