Fox’s ‘Rocky Horror’ nostalgic but safe

In the spirit of Halloween, Fox offers a brand-new production of the 1973 London stage musical turned 1975 cult movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again” (7 p.m., WHBQ-TV Channel 13).

The original appeared as a weird salute to old horror movies. There must have been something in the air. “Young Frankenstein” was released in 1974. “Rocky Horror” sported an anarchic, barely comprehensible plot, lively music and a sexually ambiguous mad scientist named Frank-N-Furter. It was the ’70s, after all.

Few shows are better suited to the kind of live production that has been the TV craze since “The Sound of Music” aired some years back on NBC. But this “Rocky Horror” is a rather slickly produced film musical. Victoria Justice (“Victorious”) and Ryan McCartan (“Liv & Maddie”) star as the cute couple Janet and Brad at the center of the proceedings. The cast also includes Laverne Cox (“Orange Is the New Black”), Staz Nair (“Game of Thrones”) and Adam Lambert of “American Idol” fame.

The original, starring Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick, gained enduring fame as a midnight movie perennial, airing repeatedly before devoted fans who had memorized all of its canned dialogue and who came dressed in costume and brought props to screenings. A ragged and rough live version of “Rocky Horror” may have evoked the spirit of that cult adulation.

This Fox version hews closer to “High School Musical,” a dutiful, if somewhat sterile evocation of another generation’s idea of decadence. It represents nostalgia within nostalgia, a 21st-century take on the 1970s looking back at the 1940s.

On the other hand, there’s a certain logic, however perverse, to the “Disneyfication” of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Around the same time that “Rocky Horror” became a midnight movie tradition, composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman created the 1982 Off-Broadway rock comedy musical “Little Shop of Horrors,” inspired by a low-budget 1960 Roger Corman Z-movie. “Little Shop” ran for years and was itself adapted for a 1986 movie musical. Its creators went on to write the music and lyrics for Disney animated musicals, including “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin” and “Beauty and the Beast,” exposing a new generation to musical theater via feature-length cartoons.

The enduring appeal of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Little Shop of Horrors” demonstrates that no pop culture artifact — no matter how obscure or subversive — is safe from being made, well, safe. As if to prove that point, NBC’s next live musical presentation, “Hairspray,” airs on Dec. 7.

Other highlights

» The Green Bay Packers host the Chicago Bears on “Thursday Night Football” (7 p.m., WREG-TV Channel 3, NFL Network).

» Amateur couples’ counseling on “Superstore” (7 p.m., WMC-TV Channel 5).

» Amelia has news for Owen on “Grey’s Anatomy” (7 p.m., WATN-TV Channel 24).

» Ankle-deep in the gene pool on “Notorious” (8 p.m., WATN-TV Channel 24).

» A car crashes at a marathon on “Chicago Med” (8 p.m., WMC-TV Channel 5).

» Red plans to intercept Kirk on “The Blacklist” (9 p.m., WMC-TV Channel 5).

» “Key & Peele Sportsball Spectacular” (8 p.m., Comedy Central) sends up sports media.

» Slanderous posters target Annalise on “How to Get Away With Murder” (9 p.m., WATN-TV Channel 24).

» Sam takes a meeting on “Better Things” (9 p.m., FX).

Kevin McDonough can be reached at kevin.tvguy@gmail.com.