Do You Remember… When Green Day Were Leads In A Stop Motion Black Comedy About Charles Manson?

That mere statement sounds like something out of an adlib, but, as I stumbled across this a couple weeks ago, yes, Green Day were voice actors in an independent black comedy about Charles Manson.

Oh, and did I mention it was a musical?

Just to be clear, information about this movie is pretty scarce, for obvious reasons. But here’s the best information I could compile.

Live Freaky, Die Freaky was an independent stop motion black comedy released straight to DVD on January 17, 2006, and premiered in select theaters on January 20, 27, 28 that same year.

That’s right, if you wanted to know what Green Day was doing in the five year gap between American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, it was making xenophobic jokes about Jewish people in an indpendent puppet comedy.

The film was directed by somewhat-notable independent filmmaker, John Roecker, who is very closely associated with the Bay Area punk scene, having some insane connections to some of the most iconic acts in the entire genre, including AFI, Rancid, Blink-182, and of course, Green Day.

Roecker was also an animator and screenwriter for the project, who went to Tim Armstrong (lead singer of Rancid/founder of Hellcat Records) with the project, and decided to help him produce and distribute the film through his new subset of the record label, Hellcat Films.

The division had only ever seen action with a tour documentary about Rancid called Give ‘Em The Boot, released in 2005, but they decided to take on the project, taking in every connection they had in the business.

But let me tell you, they got some serious connections for this project from the punk scene. So I’m just going to take a moment to show you every person in the cast list, because Armstrong and Roecker went all over the map for these roles.

They got:

- Billie Joe Armstrong/Tre Cool/Mike Dirnt (Green Day)

- Tim Armstrong/Lars Frederikson (Rancid)

- Davey Havok (AFI)

- Kelly Osbourne (Daughter of Ozzy Osbourne)

- Jane Weidlin (The Go-Go’s)

- Travis Barker (Blink-182)

- Nick 13 (Tiger Army)

- Sean Yseult (White Zombie)

- Benji/Joel Madden (Good Charlotte)

- Theo Kogan (Lunachicks)

Also, fun fact, I couldn’t find his voice, but it’s rumored that Jason White made a small appearance in the film.

But yes, that is a lot of punk influence in this small project.

Though I’m sure you want to hear the synopsis of this film. Well, I want to, but this movie is a fucking disaster of a plot.

Here’s the plot, I guess. In the year 3069, Earth has been reduced to a wasteland, and we set in on this character who, while searching for food in the deserted Los Angeles, discovers a copy of Helter Skelter, a book of stories based on the events of the Manson Family (in which this movie is based off of). The character mistakes this book as the Bible and Charles Manson as the messiah, and here is where we flashback to 1969. Now for some odd reason, although the characters in this film are based off of real people, most of the names of these people have slight alterations, with one or two letters in their name being changed to an “H”. But back in 1969, after going through a bad LSD trip, a woman named “Susan Hatkins” stumbles across “Charlie”, who is accepted into his family, under the impression that they are going to change the world for the better, making music and fixing the planet. But the tone changes when “nature hating actress Sharon Hate” is filming a movie in a desert outside the family’s compound, and, after hearing the song “I Want To Hold Your Hand” by The Beatles, Charlie plots to kill Hate. After they kill Hate and a few of her friends, they get their next order to kill the “Ha Biancas” after they plan to build a parking lot that covers the entire desert, in Sharon Hate’s honor. Soon after the “Ha Biancas” are killed, the family is arrested and sent to death immediately. We flash back to 3069, where the reader carves a cross into his head, ready to spread the word of the messiah, Charles Manson.

Yes, that is the actual plot, and yes, Green Day made appearances in it, some of them leading roles.

To be specific, Tre Cool plays a lady housekeeper that finds Sharon Hate and her friends murdered by the family. Mike Dirnt plays a newscaster that reports on the murders committed by the Manson Family, as they watch on their TVs.

Mike Dirnt's part in "Live Freaky! Die Freaky!"

And finally, we have the star himself, Billie Joe Armstrong playing the pivotal role of Charles “Charlie” Manson himself. That’s right, Ordinary World wasn’t his first lead movie role, it was Charlie from Live Freaky, Die Freaky.

Billie Joe recording his lines

Green Day pitched a few songs to the movie, such as the song “Mechanical Man”. An entire soundtrack was made for the movie, featuring all of the songs used, but it’s a little hard to come across these days.

But let’s get to the final elephant in the room, is the movie any good?

I don’t really know, because the movie’s so obscure that finding a good copy of it is almost impossible. The DVD is still available, but they’re ridiculously expensive on Amazon for over $150. On YouTube, there are chunks of it available, but I’m not sure the entire thing exists on the Internet. On the bright side, on Record Store Day, the soundtrack was re-released on its 10 year anniversary on vinyl, and it’s only available for $9, so if you want to check it out, go ahead.

But from the chunks I have seen, I can say, it’s basically what you expect. They really try for the inappropriate humor a lot in this movie, some of it works, some of it is very cringy.

It’s not like the movie was that successful. It only made $75,000 from a profit and IMDB ranks this movie as a 5/10, so there’s a reason you’ve probably never heard of this project, and I don’t blame you.

But I will tell you this, I’ve never had more fun going down a rabbit hole than I did for this movie. It’s just a whirlwind of off colored jokes, strange cameos, and some of the sickest minds in the Bay Area punk scene, and of course, that includes the members of Green Day.

Thanks for reading this post. If you’ve seen this movie in full, let us know your opinions on the film in the comments.

EDIT: There is a full version on YouTube, it’s obscure, but it is very explicit, viewer discretion is advised, this movie is aimed for +18, which is why I’m not linking it below this post. If you’re morbidly curious, go search it on your own.

- Mayor Of Murder City