APPENDICE #2: Film and television
Part 1: Alice Cooper Group and Alice Cooper Filmography
Alice has made a number of appearances on film. Some of these have already been mentioned in this thread, but there are others. My criteria for this section is that it has to have a run time of at least 60 minutes, and it has to have been released to the cinema and/or it has to have been available on video and/or DVD at some point. Whenever possible, I have linked the appearance to YouTube
'Diary Of A Mad Housewife' (1970) features the Alice Cooper Group's first appearance on the big screen during a party scene. They playing a cover of a Steppenwolf song entitled 'Ride With Me'. The scene descends into chaos when the band tear open a pillow and covers the crowd with feathers while letting of fire extinguishers. This was a stunt that was taken from their stage shows
'Medicine Ball Caravan (1971) is a documentary/concert film. The band perform 'Black Juju'. Although the version in the film is represented as a live recording, it's not. There is a voice at the beginning "announcing" the performance mixed with the music, sound and audience, and the end is also edited. It's the album version! When the film was originally released in the UK in the early '70s, the bands name was very prominent in the advertisements. This led to many disappointed fans going to see the film expecting to see an Alice Cooper film which is is not.
'Sextette' (1978) is a truly poor film, notable for the fact that it was Mae West's final movie. Alice appears in the film playing a role - a hotel porter (so no make-up!), who sings a song called 'Next, Next' (written by Van McCoy). This track is otherwise unavailable. Originally, it was planned for Alice to sing 'No Time For Tears' while Mae West cried, but didn't approve, saying
"...It was a very good song, but it's a real downer. And it comes right near the end. If it was near the beginning I could overcome it, know what I mean? Leave 'em smiling. Anyway, the situation is completely wrong for Mae West. Who ever heard of Mae West crying because any man left her? They're the ones who are crying. So when he wrote a new, different number, around the idea 'Next next next', looking forward to the next man, you see? It's bright, it's up, it's right. There are enough things around to depress people, without us adding to them"". The original 'No Time For Tears' is available on the 'Life And Crimes' box set.
'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band' (1978) features Alice as the character 'Father Sun' performing The Beatles song 'Because'. At the time, Alice was in hospital recovering from alcoholism and had to get a special passout to appear in the film on the condition he returned immediately afterwards to resume treatment which he did. Also, this is one of the few public appearances of Alice sporting a mustache.
'Roadie' (1980) also featured Meatloaf and Debbie Harry. The film was inspired by the song 'Road Rats' from the album 'Lace and Whiskey' and is the story of a guy (Meatloaf) who is a real wizz at fixing things. His girlfriend wants to travel to see Alice in concert. During the film, three songs are performed - 'Pain', 'Road Rats' and a short part of 'Only Women Bleed'
'Monster Dog' and 'Prince Of Darkness' have already been mentioned in this thread. Alice appeared in a non musical role in John Carpenters 'Prince Of Darkness' and as Freddie Kruger's abusive father in 'Freddies Dead: The Final Nightmare'. 'Wayne's World' (1992) has been mentioned already. He appears very briefly for less than a minute at the start of the 1999 film 'The Attic Expeditions'. 'Suck' (2009) featured Alice, Calico, Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins. He has a cameo in the 2012 film
'Bigfoot'
Finally, Alice appears as himself in
'Dark Shadows' (with Johnny Depp), performing 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' and 'Only Women Bleed'.
For this movie, which was set in 1972, the special effects people used an effect to make Alice look younger then he obviously was when filming, and closer to the age he would have been at the time. He also wore a costume similar to that of the 1972 shows and they even hired actors to play the original band. Why didn't they invite the actual Alice Cooper Group themselves? Who knows
Part 2: Television Appearances
Alice has appeared on hundreds (thousands?) of TV shows over the years. He belongs to both the SAG and AFTRA actors associations. A full list of every TV appearance is next to impossible as he's made so many but here are some of the more important/interesting appearances he has made
'Top Of The Pops' was England's foremost music programme between the 1960's – 90's. Alice has been featured at least 20 times, either performing, on video or on record!
'Schools Out' was performed in 1972 on 13th July, 20th July, 27th July, 10th August, 17th August, 24th August, 28th December and again in
July 2000. The video for 'Elected' was played in 1972 on 12th October, 19th October and 26th October and performed live in
July 2000. 1973 saw a single play for the video of 'Hello Hooray', and a repeat play of 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' on 27th April and 11th May.
'Teenage Lament '74' had a single airing, being played over the closing credits on 7th February 1974. The video for 'Poison' was played in 1989 on 27th July, 3rd August, 17th August and 25th December. 'Hey Stoopid' had its video played on 27th June 1991 and 'Lost In America' was performed live on 19th May 1994
'ABC In Concert' was a live music American TV show. The first show, broadcast on November 24th, 1972, featured Curtis Mayfield, Seals & Croft, Bo Diddley, Jethro Tull and Alice Cooper. Four Alice songs were broadcast from a show at Hofsta University in Long Island, NY . The show starts with
'Eighteen' and after an advert break continues with
'Gutter Cats Vs. The Jets', 'Killer' and 'Schools Out'. However, fans in Cincinnati,didn't get to see beyond the first few minutes of Alice's violent theatrics. The owner of WKRC-TV, Lawrence H. Rogers II was so horrified by what he saw that he ordered the the show off the air immediately. Channel 12's decision to protect its viewers was responded to within minutes with a phoned-in bomb threat and several car loads of youths picketing the station. Some 4,000 letters of protest, many profane, poured in over the next few days, the biggest mail load that station officials could remember. Station manager Ro Grignon told TV Guide that he wasn't opposed to rock concerts. "In fact, we think they're going to be a smashing success. We simply found Alice Cooper a little tense."
On March 5th, 1974, Alice appeared in an episode of
'The Snoop Sisters', which stared Helen Hayes. The episode, entitled 'The Devil Made Me Do It' featured Alice played 'the Warlock, Prince' while wearing a skeleton body suit. In more recent years, one UK TV has started re-showing The Snoop Sisters, including the Alice episode, during it's daytime schedule for a few months. However sometimes they seemed to show the complete version, and other times they are showing a cut version which had part of Alice's scene cut from it.
'The Nightmare' television special from 1975 has already been mentioned in the thread
On June 6th, 1977, he appeared on 'The Tonight Show with Johnny Carlson, performing
'Lace And Whiskey' dressed in '40's gangster gear and Tommy gun with the giant chickens from the stage show.
Possibly his most famous appearance on TV was 'The Muppet Show' on November 2nd 1978 where he performed three songs –
'Welcome To My Nightmare',
'You And Me'and
'School's Out'
Alice appeared on
'The Midnight Special' on February 9th 1979, hosting the show and performing a 25 minute set based around songs taken from the 'From The Inside' album