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Baby Snakes is a film which includes footage from Frank Zappa's 1977 Halloween concerts at the Palladium in New York City. It also includes backstage antics from the crew, and stop motion clay animation from award-winning animator Bruce Bickford.
The film premiered on Zappa's 39th birthday, December 21, 1979, at the Victoria Theater in Manhattan. During this initial New York run it was shown continuously 24 hours a day. (The theater marquee can be seen in the opening credits to the 1980 Italian horror film, Eaten Alive!, partly filmed in New York at the time that Baby Snakes was playing.)
Several European distributors told Zappa that there might be interest if the running time was cut from its original 168-minute length. The film was cut to 90 minutes, but still, there were no takers.
Even after Bruce Bickford's sequences won first prize at a French animated film competition, there was no interest. Eventually Zappa took it upon himself to distribute the film independently, via his own production company, Intercontinental Absurdities.
The film was first released on videocassette in 1983 in a 90-minute edited version with a "sell-through" price of $59.98. This coincided with the original vinyl release of the soundtrack album. The complete 2-hour 45-minute version of the film was released as a double videocassette in 1987, with the soundtrack album being issued on CD around the same time. The full version retailed at $200 and was aimed at rental stores. Both the 1983 and 1987 editions sold out quickly.
Baby Snakes was released on DVD on December 9, 2003, by Eagle Vision United States in its complete unedited form. This version has a four channel Surround sound mix included. The surround mix was created by Zappa for theatrical showings in 1979 but not previously available on home video. This DVD was also the first time that the film was widely distributed to the public.
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