Terry O'Reilly

That convinced Adler there was an audience out there for the film.

They just had to find it somehow.

Then Tim Deegan had an idea.

Why not try screening the movie at midnight?

The Waverly Theater in New York was a venue known for showing offbeat films when the clock struck 12.

It had learned that a different kind of audience shows up at midnight.

On April Fool's Day, 1976, the Rocky Horror Picture Show began its first midnight screening.

It was an immediate success.

The theater noticed that a group of 30 or 40 patrons would come every Friday night, go out to dinner, watch the movie, then party.

It had become a ritual.

So 20th Century Fox decided to screen it at midnight in Austin, Texas, Los Angeles, Seattle, and at the Roxy in Toronto.

Soon, midnight screenings were happening in a number of major cities.

Five months later, something unexpected started to happen.

The audience began shouting back at the screen.

Sometimes they would shout out lines in unison with the on-screen characters.

Sometimes they would shout out new lines, like, "'Watch out for that rock!'

just before Brad and Janet's car got the flat."

Soon, the audience started dressing up in costumes from the movie and bringing props.

They threw toast at the screen when the characters proposed a toast.

They threw toilet paper whenever a character said, Great Scott!