Anyone who enjoys being the target of a put-on will revel in Frank Zappa's 200 Motels. It's an act of undisguised aggression against the audience—rather like a mugging in a movie theater. Zappa makes movies the way he and his group, the Mothers of Invention, make music—wildly, brazenly, eclectically….

If it can really be said to be "about" anything, 200 Motels is about the effect it has on the audience, which is not always pleasant and is occasionally exasperating and even disconcerting. It helps that the movie is sometimes exceedingly funny. (p. 55)

The craziness climaxes, fittingly enough, with full cast and chorus raising their voices in an irreverent anthem: "Lord, have mercy on the fate of this movie / And God bless the mind of the man in the street." Mothers fans will be ecstatic, but the man in the street will need more than prayer to pull him...