September 29, 2020 • 38 mins
Dive into the frighteningly wild backstory behind Bobby Pickett's iconic novelty song "Monster Mash"- which hit the top of the charts not once, but twice, more than ten years apart. Steve's also joined by The Munster's iconic wolfboy, Butch Patrick, for some personal insight into the scene that set the stage for the song's success- and the man that sang it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speed of Sound is a production of I Heart Radio. Okay,
let's kick things off with a pop quiz today. Name
a chart topping song that was the perfect combination of
pop culture meets pop music with a dash of horror
and a splash of comedy. Despair hint. It was a
(00:24):
parody of a popular dance craze and a tribute to
a completely separate cultural fad. Extra hint. This monster hit
shot to the highest reaches of the charts, not once,
but twice. Okay, I know that's all too easy, and
by now I'm sure you know that. On today's episode,
we'll find out how the Monster Mash became a monster
(00:44):
Smash and a number one record. I'm Steve Greenberg, and
this is Speed of Sound. In the early nineteen sixties,
the US was in the midst of a huge craze
(01:05):
for classic movie monsters. This was due to Universal Pictures
library of classic monster movies from the nineteen thirties and
forties becoming available for the first time on television. We're
talking classic monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, or the Mummy.
Picture any of those monsters in your mind, and it's
(01:26):
pretty likely you're imagining the version from those Universal movies. Now.
From nineteen thirty one through the early fifties, Universal made
over three dozen movies featuring these characters and others. Universal
actually started making monster movies in the Silent era, but
the first monster talkie was Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff in
(01:47):
ninety one, The spine Kingling, Blood Killing Story. That's ton
Joy Emotions, Thankenstein. Boris Karlov's distinctive voice would play a
major role in the song the Monster Mashed decades later,
(02:07):
and of course he's gone down in history as the
quintessential monster movie actor. First, I'd like to salute the box.
So who really is the best friend I ever heard?
You changed the whole course of my life, because after
that time I was just struggling unknown actor. Frankenstein was
a smash hit, so Universal quickly followed it with Dracula,
(02:27):
starring the Hungarian born actor Bella Lagosi. Dracula I mention
of the name brings to mind things so evil, so fantastic,
so degrading. You wonder if it isn't all a dream,
a nightmare. I am Dacula. These were followed in rapid
(02:53):
succession by films featuring the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and
the Wolfman. And then came this equals like Bride of
Frankenstein and Dracula's Daughter. Then something unprecedented in movies happened.
Universal started to team up characters from the different Monster
movies with each other. The first crossover was Frankenstein Meets
(03:16):
the Wolfman. There's a Curse upon Me I Changed into
a wolf. The next year saw the release of House
of Frankenstein, which featured Frankenstein, of course, along with the Wolfman, Dracula,
the Mummy, and the Invisible Man. These films actually comprised
the first shared cinematic universe, the kind of thing that
(03:37):
Marvel movies do today, with the same characters and the
same actors appearing in each other's films. Universal made quite
a few of these crossover films, and then when the
formulas started to feel stale, they played the whole thing
for laughs in by casting their iconic monsters in the
film Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, starring the famous comedy
(03:59):
duo the nation's top comics Aben and Costello petrified but hilariously,
plus the dangerous and terrifying wolf Man played by Lon Chaney,
plus that themed out of a nightmare, the vampire Batman,
Countdracula played by Bella Lugosi, plus the most dreaded creature
(04:19):
of them all, the Frankenstein Monster played by Glenn Strange,
plus a couple of lushes but designing females in the
spookiest last best on record. That film was so successful
that Universal made sequels teaming Aben and Costello with Dr Jacklin, Mr.
Hyde and the Mummy. Abbot and Costello even did a
(04:42):
film where they meet Barres Karloff himself. That film was
entitled what Else Abbot and Costello Meeting the Killer Baris Karloff.
This bell Boy will commit suicide tonight and this will
be found beside the body suicide I have. In seven
(05:04):
Universal made available their library of monster films to television
stations across the country. This gave the young baby boomers
their first exposure to the classic film versions of Frankenstein,
the Wolfman, Dracula, the Mummy, plus their various spouses and offspring,
and they were an instant hit. Universal syndicated these films
(05:25):
as a package under the title Shock Theater. In most markets,
Shock Theater aired late at night on the weekend, and
in each city there was a spooky costumed host introducing
(05:46):
the film. The most famous of these hosts was a
man named John Zacherley, who began hosting Shock Theater in Philadelphia.
When the show debuted on Shock Theater, Zacherlee played a
character named Roland who lived inside a crypt and who
dressed in a long undertaker's robe. He did spooky monologues
between commercial breaks where he do things like explore coffins
(06:09):
or mixed potions. Let's just try a little bubblico, m nothing, nothing,
those egos. He didn't get me a combinated male man
like he promised. Besides that he was hiding the greatest
ingredient of all boom dust. Zacherley was a good friend
(06:31):
of Dick Clark, whose TV show American Bandstand was broadcast
out of Philadelphia. Dick Clark nicknamed Zacherlely the cool Ghoul,
and he introduced him to the people of Cameo Parkway Records,
the local Philadelphia label that a couple of years later
put out Chubby Checkers recording of The Twist. We, of course,
(07:00):
discussed the relationship between Dick Clark and Cameo Parkway Records
in our episode on The Twist, in Zacherley went into
the studio with Cameo Parkway producer David Pell, the same
man who later produced The Twist and cut the record
Dinner with Drack, which was a kind of proto monster
match Dracula Old Friendania. After Zacharle performed the song on
(07:29):
American Bandstand, the records shot up the chart, reaching number
six on Billboard. After tasting that national success, Zacharle moved
to New York where he hosted a rival horror movie
package called Chiller Theater, and over the years he became
a real icon of campy horror. The popularity of the
(07:54):
Universal Monsters kept building over the next several years, until
by the early sixties there was a full blown monster
craze underway in the country. Garlou the Terrible? Who can
stop it? Who can control as monstrous creature? You can, kids,
because Great Garlou by Marx is yours to command. With
these battery operated controls, you can make Garlou go stop,
(08:17):
then pick up turn. There was this popular monthly magazine
devoted to the craze called Famous Monsters of Film Land,
which spawned a host of imitators. A slew of rival
movie packages arose across the country to rival Shock Theater
and Chiller Theater. Plus there were trading cards, posters, and
(08:37):
lunch boxes, all adorned with the images of the Universal monsters,
and in one the Aurora Plastics Corporation, the people who
manufactured kits for building model airplanes and cars, the kind
you glued together with model airplane glue, started releasing movie
monster model kits under license from Universal Pictures. Of course,
(08:58):
the Aurora Franken's I Model kit was the hottest Christmas
toy of nineteen sixty one for young boys, and in
nineteen sixty two Aurora followed up by releasing Dracula and
The Wolfman as models. It was in the midst of
this monster mania that a young Massachusetts native name Bobby
Pickett hit upon the idea of monster mash. Pickett was
(09:19):
an aspiring actor and comedian who specialized in impressions, and
while waiting for his big break in Hollywood, he made
a living singing and clubs with a group called the Cordials,
and as part of his act, he would do impressions
of movie actors. With monster movies all the rage, Pickett
began to do imitations of the stars of those movies
in his act. One night he impersonated Boris Karloff during
(09:42):
his group's performance of the hit song by the Diamonds
Little Darling, My Darling, I'm you, he called my old Rome,
and the audience reaction was so strong the Pickett started thinking, Hey,
maybe I should try and write an original song about
(10:05):
movie monsters and I can sing it in the voice
of Boris Karloff. Now Bobby Pickett, by this point already
had some experience making records. Early in nineteen sixty two,
the Cordials had gone into the studio to record a
song called The International Twist, which was an unsuccessful attempt
to cash in on the twist cranze The Internationals at
(10:33):
the top of The International Twist was produced by an
l a bass producer named Gary S. Paxton, who had
actually had a number one record a couple of years
earlier as lead singer of a non existing group called
the Hollywood Argyles. Their record was called Alley Oop, and
(10:56):
it was the story of a caveman who was the
title character in a very popular newspaper comic strip of
that era. Well, this cat's name is all he got
a chaufur that's a genuine wine Donna saw. Bobby Pickett
(11:20):
felt that if Garyus Paxton could have a hit about
a cartoon caveman, he could do the same with a
song about movie monsters. Pickett sat down with another member
of the Cordials to write a song which imagined the
Universal Monsters all attending a dance party, and then Bobby
Pickett had his stroke of genius coming up next, top
(11:42):
music and pop culture collide and make a surprising hit song.
Sixty two was the golden age of dance crazes in America,
with the massive success of the Twist leading to a
slew of new dances The Holly Gully, a Monkey, the Watusi,
and each one of those dances had a hit record
(12:04):
telling you how to do it. One of the biggest
of the dance craze songs was called Mashed Potato Time,
and it promoted a dance called the Mashed Potatoes. Coincidentally,
Mashed Potato Time was released by the same Cameo Parkway
Record label that released Dinner with Drag four years earlier.
But more importantly, it was also the same label that
had released the record that ignited the whole sixties dance
(12:26):
craze explosion in the first place, Chubby Checkers the Twist.
After the Twist success, Chubby Checker released a string of
follow up Twist records, and one of those records was
called Slow Twist. In Cameo Parkway recorded Slow Twisting as
a duet between Chubby Checker and a sixteen year old
local Philadelphia singer named Dion LaRue. Now, Dion LaRue sounds
(12:49):
like a pretty good name for a singer, right, but
for some reason, the big wigs at Cameo Parkway decided
to rename her d D. Sharp. In truth, though it
didn't really matter what her name was since she went
uncredited on Slow Twisted. The label Brass were so impressed
(13:20):
with Sharp's vocals on Slow Twist and that they immediately
brought her back into the studio to cut Mashed Potato Time,
written by Calman and Bernie Lowe, who had written a
lot of the Chubby Checker records. Ded Sharp remembers going
(13:43):
into the studio to cut Mashed Potato Time. My mom
was there in the studio when I was recording. My
grandmother was there when I was recording. At Mashed Potatoes.
It was now Mashed Potato Time. Itself was written to
jump on the bandwagon of the booming popularity of the
mashed Potatoes dance, which had been invented a few years
(14:04):
earlier by none other than the godfather of soul, James Brown.
James Brown debut the Mashed Potatoes in nineteen fifty nine
as part of his live stage act, and audiences went wild.
He told his label King Records that he wanted to
record an instrumental to cash in on the popularity of
the dance, but label boss Sid Nathan said to Mr Brown,
(14:25):
no more instrumentals. Those things don't sell. So James Brown
approached Henry Stone, the owner of Dade Records in Miami,
with the idea, and to avoid being sued by King Records,
he credited the recording to Nat Kendrick and the Swans,
nat Kendrick being the drummer in the James Brown Band
(14:45):
Do The Mashed Potatoes became a top ten R and
B hit in nineteen sixty and sowed the seeds for
the Mashed Potato dance grace. However, it barely dent did
the pop chart. This was still a few months prior
to the cultural revolution that was the Twist and White
America was hardly ready for a dance you danced alone,
but in black communities the dance started to catch on. Then,
(15:07):
with Dan's craze Fever in high gear in ninety two,
the folks at Cameo Parkway, looking for their next dance hit,
tweaked the moves of the mashed Potato a bit so
that they would look a little bit more like the twist.
How do you do the mashed potato? Well, there are
lots of mashed potato instructional videos on YouTube that can
demonstrate it a whole lot better than I can explain it.
(15:28):
But it has something to do with seeming like you're
mashing potatoes with your heels. Cameo Parkway released De d
Sharp's Mashed Potato Time just a week after Chubby Checkers
(15:50):
Slow Twist, and it was an immediate hit. Musically, the
song owed a lot to the Marvel Letts Please Mr. Postman,
which would hit number one late nineteen sixty one. Please
Mr Postman was in fact Motown's first attempt at producing
a record you could twist to. Well. Yes, Now, I've
(16:19):
mentioned before on this series that there's an old record
business saying where there's a hit there's a writ. It
turns out Mashed Potato Time was so similar in melody
to Please Mr. Postman that Cameo. Parkway was ultimately forced
to share writing credit with the five writers of Please
Mr Postman, Let's give a listen, Please the World to Day,
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making the connection even more explicit. D D Sharp sang
this in Mashed Potato Time. D D Sharp actually name
(17:26):
checked a lot of top hits in the song, instructing
her listeners that you could dance the mashed Potatoes to
the Tokens recent number one hit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight,
and also to Gary u S Bonds hit Dear Lady Twist.
Mashed Potato Time was a smash, going all the way
to number one on the R and B chart and
peaking at number two on the Hot One in the
spring of ninety two. It would not be long before
(17:50):
James Brown responded to these usurpers of his creation by
releasing Mashed Potatoes USA, this time under his own name,
but his record saw very limited success. Yeah I'm I'm
bad again, I'm gonna matato, I'm gonna stop new Ye.
(18:14):
Lots of other records began to name check the Mashed
Potato Chris montees is Let's Dance the Contours, Do You
Love Me? Chris Kenner's Land of a Thousand Dances, Connie
(18:47):
Francis is V A C A T I O N.
Mash Potato to What You, and Sam Cook's Having a
Party Don't look out Him Potatoes No Songs. All of
those artists subsequently had greatest success than James Brown in
(19:09):
jumping on the Mashed Potato bandwagon. By the way, Sam
Cook is such an interesting tangential figure in this story.
He was an extremely astute student of pop culture, and
he not only singled out the mashed Potato in Having
a Party, but he also managed to work Frankenstein into
his nineteen three hit Another Saturday Night. He had a
(19:31):
sister who looked just farm to stand up being deliverous.
She had a stranger assemblance to a Cat de d
Sharp followed up the massive success of Mashed Potato Time
by releasing the near sound alike record Gravy from My
Mashed Potatoes, and Gravy also hit the national top Tampo
(19:59):
than so by the time Bobby Pickett decided to make
a record about movie monsters in the summer of nineteen
sixty two. Not only had Mashed Potato Time saturated the airwaves,
but so had most of those other records. The world
was as ready as it ever would be for a
record that jumped on both the Mashed Potato and the
(20:20):
Universal Monster Bandwagon At the same time. Machine was rocking onward,
digging the sounds Eagle on Chain's Black Players being Home
the puffin by this what about to alive? But the
vocal group the crypt could a thought and done that.
The chords, melody, piano parted lyrical structure and Monster Mash
(20:43):
are clearly taken from Mashed Potato Time, and the wau
female background vocals are a direct lift of the exact
same vocal part that can be found on Dee d
Sharp's record So Much Everything's Cool, rectual part of the
Band and My Moms Mash. But since the Monster Mash
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was a parody and thus protected his free speech, there
was no lawsuit this time for me. The magic of
Monster Mash what makes it entertaining is that Bobby Pickett's
record parodies Mashed Potato Time by turning it into a
song about the movie Monster Craze. The monsters have all
gotten together a party at Dr Frankenstein's place and learned
a new dance called the Monster Mash. Bobby Pickett does
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most of the record in his Boris Karloff voice, except
for one line, which is really the record's most brilliant moment.
At the end of the fourth verse, in the exact
same spot where Dee Dee Sharp exclaimed about they even
do it to dear Lady Twist, Bobby Pickett suddenly stops
imitating Boris Karloff and takes on the persona of Bella Lagosi,
(21:54):
the original Universal Dracula, asking Twiz if that line has
a certain poignancy for hardcore Twist lovers because Bobby Pickett
was consciously commenting on the fact that the Twist had
by this point become pass a. By the time Monster
Mash at number one in late October, of all the
(22:17):
Twist records were gone from the charts and the kids
were onto other dances like the Swim or the Locomotion,
and Chubby Checker would never have another top ten record
after an incredible two year run during which he'd had
eight of them. Coming up, the Monster Mash mysteriously reappears
at the top of the charts, and we're joined by
TV's iconic wolf boy Eddie Munster a k a. Butch Patrick.
(22:48):
After Bobby Pickett and fellow member of The Cordials Lenny
Capezi wrote Monster Mash, they shopped around for a record
label to produce it. They were turned down by label
after label until they found the approached Gary S. Paxton,
who had produced them as the Cordials. Paxton agreed to
produce the record and release it on his Guard Packs
record label. Gary Paxton knew how to produce a novelty record,
(23:11):
that's for sure, and he worked his magic with Bobby Pickett,
using the sound of pulling a rusty nail out of
a plank of wood to replicate the sound of a
coffin opening, and having someone blow bubbles through a straw
to imitate a bubbling cauldroom. Paxton also brought in some
of l A's best session musicians to play on the
record in place of Pickett's non existent backing group, the
(23:33):
crypt Kickers. There have been rumors swirling for decades that
legendary piano player Leon Russell played on Monster Mash, but
actually those are not true. Although Leon Russell had been
booked to play on the session, he showed up late
and only managed to play on the records Flip Side,
Monster Mash, Party, Math That I Want to Math, I Change.
(24:13):
Riding the wave of the Monster Craze, Monster Mash went
to number one on the Hot one for two weeks
in October two, just in time for Halloween. While Bobby
Pickett would never scale such lofty heights again. The Monster
Craze continued up through the mid sixties, but it too
would finally pass its expiration date, with parody at the
(24:33):
end becoming its main form of expression. On TV, there
were comedies about the Adams Family and the Monsters produced
by Universal Television and using a lot of the old
Universal Monster sets as the actor who played the world's
(25:09):
most beloved werewolf Boy Eddie Munster. Butch Patrick had a
front row seat and starring role in the Monster Quaze
of the nineteen sixties. You know, I was born in
nineteen fifty three, so the early movies that I remember
were basically the classic Universal monster movies. You know, they
were the they were the you know, the Monster Studio.
They did them very well. But it was also in
(25:30):
the fifties there was a lot of atomic radiation, you know,
like giant ants and Godzilla and the Thing, and there's
a lot of great stuff going on. So between the
monsters and the sci fi movies, it was a great
time to go to the Saturday matinees and enjoy movies.
And I enjoyed them all. And I also built the
models from Aurora, who specialized in the in the monsters,
(25:50):
I built them all. I started off to Frankenstein. Actually,
I think I think the first one I built was Dracula,
then the Wolfman and Frankenstein. And then they had them all.
You know, they had the Creature, they had the Fantom
of the Opera, pretty much invisible Man most of them.
That was the hardman build the invisible Man because you
couldn't see him. Uh. And by the time he was eleven,
the kid who loved playing with monsters would be playing
(26:12):
one on one of television's biggest hit shows. People will
come up to me and they'll say, you know, I
love your show. It was my favorite show or my
dad's favorite show, or my grandmo's favorite show. And here,
you know, here we are fifty seven years later. Um
and and who would have thought that a little two
years series with seventy episodes would be one of the
(26:33):
heavily merchandise show of all time and still be popular
with the likes of Rob Zombie and Paul McCartney. Everybody
will enjoying it and I'm just happy to be to
have been part of it. The Monsters were also part
of the scene that melded music with monsters. The Monsters
had a very cool theme song, was very rock and
roll and people remember it vividly. You may or may
(26:53):
not know this, but the Monsters theme has been recorded
and re recorded over a hundred fifty times. It's been
done by the Boston Pops, It's been done by the
London Philharmonic. It's actually Bryan Setzer and his orchestra uses
(27:17):
it as the opening song when he goes up tour.
Ball Out Boy recently just used the Monster's theme. It's
(27:44):
amazing the music and that kind of stuff that the
longevity has had and influence has had, reaching all the
way to children's cartoons. Even the flint Stones, who would
seem to have more in common with Alley youp than
Universal Monsters, jumped on the band wagon that's new with
the Windstones. Lots of things like the most orange, alous,
(28:05):
hilarious and gruesome family you ever met In fact, that's
their name. The Gruesome and the voice of Boris Karloff
himself added a touch of authenticity to the seven animated
film Mad Monster Party Show. Even legendary radio DJ Wolfman
(28:40):
Jack's jive talking mid sixties radio persona was a tribute
to his Universal Monster namesake. Ah, that's what's your baby?
Oh boy, you people taking down all your take. She's
going to be gonna be playing some of that bounced
off to a music Baby. Before retiring at the end
of the sixties and selling their company ton Abisco, the
(29:01):
founders of Aurora Plastics Corporation had a few more flesh
years creating movie monsters under license from Universal Pictures. The
Mummy model kit came out in nineteen sixty three to
huge success, followed by The Creature from the Black Lagoon,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Godzilla. Aurora released their
final monster model kits in nineteen sixty six, this time
(29:24):
in collaboration with Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, which by
this point was also running on fumes. The classic monsters
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Graham Stoker's Dracula, etcetera, would of course
live on, but not many remember that there was a
time when cultural references to Frankenstein reflexively meant the bars
(29:45):
Carla version from shock theater. Horror films themselves would soon
enter a whole new era, as Rosemary's Baby in nineteen
sixty eight and The Exorcist in nineteen seventy three, along
with all those that followed, would scare audiences without featuring
drag Cula were the Wolfman. However, Universal has made attempts
to reboot their shared monster movie universe over the years.
(30:07):
Most notable was the two thousand and four film Van
Helsing starring Hugh Jackman, which featured Frankenstein's monster, Dracula the Werewolf,
and Jacqueline Hyde. He's the first one to kill a
vampire and over a hundred years, I'd say that sent
him a drink through it. Although the popularity of the
Monster Mash has endured, the Beach Boys kept it alive
(30:29):
throughout the nineteen sixties, playing it regularly in concert with
Mike Love doing an imitation of Bobby Pickett imitating Boris Karlos,
Who's love sport, Marge, When my eyes fell, When my
monster from the slob was suddenly As for Bobby Pickett himself.
(30:56):
Hot off the two Halloween success of Monster Mash, he
rushed out Monsters Holiday in time for Christmas that year,
making it up to number thirty on the Singles chart
with a song that basically sounded like the Monster Mash
with sleigh bells, didn't act like good Monster Shoot. They
(31:17):
followed themselves a new they plan droff Sunday they were
making a list. He kept releasing monster themed singles for
the next few years, with diminishing success. A year after
Monster Mash, the Twist inspired dance craze fever itself would
disappear just as quickly as it came, replaced by Beatlemania
(31:39):
and all that followed in its wake. And though the
Beatles did have early hits with their covers of Twist
and Shout and Please Mr. Postman, they soon led the
culture in another direction, entirely leaving the dance craze era
a quaint but fading memory. But the Monster Mash itself
lived on. It was reissued in nineteen seventy and grazed
(31:59):
the autom of the hot one. Then in the spring
of nine three, it mysteriously reappeared, this time staying on
the chart for twenty weeks and making it into the
top ten in the middle of August. At that same time,
it even hit the top ten in England, where it
was banned by the BBC on its initial release for
being two morbid. Now, the timing of the spring and
(32:23):
summer ninety three resurgence of The Monster Mash makes it
clear that it's popularity this time had nothing at all
to do with Halloween. So what was it that shot
the record back into the top ten? I have actually
discussed this question with numerous pop music experts over the years,
but not one of them can provide a definitive answer.
(32:43):
There are lots of theories, though, ranging from the Monster
Mash being lumped in with the revival of pre Beatles
rock and roll that was sweeping the country at that time,
to the record benefiting from the Los Angeles debut of
a radio show focusing on the bizarre, hosted by a
man named Barry Hanson, better known is Dr Demento. Hello there,
this is Dr Demento. We're on the radio here. Who
(33:11):
airplay on the Doctor Demento show certainly helped bring back
another twisted nineteen sixties record, They're Coming to Take Me Away?
Ha ha, which also recharted in nine coming to take
Me Away, Ha Ha. They're coming to take me away,
hoppy home with trees and flowers and turpin Kurds and
basket weavers. You're sit and smile and Twiddleland comes in.
(33:35):
But no one can say for sure what brought the
monster mash back. What we do know is the song
started to get airplay on two radio stations in Milwaukee
in April of nineteen seventy three, and the phones at
both stations went wild. By early May, the record label
rushed it into re release. Billboard magazine noticed the records
(33:55):
resurgence in its May twelfth issue, speculating that maybe with
water eight and other scandals in the headlines, today's impressionable
young listeners find humor in the music, what else do
they have to laugh about? Now That theory may sound
a little far fetched, but no less a figure than
Bobby Pickett himself agreed with it. In nineteen seventy three,
Bobby Pickett was driving a cab in New York City
(34:18):
and he commented to the press on the renewed popularity
of his song by saying, at this point in time,
with what's coming down with Watergate. People need some relief
from the tension that's building up. Be that as it may.
Off the back of the song's return to the charts.
Bobby Pickett went on tour that year with a new
version of The crypt Kickers and four. He endeavored to
(34:39):
bring his monster theme Madness to yet another new generation
by recording the hip hop flavored Monster Rap, which failed
to get much attention. Waited his time in DJO to
get Chocked. The Boy chock Chocked the Mom Shocked. But
(35:01):
Pickett's original hit has cemented its place in music history
and in the hearts of countless fans. In a wonderful
example of monster world's colliding, Bobby Pickett and Butch Patrick
TV Zone Eddie Munster actually cross paths. I didn't meet
Bobby until I was an adult, you know, until I
was in my thirties. I not only remember the record,
(35:23):
but when it came out, I loved that. You know,
there was a lot of great old music. It was.
It's there was so much stuff going on in the sixties,
and uh, you know, he would always make fun of that.
Elvis called it the stupidest song you ever heard, and
that he would say an eldest if you're listening, I'm
still here. He was a really, really wonderful guy, and
he really was proud of what he had done, and
(35:43):
he was great with the fans of people loved it.
Bobby Pickett died in two thousand and seven, but his
greatest creation, the Monster Match, lives on to this day
is the ultimate Halloween song. It's funny. The Monster Match
was originally conceived as a way to capitalize on two
then current pop culture fads, and yet history has pretty
much forgotten the universal monster craze and the Mashed Potatoes
(36:06):
is now an obscure oldie. But the Monster Mash, well,
everyone knows the Monster Mash, which managed to transcend both
of its inspirations to stand on its own as a
classic of sorts, even as those two fads evaporated into
the mists of cultural obscurity. Halloween comes every year, after all,
and there are no other classic Halloween songs to the
(36:27):
best of my knowledge, so I suppose it had no competition,
and kids still do think it's funny. You'll find over
fifty versions of the Monster Mash on the major music
streaming services. There's even a version by John the Cool
Ghoule Zacharly. I can't think of another example in pop
culture of a parody so outliving and outshining its inspirations
(36:49):
that people no longer even remember it was ever intended
as a parody. And that has got to bring a
fiendish smile to the face of Bobby Picket. Yeah, And
(37:19):
that wraps up this episode of Speed of Sound. Next time,
we'll jump forward to the nineteen nineties to explore how
the music world pivoted from grunge and alternative to welcome
back teen pop, with acts like The Spice Girls, Hansen
and the Backstreet Boys leading the way. This one is
filled with great stories as well as some very special guests.
(37:41):
Don't miss it. If you want to take a deeper
dive into the artists and songs you just heard, check
out our curated playlist at the Speed of Sound page
on the I Heart Apple. Until next time. You can
find me on Twitter at Stevie Pro. Speed of Sound
(38:02):
is executive produced by Lauren Bright, Pacheco, Noel Brown and me.
Taylor Shacogne is our supervising producer, editor and sound designer.
Additional sound designed by Tristan McNeil and special thanks to
filmmaker ron Mann for use of an excerpt from his
excellent documentary Twist. I'm Steve Greenberg. Until next time, keep
(38:24):
listening from music that moves you. Speed of Sound is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, check out the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speed of Sound is a production of I Heart Radio. Okay,
let's kick things off with a pop quiz today. Name
a chart topping song that was the perfect combination of
pop culture meets pop music with a dash of horror
and a splash of comedy. Despair hint. It was a
(00:24):
parody of a popular dance craze and a tribute to
a completely separate cultural fad. Extra hint. This monster hit
shot to the highest reaches of the charts, not once,
but twice. Okay, I know that's all too easy, and
by now I'm sure you know that. On today's episode,
we'll find out how the Monster Mash became a monster
(00:44):
Smash and a number one record. I'm Steve Greenberg, and
this is Speed of Sound. In the early nineteen sixties,
the US was in the midst of a huge craze
(01:05):
for classic movie monsters. This was due to Universal Pictures
library of classic monster movies from the nineteen thirties and
forties becoming available for the first time on television. We're
talking classic monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, or the Mummy.
Picture any of those monsters in your mind, and it's
(01:26):
pretty likely you're imagining the version from those Universal movies. Now.
From nineteen thirty one through the early fifties, Universal made
over three dozen movies featuring these characters and others. Universal
actually started making monster movies in the Silent era, but
the first monster talkie was Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff in
(01:47):
ninety one, The spine Kingling, Blood Killing Story. That's ton
Joy Emotions, Thankenstein. Boris Karlov's distinctive voice would play a
major role in the song the Monster Mashed decades later,
(02:07):
and of course he's gone down in history as the
quintessential monster movie actor. First, I'd like to salute the box.
So who really is the best friend I ever heard?
You changed the whole course of my life, because after
that time I was just struggling unknown actor. Frankenstein was
a smash hit, so Universal quickly followed it with Dracula,
(02:27):
starring the Hungarian born actor Bella Lagosi. Dracula I mention
of the name brings to mind things so evil, so fantastic,
so degrading. You wonder if it isn't all a dream,
a nightmare. I am Dacula. These were followed in rapid
(02:53):
succession by films featuring the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and
the Wolfman. And then came this equals like Bride of
Frankenstein and Dracula's Daughter. Then something unprecedented in movies happened.
Universal started to team up characters from the different Monster
movies with each other. The first crossover was Frankenstein Meets
(03:16):
the Wolfman. There's a Curse upon Me I Changed into
a wolf. The next year saw the release of House
of Frankenstein, which featured Frankenstein, of course, along with the Wolfman, Dracula,
the Mummy, and the Invisible Man. These films actually comprised
the first shared cinematic universe, the kind of thing that
(03:37):
Marvel movies do today, with the same characters and the
same actors appearing in each other's films. Universal made quite
a few of these crossover films, and then when the
formulas started to feel stale, they played the whole thing
for laughs in by casting their iconic monsters in the
film Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, starring the famous comedy
(03:59):
duo the nation's top comics Aben and Costello petrified but hilariously,
plus the dangerous and terrifying wolf Man played by Lon Chaney,
plus that themed out of a nightmare, the vampire Batman,
Countdracula played by Bella Lugosi, plus the most dreaded creature
(04:19):
of them all, the Frankenstein Monster played by Glenn Strange,
plus a couple of lushes but designing females in the
spookiest last best on record. That film was so successful
that Universal made sequels teaming Aben and Costello with Dr Jacklin, Mr.
Hyde and the Mummy. Abbot and Costello even did a
(04:42):
film where they meet Barres Karloff himself. That film was
entitled what Else Abbot and Costello Meeting the Killer Baris Karloff.
This bell Boy will commit suicide tonight and this will
be found beside the body suicide I have. In seven
(05:04):
Universal made available their library of monster films to television
stations across the country. This gave the young baby boomers
their first exposure to the classic film versions of Frankenstein,
the Wolfman, Dracula, the Mummy, plus their various spouses and offspring,
and they were an instant hit. Universal syndicated these films
(05:25):
as a package under the title Shock Theater. In most markets,
Shock Theater aired late at night on the weekend, and
in each city there was a spooky costumed host introducing
(05:46):
the film. The most famous of these hosts was a
man named John Zacherley, who began hosting Shock Theater in Philadelphia.
When the show debuted on Shock Theater, Zacherlee played a
character named Roland who lived inside a crypt and who
dressed in a long undertaker's robe. He did spooky monologues
between commercial breaks where he do things like explore coffins
(06:09):
or mixed potions. Let's just try a little bubblico, m nothing, nothing,
those egos. He didn't get me a combinated male man
like he promised. Besides that he was hiding the greatest
ingredient of all boom dust. Zacherley was a good friend
(06:31):
of Dick Clark, whose TV show American Bandstand was broadcast
out of Philadelphia. Dick Clark nicknamed Zacherlely the cool Ghoul,
and he introduced him to the people of Cameo Parkway Records,
the local Philadelphia label that a couple of years later
put out Chubby Checkers recording of The Twist. We, of course,
(07:00):
discussed the relationship between Dick Clark and Cameo Parkway Records
in our episode on The Twist, in Zacherley went into
the studio with Cameo Parkway producer David Pell, the same
man who later produced The Twist and cut the record
Dinner with Drack, which was a kind of proto monster
match Dracula Old Friendania. After Zacharle performed the song on
(07:29):
American Bandstand, the records shot up the chart, reaching number
six on Billboard. After tasting that national success, Zacharle moved
to New York where he hosted a rival horror movie
package called Chiller Theater, and over the years he became
a real icon of campy horror. The popularity of the
(07:54):
Universal Monsters kept building over the next several years, until
by the early sixties there was a full blown monster
craze underway in the country. Garlou the Terrible? Who can
stop it? Who can control as monstrous creature? You can, kids,
because Great Garlou by Marx is yours to command. With
these battery operated controls, you can make Garlou go stop,
(08:17):
then pick up turn. There was this popular monthly magazine
devoted to the craze called Famous Monsters of Film Land,
which spawned a host of imitators. A slew of rival
movie packages arose across the country to rival Shock Theater
and Chiller Theater. Plus there were trading cards, posters, and
(08:37):
lunch boxes, all adorned with the images of the Universal monsters,
and in one the Aurora Plastics Corporation, the people who
manufactured kits for building model airplanes and cars, the kind
you glued together with model airplane glue, started releasing movie
monster model kits under license from Universal Pictures. Of course,
(08:58):
the Aurora Franken's I Model kit was the hottest Christmas
toy of nineteen sixty one for young boys, and in
nineteen sixty two Aurora followed up by releasing Dracula and
The Wolfman as models. It was in the midst of
this monster mania that a young Massachusetts native name Bobby
Pickett hit upon the idea of monster mash. Pickett was
(09:19):
an aspiring actor and comedian who specialized in impressions, and
while waiting for his big break in Hollywood, he made
a living singing and clubs with a group called the Cordials,
and as part of his act, he would do impressions
of movie actors. With monster movies all the rage, Pickett
began to do imitations of the stars of those movies
in his act. One night he impersonated Boris Karloff during
(09:42):
his group's performance of the hit song by the Diamonds
Little Darling, My Darling, I'm you, he called my old Rome,
and the audience reaction was so strong the Pickett started thinking, Hey,
maybe I should try and write an original song about
(10:05):
movie monsters and I can sing it in the voice
of Boris Karloff. Now Bobby Pickett, by this point already
had some experience making records. Early in nineteen sixty two,
the Cordials had gone into the studio to record a
song called The International Twist, which was an unsuccessful attempt
to cash in on the twist cranze The Internationals at
(10:33):
the top of The International Twist was produced by an
l a bass producer named Gary S. Paxton, who had
actually had a number one record a couple of years
earlier as lead singer of a non existing group called
the Hollywood Argyles. Their record was called Alley Oop, and
(10:56):
it was the story of a caveman who was the
title character in a very popular newspaper comic strip of
that era. Well, this cat's name is all he got
a chaufur that's a genuine wine Donna saw. Bobby Pickett
(11:20):
felt that if Garyus Paxton could have a hit about
a cartoon caveman, he could do the same with a
song about movie monsters. Pickett sat down with another member
of the Cordials to write a song which imagined the
Universal Monsters all attending a dance party, and then Bobby
Pickett had his stroke of genius coming up next, top
(11:42):
music and pop culture collide and make a surprising hit song.
Sixty two was the golden age of dance crazes in America,
with the massive success of the Twist leading to a
slew of new dances The Holly Gully, a Monkey, the Watusi,
and each one of those dances had a hit record
(12:04):
telling you how to do it. One of the biggest
of the dance craze songs was called Mashed Potato Time,
and it promoted a dance called the Mashed Potatoes. Coincidentally,
Mashed Potato Time was released by the same Cameo Parkway
Record label that released Dinner with Drag four years earlier.
But more importantly, it was also the same label that
had released the record that ignited the whole sixties dance
(12:26):
craze explosion in the first place, Chubby Checkers the Twist.
After the Twist success, Chubby Checker released a string of
follow up Twist records, and one of those records was
called Slow Twist. In Cameo Parkway recorded Slow Twisting as
a duet between Chubby Checker and a sixteen year old
local Philadelphia singer named Dion LaRue. Now, Dion LaRue sounds
(12:49):
like a pretty good name for a singer, right, but
for some reason, the big wigs at Cameo Parkway decided
to rename her d D. Sharp. In truth, though it
didn't really matter what her name was since she went
uncredited on Slow Twisted. The label Brass were so impressed
(13:20):
with Sharp's vocals on Slow Twist and that they immediately
brought her back into the studio to cut Mashed Potato Time,
written by Calman and Bernie Lowe, who had written a
lot of the Chubby Checker records. Ded Sharp remembers going
(13:43):
into the studio to cut Mashed Potato Time. My mom
was there in the studio when I was recording. My
grandmother was there when I was recording. At Mashed Potatoes.
It was now Mashed Potato Time. Itself was written to
jump on the bandwagon of the booming popularity of the
mashed Potatoes dance, which had been invented a few years
(14:04):
earlier by none other than the godfather of soul, James Brown.
James Brown debut the Mashed Potatoes in nineteen fifty nine
as part of his live stage act, and audiences went wild.
He told his label King Records that he wanted to
record an instrumental to cash in on the popularity of
the dance, but label boss Sid Nathan said to Mr Brown,
(14:25):
no more instrumentals. Those things don't sell. So James Brown
approached Henry Stone, the owner of Dade Records in Miami,
with the idea, and to avoid being sued by King Records,
he credited the recording to Nat Kendrick and the Swans,
nat Kendrick being the drummer in the James Brown Band
(14:45):
Do The Mashed Potatoes became a top ten R and
B hit in nineteen sixty and sowed the seeds for
the Mashed Potato dance grace. However, it barely dent did
the pop chart. This was still a few months prior
to the cultural revolution that was the Twist and White
America was hardly ready for a dance you danced alone,
but in black communities the dance started to catch on. Then,
(15:07):
with Dan's craze Fever in high gear in ninety two,
the folks at Cameo Parkway, looking for their next dance hit,
tweaked the moves of the mashed Potato a bit so
that they would look a little bit more like the twist.
How do you do the mashed potato? Well, there are
lots of mashed potato instructional videos on YouTube that can
demonstrate it a whole lot better than I can explain it.
(15:28):
But it has something to do with seeming like you're
mashing potatoes with your heels. Cameo Parkway released De d
Sharp's Mashed Potato Time just a week after Chubby Checkers
(15:50):
Slow Twist, and it was an immediate hit. Musically, the
song owed a lot to the Marvel Letts Please Mr. Postman,
which would hit number one late nineteen sixty one. Please
Mr Postman was in fact Motown's first attempt at producing
a record you could twist to. Well. Yes, Now, I've
(16:19):
mentioned before on this series that there's an old record
business saying where there's a hit there's a writ. It
turns out Mashed Potato Time was so similar in melody
to Please Mr. Postman that Cameo. Parkway was ultimately forced
to share writing credit with the five writers of Please
Mr Postman, Let's give a listen, Please the World to Day,
(17:03):
making the connection even more explicit. D D Sharp sang
this in Mashed Potato Time. D D Sharp actually name
(17:26):
checked a lot of top hits in the song, instructing
her listeners that you could dance the mashed Potatoes to
the Tokens recent number one hit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight,
and also to Gary u S Bonds hit Dear Lady Twist.
Mashed Potato Time was a smash, going all the way
to number one on the R and B chart and
peaking at number two on the Hot One in the
spring of ninety two. It would not be long before
(17:50):
James Brown responded to these usurpers of his creation by
releasing Mashed Potatoes USA, this time under his own name,
but his record saw very limited success. Yeah I'm I'm
bad again, I'm gonna matato, I'm gonna stop new Ye.
(18:14):
Lots of other records began to name check the Mashed
Potato Chris montees is Let's Dance the Contours, Do You
Love Me? Chris Kenner's Land of a Thousand Dances, Connie
(18:47):
Francis is V A C A T I O N.
Mash Potato to What You, and Sam Cook's Having a
Party Don't look out Him Potatoes No Songs. All of
those artists subsequently had greatest success than James Brown in
(19:09):
jumping on the Mashed Potato bandwagon. By the way, Sam
Cook is such an interesting tangential figure in this story.
He was an extremely astute student of pop culture, and
he not only singled out the mashed Potato in Having
a Party, but he also managed to work Frankenstein into
his nineteen three hit Another Saturday Night. He had a
(19:31):
sister who looked just farm to stand up being deliverous.
She had a stranger assemblance to a Cat de d
Sharp followed up the massive success of Mashed Potato Time
by releasing the near sound alike record Gravy from My
Mashed Potatoes, and Gravy also hit the national top Tampo
(19:59):
than so by the time Bobby Pickett decided to make
a record about movie monsters in the summer of nineteen
sixty two. Not only had Mashed Potato Time saturated the airwaves,
but so had most of those other records. The world
was as ready as it ever would be for a
record that jumped on both the Mashed Potato and the
(20:20):
Universal Monster Bandwagon At the same time. Machine was rocking onward,
digging the sounds Eagle on Chain's Black Players being Home
the puffin by this what about to alive? But the
vocal group the crypt could a thought and done that.
The chords, melody, piano parted lyrical structure and Monster Mash
(20:43):
are clearly taken from Mashed Potato Time, and the wau
female background vocals are a direct lift of the exact
same vocal part that can be found on Dee d
Sharp's record So Much Everything's Cool, rectual part of the
Band and My Moms Mash. But since the Monster Mash
(21:10):
was a parody and thus protected his free speech, there
was no lawsuit this time for me. The magic of
Monster Mash what makes it entertaining is that Bobby Pickett's
record parodies Mashed Potato Time by turning it into a
song about the movie Monster Craze. The monsters have all
gotten together a party at Dr Frankenstein's place and learned
a new dance called the Monster Mash. Bobby Pickett does
(21:33):
most of the record in his Boris Karloff voice, except
for one line, which is really the record's most brilliant moment.
At the end of the fourth verse, in the exact
same spot where Dee Dee Sharp exclaimed about they even
do it to dear Lady Twist, Bobby Pickett suddenly stops
imitating Boris Karloff and takes on the persona of Bella Lagosi,
(21:54):
the original Universal Dracula, asking Twiz if that line has
a certain poignancy for hardcore Twist lovers because Bobby Pickett
was consciously commenting on the fact that the Twist had
by this point become pass a. By the time Monster
Mash at number one in late October, of all the
(22:17):
Twist records were gone from the charts and the kids
were onto other dances like the Swim or the Locomotion,
and Chubby Checker would never have another top ten record
after an incredible two year run during which he'd had
eight of them. Coming up, the Monster Mash mysteriously reappears
at the top of the charts, and we're joined by
TV's iconic wolf boy Eddie Munster a k a. Butch Patrick.
(22:48):
After Bobby Pickett and fellow member of The Cordials Lenny
Capezi wrote Monster Mash, they shopped around for a record
label to produce it. They were turned down by label
after label until they found the approached Gary S. Paxton,
who had produced them as the Cordials. Paxton agreed to
produce the record and release it on his Guard Packs
record label. Gary Paxton knew how to produce a novelty record,
(23:11):
that's for sure, and he worked his magic with Bobby Pickett,
using the sound of pulling a rusty nail out of
a plank of wood to replicate the sound of a
coffin opening, and having someone blow bubbles through a straw
to imitate a bubbling cauldroom. Paxton also brought in some
of l A's best session musicians to play on the
record in place of Pickett's non existent backing group, the
(23:33):
crypt Kickers. There have been rumors swirling for decades that
legendary piano player Leon Russell played on Monster Mash, but
actually those are not true. Although Leon Russell had been
booked to play on the session, he showed up late
and only managed to play on the records Flip Side,
Monster Mash, Party, Math That I Want to Math, I Change.
(24:13):
Riding the wave of the Monster Craze, Monster Mash went
to number one on the Hot one for two weeks
in October two, just in time for Halloween. While Bobby
Pickett would never scale such lofty heights again. The Monster
Craze continued up through the mid sixties, but it too
would finally pass its expiration date, with parody at the
(24:33):
end becoming its main form of expression. On TV, there
were comedies about the Adams Family and the Monsters produced
by Universal Television and using a lot of the old
Universal Monster sets as the actor who played the world's
(25:09):
most beloved werewolf Boy Eddie Munster. Butch Patrick had a
front row seat and starring role in the Monster Quaze
of the nineteen sixties. You know, I was born in
nineteen fifty three, so the early movies that I remember
were basically the classic Universal monster movies. You know, they
were the they were the you know, the Monster Studio.
They did them very well. But it was also in
(25:30):
the fifties there was a lot of atomic radiation, you know,
like giant ants and Godzilla and the Thing, and there's
a lot of great stuff going on. So between the
monsters and the sci fi movies, it was a great
time to go to the Saturday matinees and enjoy movies.
And I enjoyed them all. And I also built the
models from Aurora, who specialized in the in the monsters,
(25:50):
I built them all. I started off to Frankenstein. Actually,
I think I think the first one I built was Dracula,
then the Wolfman and Frankenstein. And then they had them all.
You know, they had the Creature, they had the Fantom
of the Opera, pretty much invisible Man most of them.
That was the hardman build the invisible Man because you
couldn't see him. Uh. And by the time he was eleven,
the kid who loved playing with monsters would be playing
(26:12):
one on one of television's biggest hit shows. People will
come up to me and they'll say, you know, I
love your show. It was my favorite show or my
dad's favorite show, or my grandmo's favorite show. And here,
you know, here we are fifty seven years later. Um
and and who would have thought that a little two
years series with seventy episodes would be one of the
(26:33):
heavily merchandise show of all time and still be popular
with the likes of Rob Zombie and Paul McCartney. Everybody
will enjoying it and I'm just happy to be to
have been part of it. The Monsters were also part
of the scene that melded music with monsters. The Monsters
had a very cool theme song, was very rock and
roll and people remember it vividly. You may or may
(26:53):
not know this, but the Monsters theme has been recorded
and re recorded over a hundred fifty times. It's been
done by the Boston Pops, It's been done by the
London Philharmonic. It's actually Bryan Setzer and his orchestra uses
(27:17):
it as the opening song when he goes up tour.
Ball Out Boy recently just used the Monster's theme. It's
(27:44):
amazing the music and that kind of stuff that the
longevity has had and influence has had, reaching all the
way to children's cartoons. Even the flint Stones, who would
seem to have more in common with Alley youp than
Universal Monsters, jumped on the band wagon that's new with
the Windstones. Lots of things like the most orange, alous,
(28:05):
hilarious and gruesome family you ever met In fact, that's
their name. The Gruesome and the voice of Boris Karloff
himself added a touch of authenticity to the seven animated
film Mad Monster Party Show. Even legendary radio DJ Wolfman
(28:40):
Jack's jive talking mid sixties radio persona was a tribute
to his Universal Monster namesake. Ah, that's what's your baby?
Oh boy, you people taking down all your take. She's
going to be gonna be playing some of that bounced
off to a music Baby. Before retiring at the end
of the sixties and selling their company ton Abisco, the
(29:01):
founders of Aurora Plastics Corporation had a few more flesh
years creating movie monsters under license from Universal Pictures. The
Mummy model kit came out in nineteen sixty three to
huge success, followed by The Creature from the Black Lagoon,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Godzilla. Aurora released their
final monster model kits in nineteen sixty six, this time
(29:24):
in collaboration with Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, which by
this point was also running on fumes. The classic monsters
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Graham Stoker's Dracula, etcetera, would of course
live on, but not many remember that there was a
time when cultural references to Frankenstein reflexively meant the bars
(29:45):
Carla version from shock theater. Horror films themselves would soon
enter a whole new era, as Rosemary's Baby in nineteen
sixty eight and The Exorcist in nineteen seventy three, along
with all those that followed, would scare audiences without featuring
drag Cula were the Wolfman. However, Universal has made attempts
to reboot their shared monster movie universe over the years.
(30:07):
Most notable was the two thousand and four film Van
Helsing starring Hugh Jackman, which featured Frankenstein's monster, Dracula the Werewolf,
and Jacqueline Hyde. He's the first one to kill a
vampire and over a hundred years, I'd say that sent
him a drink through it. Although the popularity of the
Monster Mash has endured, the Beach Boys kept it alive
(30:29):
throughout the nineteen sixties, playing it regularly in concert with
Mike Love doing an imitation of Bobby Pickett imitating Boris Karlos,
Who's love sport, Marge, When my eyes fell, When my
monster from the slob was suddenly As for Bobby Pickett himself.
(30:56):
Hot off the two Halloween success of Monster Mash, he
rushed out Monsters Holiday in time for Christmas that year,
making it up to number thirty on the Singles chart
with a song that basically sounded like the Monster Mash
with sleigh bells, didn't act like good Monster Shoot. They
(31:17):
followed themselves a new they plan droff Sunday they were
making a list. He kept releasing monster themed singles for
the next few years, with diminishing success. A year after
Monster Mash, the Twist inspired dance craze fever itself would
disappear just as quickly as it came, replaced by Beatlemania
(31:39):
and all that followed in its wake. And though the
Beatles did have early hits with their covers of Twist
and Shout and Please Mr. Postman, they soon led the
culture in another direction, entirely leaving the dance craze era
a quaint but fading memory. But the Monster Mash itself
lived on. It was reissued in nineteen seventy and grazed
(31:59):
the autom of the hot one. Then in the spring
of nine three, it mysteriously reappeared, this time staying on
the chart for twenty weeks and making it into the
top ten in the middle of August. At that same time,
it even hit the top ten in England, where it
was banned by the BBC on its initial release for
being two morbid. Now, the timing of the spring and
(32:23):
summer ninety three resurgence of The Monster Mash makes it
clear that it's popularity this time had nothing at all
to do with Halloween. So what was it that shot
the record back into the top ten? I have actually
discussed this question with numerous pop music experts over the years,
but not one of them can provide a definitive answer.
(32:43):
There are lots of theories, though, ranging from the Monster
Mash being lumped in with the revival of pre Beatles
rock and roll that was sweeping the country at that time,
to the record benefiting from the Los Angeles debut of
a radio show focusing on the bizarre, hosted by a
man named Barry Hanson, better known is Dr Demento. Hello there,
this is Dr Demento. We're on the radio here. Who
(33:11):
airplay on the Doctor Demento show certainly helped bring back
another twisted nineteen sixties record, They're Coming to Take Me Away?
Ha ha, which also recharted in nine coming to take
Me Away, Ha Ha. They're coming to take me away,
hoppy home with trees and flowers and turpin Kurds and
basket weavers. You're sit and smile and Twiddleland comes in.
(33:35):
But no one can say for sure what brought the
monster mash back. What we do know is the song
started to get airplay on two radio stations in Milwaukee
in April of nineteen seventy three, and the phones at
both stations went wild. By early May, the record label
rushed it into re release. Billboard magazine noticed the records
(33:55):
resurgence in its May twelfth issue, speculating that maybe with
water eight and other scandals in the headlines, today's impressionable
young listeners find humor in the music, what else do
they have to laugh about? Now That theory may sound
a little far fetched, but no less a figure than
Bobby Pickett himself agreed with it. In nineteen seventy three,
Bobby Pickett was driving a cab in New York City
(34:18):
and he commented to the press on the renewed popularity
of his song by saying, at this point in time,
with what's coming down with Watergate. People need some relief
from the tension that's building up. Be that as it may.
Off the back of the song's return to the charts.
Bobby Pickett went on tour that year with a new
version of The crypt Kickers and four. He endeavored to
(34:39):
bring his monster theme Madness to yet another new generation
by recording the hip hop flavored Monster Rap, which failed
to get much attention. Waited his time in DJO to
get Chocked. The Boy chock Chocked the Mom Shocked. But
(35:01):
Pickett's original hit has cemented its place in music history
and in the hearts of countless fans. In a wonderful
example of monster world's colliding, Bobby Pickett and Butch Patrick
TV Zone Eddie Munster actually cross paths. I didn't meet
Bobby until I was an adult, you know, until I
was in my thirties. I not only remember the record,
(35:23):
but when it came out, I loved that. You know,
there was a lot of great old music. It was.
It's there was so much stuff going on in the sixties,
and uh, you know, he would always make fun of that.
Elvis called it the stupidest song you ever heard, and
that he would say an eldest if you're listening, I'm
still here. He was a really, really wonderful guy, and
he really was proud of what he had done, and
(35:43):
he was great with the fans of people loved it.
Bobby Pickett died in two thousand and seven, but his
greatest creation, the Monster Match, lives on to this day
is the ultimate Halloween song. It's funny. The Monster Match
was originally conceived as a way to capitalize on two
then current pop culture fads, and yet history has pretty
much forgotten the universal monster craze and the Mashed Potatoes
(36:06):
is now an obscure oldie. But the Monster Mash, well,
everyone knows the Monster Mash, which managed to transcend both
of its inspirations to stand on its own as a
classic of sorts, even as those two fads evaporated into
the mists of cultural obscurity. Halloween comes every year, after all,
and there are no other classic Halloween songs to the
(36:27):
best of my knowledge, so I suppose it had no competition,
and kids still do think it's funny. You'll find over
fifty versions of the Monster Mash on the major music
streaming services. There's even a version by John the Cool
Ghoule Zacharly. I can't think of another example in pop
culture of a parody so outliving and outshining its inspirations
(36:49):
that people no longer even remember it was ever intended
as a parody. And that has got to bring a
fiendish smile to the face of Bobby Picket. Yeah, And
(37:19):
that wraps up this episode of Speed of Sound. Next time,
we'll jump forward to the nineteen nineties to explore how
the music world pivoted from grunge and alternative to welcome
back teen pop, with acts like The Spice Girls, Hansen
and the Backstreet Boys leading the way. This one is
filled with great stories as well as some very special guests.
(37:41):
Don't miss it. If you want to take a deeper
dive into the artists and songs you just heard, check
out our curated playlist at the Speed of Sound page
on the I Heart Apple. Until next time. You can
find me on Twitter at Stevie Pro. Speed of Sound
(38:02):
is executive produced by Lauren Bright, Pacheco, Noel Brown and me.
Taylor Shacogne is our supervising producer, editor and sound designer.
Additional sound designed by Tristan McNeil and special thanks to
filmmaker ron Mann for use of an excerpt from his
excellent documentary Twist. I'm Steve Greenberg. Until next time, keep
(38:24):
listening from music that moves you. Speed of Sound is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, check out the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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