"Monster Mash," recorded by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers, came out in 1962 but it was played often enough on KHJ — probably around Halloween — that years later, it made it onto my mixtape. Mr. Pickett, who died in 2007, recorded other songs, mostly with a monster theme, but "Monster Mash" was such a smash that people cite him as an example of a "one-hit wonder."
I have a memory of sitting at a table next to Mr. Pickett at a horror convention — perhaps a two-day thing that was held at a public school in Lawndale, California one weekend in 1977. It was run by author George Clayton Johnson. He called it ClaytonCon 1 and as I recall, the honored guests outnumbered the paying ones by a notable ratio, at least while I was there.
Maybe it wasn't that con but at some convention, I sat and chatted with "Boris" and he talked about all the things he'd done besides "Monster Mash" — a pretty impressive list, as I recall. But when people came by his table, all they wanted to talk about was "Monster Mash" and most weren't there to purchase the copies of his album and other goodies he was selling. Everyone just wanted to prove to him that they knew the song by heart and most of 'em wanted to show him their bad impression of him doing his bad impression of Karloff.
I felt sorry for the guy but then I remembered how many recording artists in this world — or wanna-be recording artists — never record anything that makes the Top 100, let alone goes to #1 as his did. One hit is infinitely better than zero hits. So here's one the biggest novelty records of all time from American Bandstand for October 13, 1964…
And now here's a bonus — a novelty record based on a novelty record! You may remember my friends in Big Daddy, the local band that takes everything recorded after John F. Kennedy was shot and redoes it so it sounds like a record that came out before John F. Kennedy was shot. A few years ago, they took "The Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera and did some surgery to make it sound like "Monster Mash." I like both songs better when mashed this way…