[Susan Foreman]

The Nightmare: When Vincent Price and Alice Cooper Threw the Greatest TV Party of 1975 / Lethal Amounts

"In March of 1975, Australia's Labor and Immigration Minister Clyde Cameron categorized Cooper as a "degenerate." Cooper wasn't the only one so dubiously labeled by the Australian government and press. A year later, so was AC/DC, the country’s most valuable export, rock 'n' roll-wise. They had been classified as "obscene" causing so much trouble the band strongly considered leaving Down Under for good. Anyway, the story of Cooper's banned-in-Australia predicament made it all the way to TIME magazine's pages in the April 7th, 1975 issue. Here's what Minister Cameron had to say about Cooper's request to bring his Nightmare to Australia:

"I am not going to allow a degenerate who could powerfully influence the young and weak-minded to enter this country and stage this sort of exhibition here." If he does make the application, he will not be allowed in this country."

At the time Alice was already on tour and when responding to Cameron's comments, calling them "crazy," wondered aloud why people still thought he "killed chickens on stage." He also promised his Australian fans that he would see them in September. However, that never happened. The ban was lifted by Aussie Senator and Minister for the Media Doug McClelland before the summer of 1975. When Coop finally made his way to Australia in 1977 he was arrested in connection with an outstanding legal dispute with the original promoter associated with the failed 1975 tour. Yeesh.

Through all of this (including countless television appearances, including the Grammy's and tour dates with Suzi Quatro), Cooper managed to film a $350,000 television special in Toronto - 'Alice Cooper: The Nightmare' - with veteran actor and horror icon, Vincent Price.

Since splitting with his band, Cooper had started sleeping with a tape-recorder next to his bed so he could record details of the strange dreams he had been having. His dreams would serve as the basis for Welcome to My Nightmare, centering around a killer who hunts his victims while they are dreaming. Cooper's original plan was to incorporate his dreams into a screenplay, which sadly never got off the ground. And, just in case you were wondering, Cooper's unfulfilled screenplay has no connection to Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). The story of what inspired Craven's original screenplay for ANOES is much more sinister than any of Cooper's nightmares, as it is based on the grim phenomenon of Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome (SUDS). Cooper’s dreams would be fully realized not only on Welcome to My Nightmare but also for Alice Cooper: The Nightmare, during which each song on the album became, for lack of a better way of describing it, individual video stories, or very early versions of the modern music video, presented by Cooper and Vincent Price. The special was groundbreaking as it was the first time an album had been marketed in such a way. 'Alice Cooper: The Nightmare' was more than just an innovative marketing scheme for Cooper. It also helped him avoid any legal or contractual issues with Warner Bros, his former label. Sneaky!

This brings us to Cooper and his crew's arrival in Toronto to begin filming The Nightmare TV special. One of my favorite parts of this Alice escapade is something I recall from my high school days. I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, where Montreal was a popular destination if you were underage and legally wanted to drink alcohol. During my first trip, we discovered what Alice Cooper discovered before he arrived in Toronto--there was no Budweiser. NONE. To remedy this, Cooper traveled across the Canadian border with forty cases of Bud to get him through filming. Price’s participation in The Nightmare came to be during a visit to the set of Price's 1975 film Journey into Fear by either Cooper or Bob Ezrin. It’s a bit murky. Vincent Price became the character "The Spirit of the Nightmare" in which Cooper was trapped. Either Cooper or Ezrin wound up meeting Price onset with David Mann to see if he would be interested in directing The Nightmare. Price would first agree to lend his distinctive voice as a narrator on Cooper's song "The Black Widow” on Welcome to My Nightmare. He would also sign on to join Cooper for The Nightmare TV special, and his appearance alongside Cooper in the 90-minute creepy/cheesy show would solidify Price’s goth icon status at the age of 64. In the very special, special, it's really all on Cooper and Price as they, with the exception of actor Linda Googh (as “Cold Ethyl”), and various female dancers, were the only cast members. Like Cooper's live shows, it relied heavily on costumes and theatrics. Like a life-sized merry-go-round, because why not?

The screenplay for The Nightmare was adapted by Alan Rudolph and Tony Hudz. Interestingly, Rudolph would become involved with another visual project involving Cooper, the 1980 film Roadie, inspired by Cooper's jam "Road Rats'' from Cooper's third solo record, 1977's Lace and Whiskey. In Roadie, Alice plays himself and the object of desire of Lola Bouilliabase, who is determined to lose her virginity to Cooper (played beautifully by Porky's goddess, actor Kaki Hunter). If you still need another reason to see Roadie, I have several suggestions, as it also features appearances from Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Roy Orbison, Cooper's wife Sheryl, Meat Loaf, and the King of Soul Train, the late Don Cornelius, among others. Still in need of more inspiration to see this sloppy gem? How about this: Debbie Harry performs a cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire'' in it. Yee-****ing-HAW! But again, I digress.

As you might imagine, given Cooper's reputation for his stage shows, ABC had some stipulations for The Nightmare. First, no fake blood. BOO! Next, ABC censors took issue with the title and lyrics of "Only Women Bleed," requiring Cooper to change the lyric "Man got this woman to take his seed" to "Man got this woman to take his need." Apparently, the mere insinuation of semen was a network "no-no" back in 1975. The Nightmare would win an Emmy in 1976 for Outstanding Achievement in Videotape Editing for a Special--a process that was still in the early stages of development back in the mid-70s. The show, long legendary, was first released on VHS in 1983 and decades later in 2017, on DVD as a part of Cooper's 1976 concert film, Welcome to My Nightmare. A piece of physical media more than worthy of adding to your collection."