The first-ever Halloween pop hit: “People have used it as their wedding song”
Each Halloween, ‘Monster Mash’ creeps out of the musical tomb to score our terrifying festivities.
Not to be confused with ‘Monster Munch’, the popular British snack I didn’t learn about until I settled in the UK, this 1962 novelty smash is commonly thought to be Halloween’s definitive song. However, despite all its seasonal popularity and repeated listening throughout October, nobody knows the man who sang behind the mic.
That person was Bobby Pickett, better known to the world as Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett, the middle name an homage to the absolute fucking legend whose voice he was imitating on ‘Monster Mash’, cult icon Frankenstein star Boris Karloff.
Pickett was a complete unknown in 1962, about the same time that Bob Dylan was achieving unprecedented levels of goddamn fame, but a Dylanesque folky type he was not. He was part of a Los Angeles singing group called the Cordials, but had his sights set more on comedy and acting. The idea for ‘Monster Mash’ had emerged somewhat accidentally after Pickett casually broke out his Karloff impression during a Cordials show, drawing a big reaction from the audience. Bandmate Lenny Capizzi then suggested they try and do something musically with the concept, and a satire of the recent trend in dance crazes like ‘The Twist’ and ‘The Mashed Potato’ was the next step in their brainstorm.
Bobby Pickett was not seeking to create a novelty Christmas-style song that nobody could ever fucking escape on future Halloweens from then on, the record was released in August, after all. He was merely a 24-year-old youngster who’d grown up watching monster movies and thought it would be amusing to pay a humorous homage to them.
“That’s how I got into it,” Pickett told the Asbury Park Press in 2005, two years before his death. “My father used to manage movie theatres in Somerville, Massachusetts. I spent my entire youth watching these horror films that he would run in the theatre from time to time. I was attracted to it, the whole idea of monsters. People are always attracted to that.”
Pickett certainly had the evidence to prove that point. When ‘Monster Mash’ was released on the tiny Garpax record label, few expected it to become anything more than a goofy novelty. But within weeks, it exploded. The record leapt to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the days leading up to Halloween, knocking aside Elvis Presley’s ‘Return to Sender’ and fending off Motown records and surf rock singles. Its popularity was augmented by the increasing strength of AM radio DJs, who adored its campy wit and ghostly sound effects, creaking doors, bubbling cauldrons, and clanging chains. The record’s playfulness made it perfect for DJs looking to inject some theatrics into their playlists, and it quickly became a goddamn sensation among teenagers.
Unlike a typical dance craze, though, this one didn’t seem to age out of its cultural relevance. After its original 1962 run, ‘Monster Mash’ re-entered the charts in 1970 and again in 1973, when a new generation of listeners discovered it through oldies radio and television variety shows. By then, the idea of a ‘Halloween song’ had become a thing unto itself, and ‘Monster Mash’ was the undisputed archetype for the genre. Pickett even recorded sequels like ‘Monster’s Holiday’ (a Christmas version) and ‘Monster Rap’ in the 1980s, though you’re less familiar with those for good reason.
Flash forward a couple more generations, and nothing much has changed, the wholesome campiness of ‘Monster Mash’ and regular references to it in TV shows like The Simpsons, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and The Goldbergs, and more recently in the latest Fantastic Four film, have kept it a cultural touchstone and a sort of unofficial Halloween anthem, regularly returning to the digital download charts in October throughout the 2010s and 2020s.
“I’ve heard all kinds of stories,” Bobby Pickett said of the song’s legacy, clearly not remotely annoyed at having been asked about it for 40 years. “I’ve heard people have used it as their wedding song, getting married on Halloween. There are people who made love for the first time in the back seat of a Chevrolet when it was playing on the radio. You name it.”
