During my research of librarian films, I have come across two erotic films, Debbie Does Dallas (1978) and Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy (1976) that reportedly include librarian characters. I haven’t seen either film yet, and I don’t intend to include straight-to-video adult films that include librarians on this site — that’s a whole other subset of Naughty Librarians that I won’t get into. But these two films were both highly successful at the time and considered classics of their kind, produced during the so-called “Golden Age of Porn” where adult films became more mainstream. Just telling it as it is, folks.

The plot of Debbie Does Dallas is quite simple: a group of cheerleaders try to earn enough money to send Debbie to try out for the “Texas Cowgirls” squad (obviously a riff off the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders). How do they earn that money? There’s a reason it’s called the oldest profession in the world, of course. 😉

As I detailed in a earlier post about how I find new titles to watch, I routinely check my Master List against various sources. And imagine my surprise when I found a copy of Debbie Does Dallas in my local community college consortium — not the film, alas, but the play! I had no idea that the film had been adapted for the stage, but indeed, Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical was created in 2001 by Susan L. Schwartz for the New York International Fringe Festival. It was adapted by Erica Schmidt, with original musical numbers by Andrew Sherman.

And indeed, there is a librarian in the play, a Mr. Biddle. Here’s how he’s described in the script notes:

Mr. Biddle works at the high-school library. He is repressed and reserved. Biddle is of a forgotten generation in his principles and etiquette. (He is a male character in a porno and he does not want sex.) He is smart, rash, quick to anger and passionate about poetry.

From that description, I immediately thought Anti-Social Librarian, the male equivalent of the Spinster Librarian. This type of reel librarian tends to hoard knowledge, exhibits poor social skills, dislikes people, and focuses on rules. Makes sense, right?

Mr. Biddle is definitely a minor character, turning up in only a few scenes. In Scene 8, “Girls Get Jobs,” the poet cheerleader Donna asks if she can work at the library. He is reluctant, but is convinced by Donna’s scintillating argument: “I could help by watching books and stamping and stuff.” (Sigh.) His response? “Oh, ok.” (Double sigh.)

His biggest and final scene comes in Scene 20, “The Library.” Mr. Biddle catches Donna and her boyfriend Tim fooling around. Angry, he shouts, “You know the rules here. How could you so wantonly break them?” Afraid he will tell her parents, she allows him to spank her (see right). And then he asks her to spank him: “I always wanted to be bent over and spanked by a cheerleader ’cause I’m a bad and nasty boy.” Donna readily agrees, calling him “Bad Biddle.” This sets him back $105.

And with that, he also serves as a Naughty Librarian — the males of this type, unlike the female Naughty Librarians, are generally unattractive (check) and interested in deviant or unusual sexual acts (check).

So is the play successful? The scenes are extremely short, with repeated occurrences of inane dialogue. I lost count of how many times I read, “Oh, ok” and “Ok, bye.” The sex acts are hinted at or simulated or played with bananas (not kidding, see below). In truth, I rolled my eyes at the self-described tone of the play, as set out in the introductory notes:

The style of this piece is: rodeo-porno-football-circus. Every performer must be willing to go over the top and yet NOT BE CAMPY. The performances are meant to be big in size but never winking at the audience.

Does Mr. Biddle’s character in the play mimic his reel counterpart? Apparently so, as according to Frank Vigorito’s review from the 2001 New York International Fringe Festival, “Debbie’s plot and script are word-for-word faithful to the original 1978 film.” And the scenes feel so short because of the removal of the sex scenes, so scenes “seemingly occur about every 30 seconds.” I agree with Vigorito’s final verdict:

Essentially, the play moves from one pointless scene of dialogue to the next, with the audience left waiting for something to look forward to, but that moment never arrives, unless you consider the final curtain.