Random Little-Known And Awesome Facts About Rob Zombie (20 items)

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  (#1) His First Job Was As A Gofer For 'Pee-Wee's Playhouse'

  Zombie originally revealed this tidbit in an interview with Jimmy Fallon, and elaborated on his duties in Westword magazine:  

  It was a cool job to have. But I was probably nineteen years old. It was everything from delivering stuff to doing little crap work around the set. I don't even know if I was a P.A. Whatever is just below a P.A. I'm not even sure it counts as below a P.A., but that was my job. Lowest rung on the ladder -- that would be [the title I give myself for that job]. 

  It was cool, and I liked it. Besides being a fan of Pee Wee Herman, Phil Hartman was on the show. William Marshall, Blacula, was the King of Cartoons. There were all kinds of people I really liked on the show. So it was pretty exciting.
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  (#2) He Made A Voice Cameo In 'Guardians Of The Galaxy'

  He doesn't appear on screen, but Zombie provided the voice of the computer Ravager navigator system.
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  (#3) He Directed A Woolite Commercial

  It's true. The ad debuted back in 2011 and was part of an "alternative" campaign to add a bit of humor - and possibly controversy - to the detergent brand. Zombie stated he tried to make something less overtly "scary" or horrific, and aim for a lighter, "Tim Burton" feel.
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  (#4) He Attributed Much Of White Zombie's Success To 'Beavis and Butt-Head'

  In 1992, Zombie's first band, White Zombie, had a break-out hit with "Thunderkiss '65." However, if it hadn't been for the MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head, the song, its album - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1 - and the group itself might have fallen into absolute obscurity. He told Entertainment Weekly in 1993:

  The record immediately started picking up in markets where we never played, like Wyoming and Missouri-places where Beavis and Butt-Head was the only thing happening, where it’s just cows. It always seemed we needed something to give the album a kick in the butt, and I guess this was the thing.

  As a result, Zombie befriended series creator Mike Judge and contributed an animated hallucination sequence in the feature film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.
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  (#5) His First 45 Was The Jackson 5's "Dancing Machine"

  In this interview with Graham Hartmann of Loudwire, Zombie plays a round of "Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction," in which Hartmann goes through facts presented on Rob Zombie's Wikipedia page to sleuth what is real and what is totally made up. Hartmann notes that the page states the first record Zombie ever bought was an Alice Cooper release.  

  Zombie notes that this is technically true, as Cooper's was the first album he bought; however, the first record - a 45 RPM, 7-inch single - was the Jackson 5's "Dancing Machine," which he purchased sometime in kindergarten and played repeatedly, much to the annoyance of his parents.
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  (#6) He's A Fan And Supporter Of BABYMETAL

  In 2016, Zombie met up with BABYMETAL, a Japanese pop-metal group comprised of three pre-teen girls. He posted a snapshot of himself with the girls, stating his admiration for their touring vigor, and saying they have "more energy than 90 percent of the bands we play with."

  This actually angered many of his fans, who don't consider BABYMETAL hard enough to merit Zombie's approval. One fan said the group was "a shameful embarrassment to anything metal."  

  Zombie's response? "Hey, they are nice kids out on the road touring. What are you doing besides being a grumpy old f*ck?"
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  (#7) He Almost Made The Crow 3

  In 1997, Zombie was asked to write and direct a third installment of The Crow film franchise (White Zombie had previously contributed a cover of "I'm Your Boogie Man" to the The Crow II soundtrack).  

  He did indeed write a script, titled The Crow: 2037. i09 provides this plot synopsis:  

  Rob Zombie came up with this idea for a third Crow movie set in the dystopian future. A young boy and his mother are murdered by a priest of the Fallen One, and the Crow brings the boy back to life — and finally, 27 years later, he becomes a futuristic bounty hunter and seeks vengeance. Zombie worked on this project for 18 months before bailing.

  Zombie's film debut would ultimately be House of 1000 Corpses.
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  (#8) He Directed An Episode Of 'CSI: Miami'

  In 2010, Zombie made his television directorial debut with an episode of CSI: Miami. According to the Daily News, a friend of Zombie's worked on the show and was eager to get him involved. 

  "I wanted to see what it was like. Other TV offers have come up in the past, but I never really went after them because I wasn't sure I really wanted to do TV. It's so different from making a movie, because you go into this established situation that sometimes has been going on for years and years," Zombie said. 

  The episode premiered on March 10, 2010. In the episode, Horatio Caine (David Caruso) and Eric Delko (Adam Rodriguez) travel to Los Angeles to help their colleague Jesse Cardoze (Eddie Cibiran), who was accused of tampering evidence. 
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  (#9) He Was An Art Director For Adult Magazines

  Zombie briefly attended the Parsons School of Design, and this experience, combined with his natural knack for visually-striking aesthetics, led him to work as an art director for explicit magazines - Over 40 and Tail Ends, to name a few.
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  (#10) His Parents Often Worked The Carnival Circuit

  Zombie revealed in a 2013 LA Weekly interview that, on his mother's side, the family business was working carnivals and circuses. Moreover, he and his brother would "get dragged along" to work the carnivals as well. One of their favorite pastimes while on the job was playing in the spook houses and haunted rides, thus shaping his early love of all things horror and macabre.

  He also spoke of the parallels between the carnie life and that of a touring musician:  

  Touring is like this isolated family that travels around, stops, sets up, puts on a show, packs it all up and leaves for the next town. A rock 'n' roll tour is like the closest thing to a traveling circus that still exists.

  The family stints in carnivals ended in 1977 when a riot broke out at a carnival they were working.
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  (#11) He Takes Touring And Performing Very Seriously

  Zombie is a thorough professional when it comes to his tours. He oversees every aspect of his live performances, including approving stage prop designs before they're even finished. He acknowledges all the people who help him realize his vision, but is adamant that his vision be realized in order to give fans the best possible experience he can provide.  

  Zombie stated: 

  To me, nothing matters but the show. I'm not on tour to party and to f*ck around because I don't want to hurt the show. The show has to be excellent all the time. Nobody wants to go see your show and you suck and hear about how much fun you had backstage. Nobody pays fifty bucks so you can have fun backstage. 

  They want the show to be amazing. That's all I care about. That's all anybody cares about. And if the people that work with me don't care about it, I replace them with someone that does. That's the way it should be, right?
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  (#12) He And His Wife Have Been Together For Decades

  Zombie met actress Sheri Moon (now Sheri Moon Zombie) in 1991. They were introduced by a mutual friend. According to Moon, it was pretty much love at first sight. She told Girls & Corpses, "We had pizza, we talked, and that was it." Though they've only been married since 2002, their relationship has, as of 2016, spanned 25 years.
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  (#13) Zombie Sought John Carpenter's Blessing Before Remaking 'Halloween'

  In 2007, when Dimension Films and producer Malek Akkad tapped Zombie to write and direct a remake of the classic horror film Halloween, he sought the approval of one man before going forward: the co-writer and director of the original, as well as a slew of other magnificent films, John Carpenter.  

  Carpenter gave his blessing and told Zombie to make the movie "his own." And that's exactly what he did, exploring the circumstances that led Michael Myers to become The Shape and creating a film more rooted in psychological terror rather than supernatural suspense.

  This reimagining didn't work for some people, but regardless of your opinion, you have to admit the film aligns with Zombie's personal vision and aesthetic.
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  (#14) Zombie Hosts 'TCM Underground'

  Since 2007, Rob Zombie has hosted TCM Underground, a showcase for obscure and not-so obscure horror, grindhouse, and bizarre movies, hosted by Turner Classic Movies. They've aired such films as Sisters, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Spider Baby, and Suspiria.
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  (#15) R Ratings Are No Big Deal To Him

  Asked why he was okay cutting his 2016 film 31 down to R ratings, Zombie said:  

  People don’t really know how that goes. They’re like, 'Hey, man, you should just f*ck the system!' Yeah, alright. It doesn’t work that way. When you make a movie there’s millions of dollars involved. You’ve signed contracts to deliver an R-rated movie. You can’t exactly take millions of dollars and go do whatever you want. Creatively you can, to some extent, but there are always parameters. But as far as cutting 31 down to an R rating, I’ve done that with every one of my movies. It’s no big deal. And eventually the unrated version will come out on DVD or whatever. That’s why I don’t really care. As long as the cuts don’t ruin the movie, and I don’t think they did by any means.
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  (#16) He Admired Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, And Stan Lee The Most

  In an interview with Men's Health, Zombie stated:  

  Growing up, I had the weird fantasy list: I wanted to be Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, and Stan Lee. You have to have almost psychotic drive, because you're going to have years of failure. My advice: Don't quit. When I got to New York City, I lived so far below the poverty line, because I didn't give in and get a job at 7-Eleven. I think you can thrive in misery. Great things come out of being hungry and cold. Once you're pampered, you get lazy. I still don't do anything to pamper myself.
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  (#17) True To His Lyrics, Zombie's "Never Gonna Stop"

  Speaking to TeamRock.com on his eventual demise, Zombie had this to say:  

  I'm not accepting [it]. I'm pretty sure there'll be some technology that comes along in the future that can keep me alive. Maybe there'll be a weird cyborg that walks onto the stage with my brain floating in some kinda gel. Whatever, the world isn't getting rid of me.
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  (#18) He Wrote And Designed His Own Comic Book

  Zombie has stated he had three heroes growing up: Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, and Stan Lee. Though these figures represent different artistic mediums - music, film, and comics - Zombie has found success in all three fields, including writing and producing his own comic book, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which debuted with Image Comics in 2007, and was released as an animated film in 2009.
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  (#19) His Favorite Universal Monster Is Frankenstein's Creature

  Zombie most admires the Frankenstein monster as depicted in the 1931 adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, featuring Boris Karlof as the Creation. He told Westword interviewer Tom Murphy:

  I think my favorite is Frankenstein's monster, probably because it's so iconic. I think when I was a little kid, I would have said King Kong. But I think Frankenstein just because I loved everything about it. The design is the most classic design. It just seems like Hollywood to me. If you think Hollywood you think, you know, Groucho Marx, Marilyn Monroe and Frankenstein. 

  Also, I like the character. Even in my movies I always want to make the monsters... That was my whole pitch for my re-make of Halloween I wanted to make Michael Myers like Frankenstein. I wanted to make him sympathetic. That wasn't ever how he was conceived originally. But that was my take on it. I always saw him as Frankenstein.
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  (#20) He Got Into Horror At A Very Young Age

  Revolver magazine interviewed Zombie in April 2016. A portion of the piece was dedicated to answering fan questions, and Scott Riffle asked at what age Zombie got into horror. His response:  

  I was pretty little. I can remember being into it by kindergarten, for sure. I remember being excited to go to the chamber of horrors at a wax museum, or the haunted mansion at Disneyland. And there was always a lot of horror stuff around on TV, because at that time The Addams Family and The Munsters were really popular. And I loved it all.

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