Faerie Tale Theatre With FZ

Zappa as mute hunchback

Zappa made an appearance in Faerie Tale Theatre's episode "The Boy Who Left Home To Find Out About The Shivers", in which he presented a cameo role as a mute hunchback. Faerie Tale Theatre (1982-1987) was a live-action children's tv show which retold popular fairy tales. The show was presented by actress  Shelley Duvall and featured television modifications of the fairy tales, frequently with popular actors and celebrities in cameo roles.

Stars in this episode: Dana Hill, Christopher Lee, PeterMacnicol, Frank Zappa, Vincent Price.

Generally, Peter MacNicol plays a young man unafraid of everything, which is amazing considering everybody in his village is quite superstitious. So, like the title suggests, he leaves home to find out what it means to be fearful. He stops at an inn, where a king and his daughter are staying, since their castle is haunted.

Here is whole episode:

During a tv interview on the Australian TV show "Sounds" on June 17, 1983 (first video) Zappa reflected with enjoyment on the experience, although his cameo role might only be seen by the open public almost a year later.

"Recently I, just for a laugh, I played the role of a hunchback on a fairy tale that was completed about three days ago, on a show called Faerie Tale Theatre which was produced by Shelley Duvall, and airs on Showtime cable network here in the United States. I don't know if they have distribution outside the US (...). I think that they probably would be trying to export this thing, but . . . It's a whole series of fairy tales. The first one that they did was "The Frog Prince" and it starred Robin Williams as the frog. He was really great. And, things are all done on video, they use a lot of video effects. Mick Jagger did the last one that was on the air, he played the Mandarin in "The Nightingale," and . . . So I got to be a hunchback in a story called "The Boy Who Left Home To Learn About The Shivers." (...) Eventually, yes, he found out about the shivers in one of the more humorous scenes in the thing. (...) Hear my lines, "Huh huh huh . . . " And, "Ooooh . . . heh heh . . . "