Produced by Tom Rubnitz in collaboration with Tom Koken and Barbara Lipp, The Mother Show is a tribute to mothers everywhere, starring Frieda, the “living” doll. Frieda asks her mother a series of questions, such as “Mom, are there days when you feel not-so-fresh?” and spells out the meaning of the word “mother.” The tape ends with her endearing pronouncement, “Mom, you’re like a mother to me.”
A quintessential New York underground film/video artist, the late Tom Rubnitz took a bite out of the Big Apple and spat it out in a wild kaleidoscope of unequivocal camp and hallucinogenic color. Ann Magnuson, the B-52s, The “Lady” Bunny, and the late John Sex are but a few of the stars that shine oh-so-brightly in Rubnitz’s glittering oeuvre. A genre artist par excellence, Rubnitz treated the sexy-druggy-wiggy-luscious-desserty qualities of the ’80s downtown club scene with the loving care only a true hedonist could show. Rubnitz died from an AIDS-related illness in 1992.