Besides working on the hideous little rock opera [I Was A Teen-age Malt Shop], I was trying to raise money for a micro-budget sci-fi film called "CAPTAIN BEEFHEART vs. THE GRUNT PEOPLE." This is a sample of the dialog. Captain Beefheart was a character I invented for the film. His name derives from one of Don Vliet's relatives who looked like Harry Truman. He used to piss with the door open when Don's girlfriend walked by and make comments about how his whizzer looked just like a beef heart.
Excerpt from a Beefheart interview by Pete Frame in ZIG ZAG magazine #8, 1969 ("A Fine Madness"):
Frame: I gather that plans are afoot to begin filming 'Captain Beefheart versus the Grunt People', which Frank wrote some years ago. Can you tell us anything about that?
Beefheart: Yeah... it should really be interesting.
Frame: What's the theme? Who are the Grunt People?
Beefheart (to Frank Zappa): Who are they, Frank?
Zappa: They're these people on the moon, who wear these clothes which are like burlap bags with fish and garbage sewn on them. They are the villains of the story, but turn out to be the victims of a government agent. It's a little warped - just enough to retain clarity..., like a mirror that makes your arm look a little larger.
Beefheart: Yes, like a little doodab.
Excerpt from a Beefheart interview by an unknown interviewer in International Times, 1968 ("Vintage Beef"):
Interviewer: Where did you get the name from, how did you come on it?
Beefheart: I was out in the desert five years ago and I was sitting in a car and we were all stoned. Frank Zappa and I and a bunch of other guys were there. Frank doesn't turn on at all... but anyway, I was just sitting there and I started laughing and I had thoughts of this name and I laid it on everybody in the car and Frank says: "Ah! Like you know, that's great, we'll make a movie". So he said: "We'll make a movie and we'll call it 'Captain Beefheart meets the Grunt People'". So we started work and we studied the script for a year and we wrote a thing and something happened and the movie fell through. It doesn't agree with the things I think now - changed so much in that length of time. It's a good movie though... tear on the dotted line, paste up rockets... It was really going to be far out.
Excerpt from an article about FZ, by Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, October 18, 1969 ("Mother's Day Has Finally Come"):
"Captain Beefheart vs. The Grunt People"! This is a feature-length film, presently in script form, written by Zappa in 1964. Zappa said that thanks in part to "Easy Rider" and the "Woodstock Music & Art Fair" - "two of several things finally showing the youth market really means business" - three major studios have made offers to back the flick. Zappa also said that if anyone had shown interest in the film five years ago, he would never have played rock and roll. His "ideal cast" includes parts for, among others, Don Van Vliet, who is better known as Captain Beefheart, an old high school chum of Zappa's; Chester Burnett, better known as Howlin' Wolf; several of the Mothers of Invention; and Grace Slick.
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