Rodney Bingenheimer - Cultural Appearances

Cultural Appearances

• Bingenheimer played the backside and over-the-shoulder shots of both of the Davy Jones characters in "The Prince and the Pauper" episode of The Monkees situation comedy.

• He was briefly a member of The Chocolate Watch Band, and played only one gig at the San Jose State Fair.

• He is shown in the crowd of a 1967 L.A. Love-In in 1968 documentary You Are What You Eat (film).

• He appeared as an extra in the 1969 musical film Paint Your Wagon.

• Bingenheimer made a brief cameo appearance in the Cheech & Chong film Up in Smoke released in 1978, during the Rock Fight sequence.

• Bingenheimer was seen driving The Ramones’ pink Cadillac in the film Rock 'n' Roll High School, and provided the hand clapping in “The Return of Jackie and Judy” on the Phil Spector-produced End of the Century. He also appears in the video for their 1986 song “Something to Believe In”.

• As a token of their appreciation for his promotion of the band, the members of Blondie served as Bingenheimer’s backing band in a limited release single of “Little G.T.O.” credited as “Rodney and the Brunettes”. Rodney drives a '67 GTO with the license plate LIDL GTO.

• He appeared DJing at KROQ in the documentary "The Unheard Music" about X, the punk band from Los Angeles.

• Bingenheimer had a cameo role (as a nightclub owner) in the Alex Cox film Repo Man (1984).

• Rodney, and slides from his English Disco, were in Dramarama’s 1991 video for “Haven’t Got a Clue”.

• He was the subject of the documentary film Mayor of the Sunset Strip, directed by George Hickenlooper and produced by Chris Carter.

• Bingenheimer has a booth named for him at Canter's deli in Los Angeles, which was dedicated to him by Nancy Sinatra.

• After years of grassroots support, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce decided to acknowledge his contribution to music and radio with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame which was presented on 9 March 2007. This is the 2,330th star awarded, and it is in front of the Knitting Factory nightclub at 7021 Hollywood Blvd. When asked about his star, he said "then people can literally walk all over me" but added "from down there I can look up girls' dresses."

• Bingenheimer was the voice of the radio DJ in the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon “Krab Borg.”

• Bingenheimer was portrayed by J. P. Manoux in the Darby Crash biopic What We Do Is Secret.

• Bingenheimer was played by Keir O'Donnell in the 2010 biopic The Runaways.

• He was in a film titled Nina Hagen = Punk + Glory in 2002.

• Bingenheimer recorded a single titled "I Hate the '90s", and did spoken-word vocals with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Hole's Eric Erlandson, and cut singles with Lita Ford (Lets Make the Scene) and Blondie with the single Little GTO.