welcome back to the program my next two guests are the first father and daughter team we've ever
had on this television program the father made a name for himself in the late 60s as the leader of
the Mothers of Invention and the daughter certainly you can applaud that absolutely
uh the daughter is currently making a name for herself as the person who
introduced Valley girls to the rest of the world please welcome Frank and Moon Zappa
a few folks uh you in particular I'm guessing Frank have quite
a following here in the audience and we're very pleased to have you
um here let me uh ask I know you get tired probably discussing your family's sons and
daughters names and so forth but originally you named Moon Moon Unit right right uh and and now
you've dropped the unit still on and and what exactly was going through your mind when you
named her Moon Unit well actually it was a choice between that or Motorhead [Laughter]
um it was now and I saw your son or one of your sons on The Today
Show this morning and his name is dweezel dweezel
now these are well I don't mean to be disrespectful but these are peculiar names
for children I don't think so has has it been a problem for you uh Moon being known as Moon Unit
uh no not really when I was little I wanted to change my name to Beauty heart or Mary
but I think that I like my name yeah uh and what about the the names of the other
dweezel Amit and Diva yeah Ahmed and Diva now I know I I was reading that Ahmed actually wanted
to change his name for a Time didn't he yes he did yeah to what Rick Rick
when he when people called him Amit they called him Ahmet vomit and then when he changed his name
and he changed his name to Rick they called him Rick so he changed it back again okay [Applause]
but actually you know they should just call a moment
because as he matures I'm sure that that's what will stick with him
you get the sense that all hell has broken loose here and
um but a bit of hit perhaps uh now tell me about the your father as a as a father I mean
he is a musical and um sociological phenomenon and a legend and a little strange or at least
it used to present himself that way what was he or what is he like around the house and
well you know the usual I'll say no mask is no he's normal guy
now what about the uh when you bring interest in now huh when you when you bring friends over
to the how old are you do you mind 14. so we bring uh boys home to meet your dad is
that strange or not yes he I bring them home and and Frank looks at them shakes their hand
asks asks them questions and you know if they're okay you know it's all right you
know what now what uh do you what constitutes okay for you I mean anybody not make the cut
well she had a guy over the other the other day that I didn't like too much
well I wouldn't want to embarrass him by saying yeah uh so so that's the only one that she's
brought to the house that I didn't like yeah and only because he was uh like a wise guy type kind
of a yeah smart mouth a nerd a nerd now this uh this collaboration between the two of you have
you ever worked together before on a project yeah on the last album uh and that was the one before
the the single that's so popular now that's right yeah and do you want to be a singer Moon
no I want to be an actress I'm looking at scripts now
um I can sing if if it's necessary I'd like to do a musical or Hawaiian Punch commercial or perhaps
me too perhaps being insane a housewife so these these are all lofty Ambitions and uh having back
to the show this is the most recent Frank Zappa album ship arriving too late to save a drowning
which from which uh Valley girls is taken or is on or whatever they say when it's included
in in the album uh explain to us again you must be tired of this explanation but tell
us about how this came to be either one of you this is a toss-up question for 20 points oh wow
I've been to parties bar mitzvahs I know what I'm doing Now by qualified for the job you mean this
song is about your peer group right essentially uh well anybody who uh knows what the valley is
about and uh you've been there I have been to the same experiences it and can let others experience
it as well and and what is it about it with the world yeah what in in your estimation what
is the valley about Frank well you see I don't want to break the hearts of a lot of people who
really like this record because I hate the San Fernando Valley I mean it's perhaps one of the
most disgusting places on the face of the Earth and I wrote this song about the values of the
people in the San Fernando Valley but it turned out to be cute and so everybody thinks it's cute
okay it's a nice cute record uh now now for people who may not know what uh if you could just talk
like these people talk do you mind or sell them from Real Estate well like okay take this house
over here for example you notice it's got like a little picket dance it's so cute there's like
Vines growing over everything I don't know what the flowers are called but like they're so awesome
so it just uh just AirHeads is what you're saying yeah uh and and what I what I read
about the record you you just you got her out of bed at midnight and said come down here and you
did you just add lib what's on the on the record or yes yeah and the results have been overwhelming
successfully for you folks ridiculous ridiculously so um now
when when you were uh in your earlier stages of your career you did some as far as public
appearances you did some interesting things audience participation petition for you know
that's right you got Marines out of the audience and on stage yes this is a good place for Marines
uh now what once you get him on stage what do you do with them well you're talking about something
that happened in 1967 at the Garrick theater in the middle of the uh the Vietnam War and what
happened was there had been a murder in in the village and I think a marine had been killed and
somebody had spread this rumor that the hippies had done it so all the Marines were coming into
the village the rumor had it to murder people with long hair remember when all that stuff was
popular to do and so we were rehearsing one day and these three Marines came in in full dress
uniform in the afternoon and I figured well if this was the hit squad they wouldn't be dressed
up and they were just fans yeah and they were hanging out for a while and we talked to them
after the rehearsal and asked him if they knew any good songs and if they wanted to come on the stage
so they said that they knew House of the Rising Sun and everybody must get stoned so I said well
that's really good we'll warm up we'll learn the the songs and you go across the street to the Tin
Angel and get drunk and come back when the show started so they did and when they came back they
sang the two songs and then I said to the audience um well it's here for the United States Marines
and we got this large doll of a child and said how would you like to show these people what you
would do with this uh in your normal daily work and they ripped it apart on stage with musical
accompaniment and then after they had finished that I showed the pieces of the broken doll to
the audience there's a lot of people crying out there yeah so uh yeah that's you know there's
there's a reason for doing things like that and and by the time the media gets a hold of it and
people try and explain it over and over again it turns out to sound like something weird to do but
uh it's yeah it still sounds like something well no in in the context of the times I understand it
but but yeah yeah enough for instance I was pretty sick back then wouldn't it now uh another time you
you actually got yourself kind of roughed up in London right yeah I was attacked by a crazy person
and uh the crazy person was unhappy with you or just crazy well who knows about crazy people yeah
that's true for sure yeah uh it was but I spent a couple of months in the hospital in a year in
a wheelchair and that was not too fun yeah yeah and you never found out what the motive for this
was well he told two different stories when they caught him the first thing the first story he told
was uh see what happened was I was working in a theater that had an orchestra pit 15 feet deep
with a concrete floor in the bottom and they didn't have it covered over and the security
guards that were hired by the theater were off to the side smoking some marijuana at the end of
the show just as we were doing The Encore so they weren't paying attention and this guy came out of
the audience and he knocked me into the orchestra pit so he told the press that I had been making
eyes at his girlfriend and he was jealous that was one story I couldn't even see him or I don't
even know what the guy looks like today didn't see him or his girlfriend because the lights were in
my eyes and then after that he said well uh we weren't giving him enough value for his ticket
uh see Moon your father has had a very difficult life and we're going to pause
again we'll return to talk more about this Frank Zappa and his daughter Amun Zappa are
here I wanted to ask you about your friends in the valley how do they react to your success by
uh introducing them to the world well most of my friends don't speak Valley they prefer to
speak English but those that I uh imitated are flattered because if there's one thing Valley
girls love it's attention uh you're making a lot of money on this I hope huh [Laughter]
uh and Frank it was a pleasure meeting you I've been an admirer of yours for many many years and
I know you wanted to get a greeting for someone here yeah ready happy birthday George and George
George has quite a following of his own apparently George is a cool guy
he was there when it was all happening and George will be 75 well again and
for me George happy birthday too look for the UPS truck coming by with a lovely gift
thank you very much folks I know you're very busy I appreciate you being here
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