Baby Snakes on AllMovie

Composer, bandleader, satirist and all-around mad genius Frank Zappa offers an up-close look at "people who do stuff that is not normal" in this off-center concert documentary. Primarily filmed during a 1977 Halloween show by Zappa and his group (which at the time included Adrian Belew, Terry Bozzio, Roy Estrada, Patrick O'Hearn, and Ed Mann), the performance is interspersed with backstage footage of the group, visits with Zappa's fans, and clay animated sequences from filmmaker Bruce Bickford. Songs include "Disco Boy", "City of Tiny Lights", "Curse of the Knick-Knack People", "Punky's Whips", "Jones Crusher", "Black Page #2", and more. Baby Snakes was originally released in a version running 166 minutes, but at the insistence of the film's distributor it was edited down to 91 minutes; the complete version was later restored for release on home video and DVD.