Rocky Horror does not appear in Bremerton, or anywhere in Kitsap County, until about 1979, when it lands at the Admiral, a decaying art deco movie theatre on Bremerton’s downtown West side. There is originally little comment about it. What there is looks like this:

Unless I missed something, that’s it. Apologies if I did. Rocky Horror Picture Show ads were frequent in the local paper, and they all looked very similar. This makes it a challenge to find articles about the film playing.

The Admiral rather fits with RHPS, in an odd thematic way. It goes with the word “Maritime” on the Criminologist’s binder. It fits with the idea of a ship and the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” references. At this time, it had a frontispiece featuring a crowned and throned Neptune, a sexually rapacious god, flanked by two sirens. It involves the Federal Government. So it works.

The local paper wasn’t completely done with the RHPS phenomenon. There is also mention of Eddie Scott in an article about Meat Loaf’s career.

Well, that’s quite a lot of “quites,” you got going on there, mister.

Please note the character is called “Crazy Eddie” here. For a long period of time, I heard Eddie Scott referred to as “Crazy Eddie.” It’s not accurate, and I’m not sure where it came from, outside of the fact that Eddie is basically nuts. These kinds of mistakes are common until RHPS is released on video. “Crazy Eddie” sounds like Frank hacked a mattress salesman to death, and to be honest, that would be more logical than what actually happens in the film.

The only mention before these artifacts is from 1978, but it describes events in Seattle. I believe the Bremerton/Seattle ferry was only a half hour during this time, and Seattle was safer in terms of things like, you know, murder. Back then, you could walk down 3rd and Marion at night without having a fent-face smack you in the skull with a wrench.

Therefore, it was relatively easy for a high-school or college-age kid to hop a ferry over to Seattle and see a midnight show. RHPS also has a long history of running in the nearby town of Tacoma. I have seen it there numerous times over the years.

There is a heavy emphasis on costumes in these early articles. Cosplay was a new and odd phenomenon to the American public. No one was that fascinated by people exploring their “identity.” Your identity was your own business. It was behavior that shocked people, not who you said you were in the inside. Society was taken aback by the cosplay, the food-throwing, and the talking back to the screen. They were also preoccupied with the fact that a large chunk of the audience was drunk, stoned, or cross-faded. This was weird rebellion. They were not sure what it meant.

In the 1980s, whenever RHPS played in downtown Bremerton, the cast would go to places like the McDonald’s afterward. This was just down the street from the theater, a few blocks away. Conveniently, there was also a sex and lingerie shop called Naughty ‘n Nice just across from the McDonalds. I assume this was where many people bought their fishnets. I was fascinated by the strange people in costume. My father would work very late into the night and ask my mother to pick him up. This often happened on a Friday, which was one of the midnight show days.

Below are the Admiral showings, as they appeared in ads and articles for the Bremerton Sun.

Here, we see the first evidence of Moral Majority outrage at the existence of RHPS. I have a theory about these: they are not exactly what they seem. They have a tremendous effect on driving teenagers to the theatre and, in many cases, driving parents to the theatre with them. In each case, a resident has seen this terrible, Satanic, no-good, very bad film, and they feel compelled to warn others of the deleterious effect it may have on the youth of the community. This was supposedly written by the wife of a military man, Mark Swedberg. The couple is in no way related to the cast or anyone at the Admiral Theatre. They are simply concerned citizens. As such, they wish to warn everyone that there is lots of gay sex and murder in this film. It may cause youth to murder. It causes you to laugh at murder, gay sex, and transvestites. If you see this movie, young people, if you even see so much as part of it, you will probably go mad and hack people into little pieces. After this, Dear Reader, you will be put on trial in a court of law!!!!

Understandably, the cast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show has taken issue with the claims made in the last letter. They have not hacked anyone to death yet, though they may want to at times. They have now been afforded the opportunity to read the riot act to all the prudes of Bremerton. They do mention something interesting here: The teens are always with their parents.

There’s a reason for this. I will get into it later. This is a very dangerous area for a minor to be at night. I am not exaggerating. There is a high chance that an unaccompanied child between the ages of 10 and 18 will be trafficked, beaten, robbed, or killed. This is one reason the parents are there. They have heard rumors of a bizarre child sex-trafficking ring operating out of a coin-operated laundromat just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Admiral. There have been news reports of a deranged serial killer, Ted Bundy, running amok in the area. Bundy was apprehended two years earlier, but who knows?

Also, the parents kind of want to see the film.

The most famous RHPS location in Bremerton was the Charleston Theatre in The Callow. When RHPS begins playing, the theatre has been rescued from a life as a pornographic venue. Most people who remember Rocky Horror in the 1990s in Bremerton remember it from this location. It began its run in the mid-1980s,

RHPS returns to this theater in the 1990s. It opens with a warning editorial from a woman named Janet.

Janet’s editorial was well-received by local teenagers. Alas, her warnings were disregarded. There was an RHPS boom coinciding with the film’s 15th anniversary.

The Charleston may be closed as a weekly theater, but it is about to lurch back to life. With it, RHPS is there to do the Time Warp again.

RHPS was also playing at Cinema Six in the nearby town of Silverdale. This particular location had so much advertising that I stopped archiving it after the 20th identical advertisment.

These are other locations in Kitsap that screened RHPS:

The Redwood Plaza, now known as the Tracyton Movie House, has a long history of playing RHPS with shadowcasts.

Apparently, even drive-in theaters got in on the action, if this article is to be believed.

The Plaza Twin 11 screened RHPS in 1985 to coincide with screenings of Clue.

Peaches Music & Video was located in Silverdale on Randall Way, across from the Silo. The Silo sat on the space now occupied by Lover’s Package. This is probably to celebrate the release of the RHPS video.

There was also this bizarre student spoof of RHPS out at Chimacum.

And finally, there was a drag group called the Fabulous Fakes who performed an RHPS revue at Clearwater Casino.

I hope you all had a fabulous “Curry Day.”