Frank Zappa at his Zenith, 1986 

Miss this guy, we need him more than ever now.

Zappa is a genius composer and monster guitar player

i've been obsessing over zappa interviews lately and it's amazing to me at how these interviewers all ask the same questions ...and how FZ constantly has to repeat himself.

Above everything else I loved about this man, his music , his humor, his intellect, I always admired how comfortable he is with himself.

Brilliant! Brings me back.

if i could go back in time to fix something from the past, i'd make sure that frank were walking amongst us still today.

Man, we really need ya Frank. Now more than ever.

I miss Zappa because he represented the intelligent musicians like nobody ever could.

a great man.

fun interview, I never heard of this show but if it were still on I would watch it. We need more people like Zappa, he was so awesome!

Watching in 2024

We need a voice of reason like yours back

Wow, he exposed aspartame back in 86'

ZAPPA the world is definitely a better place having had this Brilliant,Zany,Talented outspoken Genius....The Fact that he was a truther who spoke honestly,and was addicted to.gaining knowledge,similarly to myself.... Whipping Post Frank!!....... .. .

I seen him twice both times it was the original spectrum in Philly . Good Shows !

Ahead of his time on Aspartame. Thankfully I have been aspartame free for.... erm.... I forget.

I miss these guys. They were brilliant as well as funny, a trait rarely seen nowadays.

two very funny and smart people having intelligent conversation.

Frank Zappa is top shelf. Beautiful artistry

Miss these two guys.

This guy was the threat to the 'STATE' and corporate criminals. They just hate smart people that use critical thought.

The magic of his music is that it's original. Different. Unique. Controversial. Because od that, nobody can compare.

For a supreme icononoclast he sure did tons of interviews. Thankfully.

What a legend.

David Brenner, when he smiles, looks like someone's Eastern-Euro grandmother.

This is a great interview - I remember seeing the original broadcast 25 years ago. Too bad there's no Part II - Moon and Dweezil come on after the commercial, and Moon kids her dad by claiming that he "forces us to listen to classical music all day!" Zappa has this great smile as he watches his kids take the piss out of him - he obviously loves seeing them being so funny and having minds of their own. The apples didn't fall far from that tree!

it's cool that zappa knows all this stuff...happy 2012...

Used to listen to a community public radio show once a week called Poodle Bites that played all Zappa

Zappa did something that people seldom do today ,he used his brain through thinking and came to his own conclusions he didn't let CNN or ABC or Twitter make his opinion for him ,think America I know its like soooo like hard, to do

The first person to pull the "cereal killer" joke?

True he's the most important American that should be alive I n America today

Mr. Zappa is right. Sex is good for you.

I like that hesitant applause.

Genious FZ

"da rock n roll business"

Frank Zappa was a genius musician and a great, independent thinker, which is something we need now more than ever in this fucked-up country of ours.

LOVE ZAPPA ❤

It is quite sweet (and very US high school) that the interviewer thinks Mozart was being listened to during the Crusades and the Hundred Years' War. Sweet, but also somehow slightly sad. Zappa, meanwhile, speaks sense. A great advocate of reading, Zappa probably knew the relevant dates.

Whether or not lyrics can move you in a positive or negative way. Its free speech.

If you're wondering was he as good as the hype, yeah, he was really good.

Part two please

of course I miss FZ but I miss David Brenner just as much

Not at his musical zenith. 1971-1981 was his zenith, but that's me.

The message sitill there,we just need to pickup what you want and be if you agree ✌️

not surprised,that David screwed up by not knowing the term "serial murder". that would still have been a fairly new, and not that widely known a term; in the American English lexicon of 1986.

"So what? Sex is good for you." :)

Very smart

Frank liked the spotlight

Wow….I would have sworn he was a Magnavox guy.📺

great Frank as usual, someone please throw a history book at the interviewer?? Classical music at the Crusades? Hundred years War? Were the English listening to Wagner before Agincourt??

FRANK was so very AMAZING

Buck Owens had a talk show?

Hey MisterEsoteric, Frank is of Arab & Sicilian heritage. You should correct your posted info, and read THE REAL FRANK ZAPPA BOOK. Thanks for the video.

It would go against what advertisers want to sell. Fantasy.

Franz Liszt played in the 1830's and 40's while women threw their ''knickers'' on stage. If he's guilty of anything it's playing too well, but surely ''Lisztomania'' isn't considered harmful or dangerous to kids today.

Zappa wasn’t Italian, he was Lebanese/ Greek.

Lots of crickets in the audience...

Did everyone in the 80’s have their own talk show? Guess you could say the same today.

When Zappa said it, it was hip and underground. Now that established scientists are making the same points in defense of their fields of study, they're called strident and intolerant.

A perceived counter-attack isn't a real counter-attack. It was an excuse to kill and put down those that opposed their beliefs.

Nose competition

4:44 I got curious and googled it, yep new studies show artificial sweeteners are associated with long term memory problems

A little history - 1985 - the Parents Music Resource Center Ronald Reagan was President at the time, but the PMRC and the hearings were headed by Tipper Gore the wife of Al who was a Senator at the time and of course a Democrat.

where is the second part??

Turns out diet soda is worse than regular.😂And he was right about everything else he said.

the original Borat

@garminpink The same process was used to make DDT? No it wasn't.

I loved David Brenner (Rest In Paradise)

ENTJ with developed Ni and Se

Hmm, thanks,. That sucks, Because I've started chewing gum when I can't brush my teeth, and also so my breath is minty fresh for the ladies. I'll have to research. Surely health food stores should have some "healthy" gum. Thanks.

Tellement vrai ... encore plus aujourd'hui ! le baratin des medias , des religions , les combinards politicards , l'industrie de la bouffe , des médicaments , de la mode....... Zappa nous le chantait si bien ... "mais vous n'etes pas raisonnables non plus" ajoutait Coluche à "Quand on pense qu'il suffirait que vous n'en n'achetiez pas pour que ça ne se vende pas" !

Bigger than the concord schnozzers

Imagine Zappa in today's Garbage Social Media world ! 🤔

Whether this is Zappa at zenith or nadir is a matter of taste I guess. Musically speaking he was probably a dozen years past his prime by 1986. Even after releasing the excellent "Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar" series, he never took his own advice.

@SIMPFANN Wow, a fellow Zappa fan born on september 24? Cool.

I would LOVE to hear what Frank Zappa would have said today about Trump.

Both dEaD

@catalinaumbert AAAAHHHNK! Wrong! Zappa was Sicilian Greek in descent. Read his autobiography, or do some of the most basic checking up on the net. He has a whole chapter of his book kidding about how his, ahem, Sicilian father wanted to write a history of the world centered around Sicily. So Zappa tries to do it for him, with hilarious and very cynical results.

I'd worship Frank, but I know he'd be personally offended by being made a deity.

4:20 Frank seems to be predicting brain damage from aspartame.

i'll pass on the nutra sweet, thank you.

Don’t eat the gubment mashed potatoes or you’ll turn into a mami nun

While it's true there was "classical" music of a sort being written during the Crusades, I have a feeling this interviewer was thinking the Crusades, the 100 Years War, and Mozart/Bach were all going on at the same time, which is really laughable.

I wish he asked Frank if a song with religious lyrics can be harmful to you or not.

هلا والله حببيييي❤️

why is chewing gum bad?

Wouldn't surprise me either. I just figure food-wise, if it came from the ground, has been around and in use as a food for us for a long time, and wasn't messed with too much, it's good; otherwise, I'll take a pass; pretty basic, but it makes me a health nut compared to the average American. Personally, I think artificial ingredients make food taste bad anyway.

Is bat ball

Damn! Zappa is RIGHT bout nutrasweet...that stuff ruins your brain chemically (and i guess comically)

David Brenner as a "Talk Show Moderator" of NightLife wasn't particularly good. He was not well informed. This interview is in no way showed "Zappa at his Zenith." Such claims are just nonsensical! I have not watched any interview that could claim to show "Zappa at his Zenith." Only certain of his songs and instrumental pieces show true spurts of inspired creativity. This interview could be said to show that Zappa was fairly knowledgeable and was definitely a critical thinker. That alone should be enough to inspire your viewers to imitate Zappa. - A Zappa Fan since 1967.

Uncle Meat and Lumpy Gravy are genius

@zappatx

I have to disagree, music can affect your emotions, words can affect your emotions and program you, it can make you angry, cry, happy, depressed, even violent, I remember being at a Ozzy Osborne concert and they had to stop the show 3 times because of fights kept breaking out because of the nature of the music, when I went to a billy Joel concert everyone was seated and civil. Rap music is a negative input. If you listen to something long enough it can affect you because your brain is inputting the information. It's like the old saying, garbage in garbage out. I like Frank, he is a very intelligent and a analytical human being, but music, movies, radio, TV, internet, media, what ever you are inputting, can influence you either negatively or in a positive way. The political parties along with their bias media know how people can be easily manipulated into believing whatever they want them to believe. Brain washing and conditioning society has always been the goal of the elites to keep people in line and obeying the system.

David is hilarious

not commercially acceptable ; )

This is the most makeup I've seen on Frank for an interview

the average person cant handle reality, thats why they all try to escape reality; much like drug users, but without mind altering stimuli which is worse because its better than trying to change your reality with your thoughts alone that leads to psychosis

3:20 unfortunately zappa was simply wrong about this point as are so many other Americans. The inhabitants of the cradle of civilization were able to exist as neighbors for millennia with differing gods and beliefs. Certainly there were campaigns carried out at specific moments in history that are horrific, but to bring the point back to the present _as he is referring to_ it simply is not a religious feud, it's a political one that uses religion as it's scapegoat in addition to exploiting the empathy of low information people worldwide to rally support in its favor. The problem with juice is when the British empire didn't want to take responsibility for the occupation anymore and asserted that land they didn't want was now going to be for juice, the previous inhabitants be damned. That empire then dumped a bunch of foreigners on the region and wiped it's hands clean while hiding behind the facade called the UN, and shamefully pointing at the previous inhabitants as oppressors while gaslighting the world that an invasion by a foreign power is being carried out by the pour juice.

Oops, Frank was wrong. Rap “music” has a strong and anti social influence.

I am not religious and when i was much younger i always made those same arguments he made, that religion has been the worst cause of bloodshed and war in all of man existence. and arguably it has and things have been done in the name of religion that make me furious to think about. "and i say arguably religion has been the biggest cause od bloodshed because the Holocaust and the Cambodian Killing Fields and Maus revolution and many many more modern atrocities have not been about religion at all". but what i have also come to see and realize through the decades is religion also had a huge part in bringing about society and governments and rules and peace and safety. some of the most beautiful art and music ever created, it is much more complex than just religion is bad or awful and has only caused harm. dont go thinking the endless line of your ancestors before you were all a bunch of clueless morons and YOU are the one that is finally going to fix all of the problems.