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The Strange World of Monster Mash Rip-Offs
🕑 Added 2021-10-29 07:37:02 +0000 UTCEvery year, I spend hundred upon hundreds of words gushing over Christmas songs, and you’d better believe I’ll do so again this year. But let’s face it, these days a sizable chunk of The Internet goes every bit as gaga over Halloween as I do Christmas, and I’d be a fool not to try and cash in on that as well. It’s a bit of a challenge, though, since… well, quite frankly, I’ve never really cared all that much about Halloween. At least, I didn’t when I was a kid, which is where I was programmed with 90% of my Christmas-mania. There was the whole “Good Southern Baptist families shouldn’t participate into them devil holidays” thing going on, but I don’t really think it was the main factor at all. I grew up in a neighborhood without many other kids around, to the point that when Halloween actually rolled up, there would be exactly ONE family going around trick or treating. Something about the contrast between all the ballyhoo of ghost and jack o’lanterns and monsters on TV, and the one single family actually bumbling down our street all alone, it just made the whole "Halloween" thing seem really sad and pathetic. I wasn’t about to feel left out because I wasn’t participating in something that, as far as I could see, nobody ELSE was participating in either.
It wasn’t until much, MUCH later that I learned to appreciate the campy charm of Halloween stuff, even if it was well after trick or treating wasn’t an option any more. Every October, I make a point of watching Vincent Price movies with all the regularity that I do with Christmas specials in December, I ingest enough spooky-themed candy to make my tongue sore, and I still think the one Anime USA that wound up happening on Halloween weekend is one of my all-time favorite convention memories. But most importantly, to me at least, is Halloween music. Come on, you’ve seen how much I go on about Christmas music, how would that NOT be the part of the festivities I most latched on to? Specifically, I’ve formed a real fascination with the strange, corny, silliness that was the cottage industry of "Monster Mash" Rip-Offs.
If you don’t already know, singer and comedian Bobby Pickett realized he could take songs with spoken word interludes (like “Little Darlin” by The Diamonds) and turn them into Halloween novelties if he read those parts in a Boris Karloff impersonation. Building upon this gimmick, Pickett wrote a whole song around the voice, loaded with references to Universal monster movies and parodies of early ‘60s dance crazes, and managed to get one of the biggest novelty hits in modern music history. A hit he would spend the rest of his life milking absolutely EVERY SINGLE CENT out of that cash cow, make no mistake. And he wasn’t the only one, either. I was astonished when I discovered just how many other spooky novelty songs were unleashed around this same time.
Now, first of all, I need to acknowledge that “Monster Mash” was not the first time anybody thought to mention monsters in a Pop/Rock song. In many ways, Bobby Pickett was himself cashing in on a trend that had already existed among the teenage record buying public for years. For one thing, there’s a sizable stack of monster-themed Rockabilly tunes, which is rather in keeping with the trashy vibe of that whole genre. “The Monster” by Bobby Please is probably the most Mash-like of this breed of novelty (or “Curse of the Herse” by Terry Teene , if you want something significantly more morbid), though rave-ups like Dave Gardner’s “Mad Witch” or Rod Willis’ “The Cat” are more accurate representations of Rockabilly Halloween tunes. A lot of these tunes seem to be influenced more by EC Comics than Universal monster movies, as seen in Lee Ross’ “The Mummy’s Bracelet,” but their very existence is itself a testament to how many predecessors “Monster Mash”.
The thing that really surprised me, though, discovering the substantial number of monster-themed songs from the comparatively more respectable Doo Wop genre. Tunes like “Midnight Stroll” by The Revels or “I’m In The Ground For Good” by The Newports are essentially standard Doo Wop tunes with an abnormally macabre sense of humor to them, while “Screamin’ Ball (at Dracula Hall)” by The Duponts and “Dead” by The Poets much more blatantly presage the “Monster Mash” formula. I’ve heard a number of critics who wanna sound deep speculate that this specific sub-trend was a desperate attempt to get around the prejudices of the industry by latching onto the trends of white kids, though I personally think they were just as desperate to find some kind of memorable identity, since few genres are as interchangeably anonymous as Doo Wop.
And that’s not even getting into the even more surprising sub-genre of “Purple People Eater” knock-offs like Bert Convey’s “The Monsters Hop”, which is all the more convoluted since Sheb Wooley’s “Purple People Eater” was itself a semi-knock-off of Ross Bagdasarian's “Witch Doctor,” which had its own separate chain of rip-offs. And then there’s the even odder world of Horror Host novelty records, most notably Zacherly’s “Dinner With Drac,” which clearly had an influence on “Monster Mash” as well. And this is just the late ‘50s we’re talking about. Jazz bands were recording odes to spooky stuff all the way back in the ‘30s! There’s a lot of songs about Draculas and Witches and Wolfmans and Insert Monster Heres, is what I’m saying. So what makes “Monster Mash” so special?
Because it’s the freakin’ “Monster Mash”, that’s why!
No, but seriously, “Monster Mash” may not have innovated much in concept, but it is an absolute MASTERPICE in execution. Seriously, there may be a multitude of predecessors to “Monster Mash,” each with their own unique qualities, but ANY novelty/comedy/Halloween tune to come out after 1962 is “a Monster Mash Rip-Off.” Even if it’s not, it still is. Bobby Pickett and Leonard Capizzi cracked the formula of the perfect Halloween novelty so thoroughly that literally any attempt to mine that spooky vein can’t help but show the Mash’s influence, whether intentionally or not. And just what is that formula? Well, I’m no Musicographist or anything, but I do have a website, which qualifies me to speak authoritatively on whatever I feel like. Let’s un-mash this monster:
The most obvious “Monster Mash” factors are, of course, all the haunted house sound effects, Bobby Pickett’s impersonations, and the numerous horror monster shout-outs. Any good horror novelty already had at least one of those elements, and a good post-Mash novelty generally needed to have all of them. There’s a bit more going on to unpack, however. For one thing, the MUSIC behind “Monster Mash” tends to hang heavily over many of the knock offs. Since the whole thing is ostensibly a dance song, a substantial number of Mash wannabes have that same stomping, danceable 4/4 beat, all the better if there’s shrill female backing vocals or a horn section to punctuate things. In fact, the introduction of another alleged “dance craze” is itself a frequent ingredient of many Mash knockoffs. Also, there’s a lot to unpack about the “monster shout-out” aspect that isn’t as simple as one might think. The song can only rarely be about ONE monster, because then you alienate any listeners who like some other monster better. You gotta squeeze ALL the monsters in there and cover all your bases. This is helped by another quirk of the Mash formula: being a story song. Well, maybe “story” isn't the right word, since it’s not like the Mash is some dense literary work, but you’ll find that quite a few of these songs are built around at least a vague progression of events that the narrator is watching. Having all the freaks parade past the singer makes it all the easier to cram as many spookies into as few verses as possible. And lest we forget, there’s also got to be a LOT of pop cultural references. I know that seems redundant when we already have all these monster cameos, but I’m not talking about classic horror movies here. I’m talking about what would have passed as modern day, mainstream, topical humor in 1962. This aspect of the “Monster Mash” formula tends to fly over the heads of many modern listeners, but the very idea of presenting “The Mash” as a dance is itself a parody of all the dance craze songs to come out in the wake of “The Twist.” The deeper you dive into post-Mash knockoff, the more you find desperate attempts to latch onto existing hits or trends, including the Mash itself. I don’t just mean copying the tone or structure of the original, I mean blatantly citing “Monster Mash” in the lyrics. It’s a long-standing rule that one of the dumbest things a bad movie can do is to reference a good one, and that rule absolutely holds true with novelty records as well, especially when the rip-off aspect is already blatant.
And make no mistake, there are some BLATANT “Monster Mash” rip-offs out there, of the most shameless, borderline fraudulent nature. Case in point: when Bobby Pickett tried to release an album in the wake of the single, he had to call it “The ORIGINAL Monster Mash” because the previously mentioned Zacherle had already rush released a “Monster Mash” album of his own to cash in on the original’s popularity. Any while he absolutely slipped Mash cover on there to justify the title, the real shameless cash grabs are other attempts to force “spooky dance crazes” of Zacherle’s own, like “Weird Watusi,” “The Bat, or “The Ha-Ha-Ha.” But even those are still more or less new compositions, “Gravy” is literally just new lyrics/comedy routines over the familiar Mash chord changes. I’d say I don’t know how nobody got sued over this… but I’ve heard the other songs mentioned on this blog.
Songs like, say, the works of Don Hinson & The Rigamortician on their lone album Monster Dance Party. In case the title doesn’t clue you in, they ALSO did a blatant cover of “Monster Mash” and a few other Bobby Pickett tunes, and Henson’s Karloff voice was good enough that a few listeners might have genuinely mistaken them for the originals. But the really fascinating relics are the “original” compositions… well maybe not instrumentals like “Robbin’ Graves” or “Monster Surf Stomp,” which I’m not convinced weren’t pre-existing songs with a pile of “spooky” sound effects dubbed over (or the titular “Monster Dance Party,” which clearly WAS newly written since it also blatantly plagiarizes the Mash’s melody.). No, the kitchy fun comes from lazy dace craze cash-ins like “Monster Jerk” or “Do The Rigormortis,” which are mesmerizing in their desperate attempts to wed what pasted with “hipness” at the time to corny attempts at “ghoulish” comedy. Speaking of corny, marvel at the bad Dean Martin impression that drives “That Little Old Graverobber Me.” This was the kind of routine that made comedians’ whole careers back in the day.
But lest you think it’s all So Bad It’s Good cringe, Don Hinson DID manage a few legitimate should-a been classics. I’ve got a soft spot for “Phantom of the A Go-Go,” which has a relatively distinctive Booker T & The M.G.s backing track, but the real prize is “Riboflavin-Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Polyunsaturated Blood.” The music is JUST unique enough to be legally district from the Mash, while still managing to strike nearly the exact same mood. What’s more, Hinson’s Karloff is so good that, at one point, I legitimately thought this WAS a Bobby Pickett song. I can’t have been the only one, and I have to think that the only reason this wasn’t at least a modest seasonal hit was because of how unwieldy that name is.
Most of the Faux-Mash cash-ins didn’t get a whole album to their name, though, just a one-off single. Case in point, “Vampire’s Ball” by Mann Drake & The Fort Knox Trio. The music here is an especially blatant copy of “Monster Mash,” and it’s all the more lazy for not having any kind of very/chorus structure. It’s just the same thirty seconds on a loop for two and a half minutes while Mr. Drake rambles on op of it. And that’s the other thing a lot of these Mash rip-off’s have in common. Bobby Pickett may not have exactly “sung” on his song, but he still had the decency to ramble off his lyrics while sticking to the basic rhythm of the song, or at least frickin’ rhyme. “Vampire’s Ball” not only drifts off the beat in ways that only a clueless white man can, but it can’t even bother to be a poem in several places, instead just decaying into more bad comedy routines. Bad comedy that runs out too quickly, by the way, meaning the singer has to start repeating gags before the song fades out. I’m not sure what’s more shocking, that they couldn’t come up with enough material to cover a sub-three minute song, or that nobody thought running out too son warranted a second take. Oh, and “Vampire’s Ball” is also a prime example of a song just straight up quoting “Monster Mash” to make sure you remember what it’s trying to cash in on.
That final sin also blights Bill Buchanan’s “The Night Before Halloween,” an otherwise clever rewrite of “The Night Before Christmas” decades before Tim Burton got all the credit for combining the two holidays. I mean, this one at least has the decency to not blatantly SOUND like the song it’s referencing, but the whole song still comes screeching to a halt to shout “HEY, REMEMBER THIS MORE POPULAR THING YOU LIKE?” Bill Buchanan at least managed to make both sides of this non-hit memorable, as the flip side “Beware” is a fun romp through vampire clichés and Bela Lugosi impressions. It also screeches to a halt for some totally out-of-nowhere quotes from The Marvellette’s “Beechwood 4-5789,” a song which also inexplicably looms over the very similar “Drac’s Back” by Billy Demarco. Remember, a lot of the Mash rip-off machine was driven by comedians, so even when they weren’t necessarily trying to copy “Monster Mash” specifically, they were still gonna try to get a cheep laugh by referencing SOMETHING familiar.
There’s no ambiguity about what Billy Lee Riley’s “Nightmare Mash” is trying to sound like, though. Seriously, this one is straight up “we’ve got Monster Mash at home!” territory here. Musically, this one is even more plagiarism-happy than “Monster Dance Party” was, to the point that somebody would ABSOLUTELY have gotten sued if anybody ever actually heard the thing. Riley can’t be bothered with a Karloff impression, instead settling for a generic scratchy cartoon character voice that sounds kinda like Oscar the Grouch, but the lyrics he squawks out are astounding in their shamelessness. The only original thing here is the fact that, as the title implies, the events are a bad dream rather that something actually happening, but otherwise the parade of Universal monsters and Monster Mash quotes are downright breathtaking.
But it’s not always so blatant, as seen in “Frankenstein Stomp” by Count Lorry and The Biters. Musically, it’s one of the more original creations of this motley crew, using more of a Doo Wop melody and replacing the familiar Boris Karloff impression with a Peter Lorre one. But the forced dance craze set up makes it incredibly obvious where the song’s inspirations lie. Even more musically left field is “Shudders and Screams” by Ben Colder, a woozy Country waltz that’s actually a parody of the song “Shutters and Boards” by Jerry Wallace. What’s more “Ben Colder” is actually an alias of Sheb Wooley, he of “Purple People Eater” fame, which is weirdly appropriate. And yes, this is another song that just straight up openly mentions the Mash right there in the lyrics. Oh, and let’s not forget “The Lurch” by Ted Cassidy, which tries its darnest to make “being the Addams Family’s butler” into a dance.
As the 60s rolled on, and Rock began to rapidly morph into new forms, post-Mash novelties got more and more POST-Mash, incorporating newer musical trends into the mix. “Igor’s Cellar” by The Detergents throws a heavy Garage Band sound into the mix, while Jeckyll & Hyde’s “Frankenstein Meets The Beatles” …is probably self explanatory. We even got some more album-length novelties, such as The Munsters. No, despite what the packaging would lead you to believe, it’s not an album of Herman and Grandpa Munster warbling out tunes but rather a bunch of studio musicians playing songs “inspired” by The Munsters. “Munster Creep” is probably the closest to the Mash template in that it’s yet another attempt at a Halloween-themed dance craze, though “Ride The Midnight Special” is arguably closer to the dumb novelty spirit thanks to its pun-tastic lyrics (“San Fransis-ghoul” anyone?). Actually, the Musters album reminds me a lot of Don Hinson’s Monster Dance Party, in that a sizable chunk of the album just sounds like stock instrumental tracks with generic haunted house sound effects dubbed over. Even some of the vocal tracks (like “Make It Go Away”) have next to nothing to do with the album’s theme. But the ones that do, oh man. This is some prime mid-60s kitsch right here. “You Created a Monster” is actually a legit decent slice of Standells-esque Garage Rock, and while nothing else is that good, it does have a fun Beach Boys meets Rolling Stones grab bag of whatever was popular at the moment. You’ve probably got to have a VERY high tolerance for cheese to make it through “$1.98 King Size Voodoo Kit,” “T.V. Monster Show,” or “Frankenstein Had a Hot-Rod Car” (which, I kid you not, swipes its melody from ‘Old Mac Donald Had A Farm”) but if you DON’T have such a tolerance, how on Earth did you make it this far into a blog about The Monster Mash?
And if that one didn’t scare you off, then you’ll get a REAL kick out of Dracula’s Deuce by The Ghouls, another whole album squeezed out of a gag that’s barely enough for a single song: what if The Beach Boys were vampires? That’s the whole thing, parodies of songs by The Beach Boys (such “Be True To Your Ghoul” or the title track) or related tunes (like the “Johnny B Goode” parody “Bela Be Good” or the Jan & Dean ode “The Little Old Lady From Transylvania.”) Actually, I’ve told a bit of a lie there, the joke only manages to cover HALF the album. The rest is, you guessed it, generic Surf Rock with spooky titles. And really, even the songs that ARE on-topic strain a bit to keep up the gag, not helped by the fact that vocalist Dick Burns genuinely doesn't seem to be sure if doing a Boris Karloff or a Bela Lugosi impression half the time (and it's so bad either way that the listener isn't sure either). Honestly, kitsch value aside, the funniest thing about Dracula’s Deuce is that it was actually produced by Gary Usher, who himself co-wrote a lot of the original Surf Rock tunes this album parodies. Truly, there is no shame when it comes to chasing that elusive Halloween novelty dollar.
And speaking of chasing a dollar and an absolute lack of shame, we of course need to end where it all began: with Bobby “Boris” Pickett himself. Oh man, if you think OTHER people were shameless in their attempts to cash in on “Monster Mash” mania, they had NOTHING on the man who started it all. The Original Monster Mash album covers pretty much all the directions from which a Mash rip-off could be approached. “Sinister Stomp” or “Monster Motion” are a straight up re-writes of the original tune, “Wolfbane” is a straight up re-write of somebody ELSE’S tune (in this case, “Alley Oop” by The Hollywood Argyles), “Rabian – The Fiendage Idol” covers the “blatant lampooning of something popular” approach, “Me & My Mummy” hearkens back to all those Doo Wop novelties from earlier, while tunes like “Monster Minuet,” “Graveyard Shift” or “Transylvania Twist” just sound like generic stock instrumentals with Pickett doing his routines over them. Actually, “Transylvania Twist” is a dual offender, as it also commits the whole “expanding on things that don’t need expanding upon” sin that so many needless sequels are guilty off. Did anybody REALLY need to hear what song Dracula liked so much better than The Mash, and if anybody did, would they really want it to be a generic Rolling Stones-esque Frat Rock throwaway? (For the record, New York horror host Baron Daemon did his own “Transylvania Twist” that outclasses Pickett’s in absolutely EVERY way). And then there’s inexplicable tracks like the vaudeville “Bella’s Bash” or “Blood Bank Blues” which… I can’t even begin to do justice with words. Suffice it to say that Pickett could only stretch the Mash formula so far.
And he clearly knew it, because latter attempts to cash in stuck much closer to the format of the original. “The Werewolf Watusi” tries to spice up the melody a bit, but the general song structure is still slavishly close to that of the Mash, from the funny impressions to the pop culture references (“Lawrence Wolf”?) to the female backing vocals. But then there’s “The Monster Swim,” which really is even more of a flagrant re-write than “Sinister Stomp” was. What’s more, not only does the song repeatedly reference the earlier song (with Drac even re-hashing his “whatever happened” gag to be about it) but the chorus even openly brags that The Monster Swim is BETTER than The Mash. Ask any bitter One Hit Wonder, and they’ll tell you that the only thing worse than openly reminding people of that one hit is to preemptively brag about surpassing it, it NEVER works. (Well, okay, Chubby Checker’s “Let’s Twist Again” is the exception that proves the rule) Then there’s “Monster Concert,” which desperately tries to update the shtick for the hippy crowd with puns about Woodstock and psychedelic bands (“The Mummies of Invention”?) And even THAT’S not the most desperate cash-in Pickett released, not in a world where “Monster’s Holiday” exists. Yes, there is an official Christmas “Monster Mash” sequel. That doesn’t even sound like a real thing, it sounds like a joke somebody would make up to PARODY failed follow ups. It sounds like a song you might remember Troy McClure from. But nope! It’s real, and it’s somehow STILL not the doofiest thing Bobby Pickett did to mine the Mash for relevance.
No, my friends, I’d give that “honor” to “Monster Rap,” which is EXACTLY what you think it is: a nearly fifty year old white dude noticing all the kids getting into this “rap” thing and deciding he could do it. I mean, yeah, part of the “Monster Mash” gimmick is talking over a backing track instead of singing, so… I GUESS I can see why Pickett thought he could do it? But he couldn’t. He really couldn’t. I mean, I don’t even LIKE rap, but even I can tell the difference between doing it well and doing it badly, and is just embarrassing. I know there’s a subset of fans out there who still think “Monster Rap” is a kitsch classic in it’s own right, and I’m not enough of killjoy to deny that it IS so wildly stupid as to be worth some laughs. However, I will absolutely die on the hill of “Monster Rap” only being worth laughing AT, not with. And somehow, even THAT isn’t quite the bottom of the barrel.
No, Pickett would spend the last few years of his life cranking out *shudder* TOPICAL re-writes of “Monster Mash” to serve as protest songs. Stuff like “Climate Mash” or Monster Slash.” Because, you know, nothing will drive the masses to take environmentalism more seriously than hearing it wheezed out by an aging one hit wonder who made a living off of ripping off the Universal monster movies. I’m sure somebody out there would try to argue that these songs have the edge over “Monster Rap” since at least they’re ABOUT something, but to me that just makes them even more pathetic. If you’ve got some cause that’s really important to you, but you can’t think of any better way to talk about it than a five-decade old stand up routine that grew a life of its own, maybe your cause is better off without you. Somebody with a REALLY deep record collection might also point out that this isn’t even the first time Pickett pulled this crap, as 1970s’ “Monster Man Jam” is a rewrite of “Monster Concert” with similarly ecological lyrics, and even as far back as '64 he'd already covered Tex Williams' "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" with similarly preachy intentions. And to that, I’ll just ask who else out there has ever HEARD either of those songs and let the deafening silence serve as my concluding statement.
Okay, this is in danger of ending on a really mean-spirited note, so I want to make it clear that I really do like Bobby Pickett and MOST of his library of “Monster Mash” variations. I do think there’s something to be said for realizing your “thing” and not being afraid to stick to it. Lord knows Pickett sounds a lot more comfortable as a wacky ghoul than any time he tries to sing anything serious. Just observe his 1965 single “Wake Up My Mind,” which I guarantee you’ll have forgotten about five seconds after its over. (And yes, I know his cover of "Graduation Day" was a minor hit, but nobody remembers that anymore either) If anything, that’s what bugs me the most about those latter day attempts to spice up the act. If you’re gonna stick to a gimmick for that long, actually commit to it. I may joke about knock-offs like “The Monster Swim,” but I don’t find them anywhere near as embarrassing as “Monster Rap.”
Well, I’ve already rambled on WAY too long about silly novelty songs about vampires and werewolves and dances nobody remembers how to do anymore. And yes, I know there’s about a million Halloween novelties I forgot to mention, including that one song you love so much. Heck, I didn’t even mention Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, or Screaming Lord Sutch for that matter. I never claimed this blog, long as it is, was going to be anything close to definitive. If nothing else, I just hope somebody out there has discovered a few new obnoxious novelty records to listen too WAY too many times for a few weeks then never touch again for the rest of the year. Happy Halloween, everyone!
