‘Eat That Question’ an intriguing portrait of Frank Zappa

How would this master of the media have operated in the age of Twitter, TMZ and Web series?

How would this longtime critic of record companies and a control freak who not only wrote and performed his own music, but often designed his own album covers and directed his own music videos, handled his career in the digital music age, where artists connect directly with fans?

[...] goodness knows how much he could have raked in on a concert tour with today’s ticket prices.

The documentary is made up entirely of excerpts from Zappa’s many television interviews, interspersed with concert footage.

Included is his earliest TV appearance, on “The Steve Allen Show” in 1963, in which a squeaky-clean-looking Zappa played a bicycle as a musical instrument; an appearance as the mystery guest on “What’s My Line?” in which Zappa stumped panelists June Lockhart, Gene Rayburn and Arlene Francis but was solved by Soupy Sales; and a poignant final interview on the “Today” show shortly before his death from prostate cancer in 1993 at age 52.

There are also more expletive-filled, intriguing rants on the creative process, the music and entertainment industry, as well as media in general — one is with a Pennsylvania state trooper, in full uniform, who was apparently a big fan.

[...] riveting is footage from his appearance before a congressional committee considering Tipper Gore’s push to put warning labels on music.

Make no mistake, although a satirist and music rabble-rouser, he was a serious artist who released 62 albums during his short lifetime and even wrote actual symphonies performed by orchestras.