Super Heroes Cut
Within days of The Rocky Horror Picture Show opening at the UA Westwood, producer Lou Adler visited a screening to gauge the audience reaction. He discovered that in the dark theater, that the films ending was particularly down-beat, and somewhat depressing. At that point, when few had seen the movie, he had the ending recut to shorten the song "Super Heroes" and have "The Time Warp" play over the closing credits. The result was positive. The result had people walking out of the film with a positive beat, and for those who began returning for multiple visits, they began singing and dancing at the end of the film instead of somberly walking out to the depressing "Science Fiction Reprise" describing the cast's downfall. Although the story circulated that the film had been trimmed, so few had seen the original, there was speculation early on that the entire scene was merely a rumor. In the UK, the film had disappeared in a few short weeks, but the prints remained and were not cut, and later it was determined that there was indeed a U.S. version vs a European version of the film.
In Summer of 1979, all rumors were laid to rest as the film had a limited, 3-week run with a fully restored version of the film, playing exclusively at the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles. Around that time, The Rocky Horror Picture Show began playing on various cable networks, with a variety of unexplained cuts to the ending. Fledgeling HBO showed a fully restored version of the film, though SelecTV showed a strangely cobbled version with "The Time Warp" playing over the visuals for "Super Heroes."
