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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, welcome to Too Much Information, the show that

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Speaker 1: gives you the secret histories and little known fascinating facts

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Speaker 1: and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more.

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Speaker 1: We are your two Bobby Boris pickets of Banality. I'm

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Speaker 1: Alex Hegel and I'm during Talk. And as you may

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Speaker 1: have surmised from that intro, we are forging ahead with

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Speaker 1: our special October Fest here at t M I with

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Speaker 1: an installment on that deathless slice of sixties novelty music Cheese.

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Speaker 1: It's the velveta of sixties novelty hits Monster Match by

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Speaker 1: the aforementioned Bobby Boris p bar Bar's. I would ask

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Speaker 1: you your personal history with it? Do you have one? No, Well,

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Speaker 1: you know what I do. You may not remember this, Uh,

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Speaker 1: this song actually played a crucial role in our friendship

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Speaker 1: and indirectly the creation to the show. Um, I don't

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Speaker 1: think you know that. Maybe I've never told you this.

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Speaker 1: For those of you who don't know, which I assume

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Speaker 1: is all of you, because why would you know this.

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Speaker 1: I met Higel on my first day working at People

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Speaker 1: Magazine in twenty sixteen, and I spent my first day,

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Speaker 1: decorating my desk with posters of Who and the Beatles

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Speaker 1: and asking loudly if there was any chance I could

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Speaker 1: interview Neil Young. And this was emphatically not the subject

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Speaker 1: matter that people covered. We were usually doing the ins

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Speaker 1: and outs of Justin Bieber's love life, and I'm pretty

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Speaker 1: sure the first interview I ever did there was either

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Speaker 1: Josh Groban or Harry Connick Jr. But my boss, the

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Speaker 1: wise and wonderful Sarah Ma Schaud, quickly sized up the

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Speaker 1: situation and said, Hey, there's someone who wants you to meet.

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Speaker 1: His name's Alex Heigel. And the unspoken subtext of this

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Speaker 1: was he doesn't belong here either, and if you're gonna

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Speaker 1: have any friends while you work here, you guys should connect.

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Speaker 1: And we did, and it was an immediate bond, and

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Speaker 1: you intimidated me greatly because you had tattoos and I

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Speaker 1: had none, and you didn't suffer fools gladly and I do.

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Speaker 1: And we got to know each other. We never really

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Speaker 1: worked together. I was an editor in the music section

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Speaker 1: and you were more of a generalist writer reporter, I

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Speaker 1: remember correctly, so our past didn't really cross on the

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Speaker 1: day to day, but then one day I was assigned

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Speaker 1: to edit one of your stories for the first time,

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Speaker 1: and it was this compelling, amazingly exhaustively researched history of

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Speaker 1: Monster Mash by Bobby bors Picket, And that was the

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Speaker 1: moment that we connected on this level, the t M

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Speaker 1: I level. I realized that you were just as much

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Speaker 1: of a freak as I was. So I actually will

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Speaker 1: always think of you when I hear this song. I

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Speaker 1: know that it was an amazing piece. It's still out

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Speaker 1: there on people right now, on people dot com, so

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Speaker 1: I got check it out. My parents got me. One

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Speaker 1: of the tapes that I had as a kid was

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Speaker 1: a compilation of sixties novelty songs. So it was like

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Speaker 1: this and like chev Wouli, Purple People Leader, And I

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Speaker 1: was trying to ask my dad this. He didn't remember.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember what that song was? That's like music

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Speaker 1: concrete like style, cut up collage. It's a fake news

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Speaker 1: bulletin about aliens coming to earth. But it's like cut

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Speaker 1: up from single lines of like dozens of other songs.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, it's not Joe Meek, is it? No? No sixties?

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know anyway. That's so. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: was one of my I used to play that tape

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Speaker 1: over and over again. It's one of my earliest musical memories. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: from the possibly legally insane and wildly prolific producer behind

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Speaker 1: this track, to the song's tenuous connection to James Brown

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Speaker 1: to Bobby Boris Pickets dogged attempts to continually update his

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Speaker 1: song with the times. Here is everything you didn't know

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Speaker 1: about the Monster Mash Pickett was born in summer Real, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 1: As he explained in one often aggregated interviews, he said,

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Speaker 1: you had two choices as a young man. You could

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Speaker 1: either be a gangster when you grew up, or an athlete.

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Speaker 1: Somerville was a tough place to live, but it was

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Speaker 1: a place where you could leave your door open and

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Speaker 1: no one would rob you. Well, maybe everyone knew everyone,

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Speaker 1: even though it was a city three miles long. And

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Speaker 1: if Somerville brings a crime related name for you, that's

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Speaker 1: because it's Winter Hill. Neighborhood where Bobby Boris Pickett grew up,

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Speaker 1: was the principal operating area of Whitey Bulger, famous criminal

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Speaker 1: head honcho famously fictionized by Jack Nicholson in The Departed.

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Speaker 1: Bulger was born nine years before Pickett and was already

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Speaker 1: a young man when the Winter Hill Gang was founded

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Speaker 1: by James Buddy McLean In and the Winter Hill Gang

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Speaker 1: fought a six year war with a group called the

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Speaker 1: McLoughlin Gang uh and what's now known as the Boston

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Speaker 1: Irish Gang War. And that started when one guy hit

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Speaker 1: on a rival gang member's girlfriend at Salisbury Beach. And

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Speaker 1: following said war, the Winter Hill Gang became the most

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Speaker 1: powerful Irish gang on the East Coast. This is all

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Speaker 1: operating in Bobby boris Pickets backyard. Well pick it. Fond

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Speaker 1: livercalls his childhood in Somerville not a place if I remember.

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Speaker 1: His father managed a movie theater, though, and he spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of time taking in the horror hits of

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Speaker 1: Universal Studios, watching Boris Karlov, Belle Legozi and Lawn Cheney Jr.

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Speaker 1: Stocked the screen in iconic films like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy,

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Speaker 1: and The Wolfman. At this point, the final Universal monster

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Speaker 1: that anyone actually remembers came out in fifty four, The

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Speaker 1: Creature of the Black Lagoon. But prior to that, you know,

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Speaker 1: this iconic period was kind of gone because they had

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Speaker 1: spent the intervening decade, introducing that entire roster of iconic

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Speaker 1: monsters to Abbott and Costello. I am not exaggerating that

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Speaker 1: was like their whole nineteen forties and come to think

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Speaker 1: that though that approach probably informed Pickett's entire life of

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Speaker 1: combining spooky stuff and cheesy humor. He did mention this

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Speaker 1: distribution company called Real Art, which actually cherry picked a

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Speaker 1: bunch of these old universal monster flack and reissued them

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Speaker 1: in the forties and fifties. And he also said that

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Speaker 1: he loved the William Castle road Show extravaganzas guy who

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Speaker 1: did Um House on hon Hill, where he had a

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Speaker 1: gimmick where a fake ghost on a wire would fly

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Speaker 1: from one end of the movie theater to the other,

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Speaker 1: and the buzzing seats in The Tingler, Friend of the

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Speaker 1: The Tingler making its third appearance on the t m

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Speaker 1: I podcast. Oh I didn't realize. I put it that

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Speaker 1: many times. Um Pickett did not actually have a musical childhood.

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Speaker 1: He didn't grow up singing. After a year and a

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Speaker 1: half in Korea with the Army as part of the

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Speaker 1: Signal Corps, he was actually on his way back that

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Speaker 1: he got his first experience with a singing group. He said,

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Speaker 1: on the ship we came back on, these guys were

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Speaker 1: putting together a show and there were three or four

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Speaker 1: of them who were singing doo wop and acapella stuff,

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Speaker 1: and they needed a bass baritone. So I became a

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Speaker 1: member of that group. But Boris wasn't exactly bitten by

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Speaker 1: the music bug when he got back to Massachusetts. Rather

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Speaker 1: than forming a band, he started performing stand up at

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Speaker 1: local places like the Irish American Club and Everett, performing

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Speaker 1: an act that he freely admits he stole. He said,

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Speaker 1: the first time I went on stage and Everett was

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Speaker 1: to do a five minute stand up comedy spoof of monsters,

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Speaker 1: which had kind of ripped off from a guy I

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Speaker 1: had seen do it on a boat when I was

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Speaker 1: returning from Korea in nineteen fifty eight. He did a

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Speaker 1: spoof of monsters. I just watched him and thought that's

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Speaker 1: a great act. He was doing Boris Karlof and Bella

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Speaker 1: Neegosti impressions. I said, you wrote that act, He said, no,

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Speaker 1: I stole it from Jack Carter. I saw it on TV.

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Speaker 1: I said, okay, then you won't mind if I use it,

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Speaker 1: and he said no, and pick it took that act

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Speaker 1: and started winning weekly talent contests with it, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I guess you get twenty five bucks a pop each

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Speaker 1: time he one, which, as he said, it was a

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Speaker 1: lot of money in those days for an unemployed x G. I.

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Speaker 1: But pick it could not be kept in Summerville. No,

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Speaker 1: his ambitions were larger. He spent a year in Massachusetts

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Speaker 1: before moving out to Hollywood to try and make it

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Speaker 1: as an actor, during which time he apparently dated Chloris

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Speaker 1: Leachman and Diane Kennon, the eventual wife of Carry grant Um.

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Speaker 1: And this is just this is so funny. This is

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Speaker 1: that truth is stranger than fiction. Stuff. Man, he happened

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Speaker 1: to run into some other dudes from Somerville while he

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Speaker 1: was bumping around Hollywood, with the astoundingly perfect names of

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Speaker 1: Lenny and Billy Capezzi. They grew up in winter Hill

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Speaker 1: as well, and uh, he said that they had shown

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Speaker 1: up in Hollywood at this time with two other Italian boys,

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Speaker 1: Ronnie del Toro and Lou Toscano. Who's bat a thousand.

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Speaker 1: This is the smell of olive oil suddenly came into

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Speaker 1: my folks. I can say that, uh, and they were

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Speaker 1: going to start a singing group called the Cordials, and

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Speaker 1: they asked me if I wanted to join them. Um, we,

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Speaker 1: he continued, We'd sing in a place called Alvo Turnos

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Speaker 1: on Pico Boulevard on Friday nights. We sang in the

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Speaker 1: parking lot of Ben Frank's wherever we could get a

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Speaker 1: paying gig. Uh. Interestingly enough, Alo Turno's was owned by

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Speaker 1: Timmy Euro, who is a singer who counted Elvis among

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Speaker 1: her fans. He bought a private table for her Vegas shows,

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Speaker 1: and Morrissey, who announced her death on his website in

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Speaker 1: two thousand four. Um she do you know these songs?

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Speaker 1: It will never be over for me? And what's the

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Speaker 1: Matter Baby? What's the Matter Baby was covered by The

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Speaker 1: Small Faces. It's the B side of their debut single

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Speaker 1: in n There you have it, folks, we got to

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Speaker 1: one degree of separation between Morrissey and The Faces and

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Speaker 1: Monster Mash. That is the t M I guarantee. Jordan

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Speaker 1: tell us about Ben Frank's. Yeah, Ben Frank's the place

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Speaker 1: where I used to play in the parking lot. That

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Speaker 1: was a well known hippie hangout in l A and

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Speaker 1: the sixties. The advertisement that was soliciting actors to audition

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Speaker 1: for The Monkeys in nineteen sixty five specified Ben Frank types,

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Speaker 1: which basically euphanism for long hairs. That was a Mels

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Speaker 1: Diner on Sunset and they kept all the original architecture

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Speaker 1: and everything. It's really cool. One of the songs that

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Speaker 1: was in the Cordial set Bobby's early band was Little

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Speaker 1: Darlin recorded by the Diamonds, a do wop classic. I

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Speaker 1: love that song, uh, and I guess Pickett asked Lenny

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Speaker 1: if he could do a Boris Karloff impression in the

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Speaker 1: middle of song, which apparently audiences immediately loved. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how they would shoehorn that in there, but pick

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Speaker 1: it's a monologue. There's like a monologue part in the beginning,

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Speaker 1: like the middle of the song, and it's sung by

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Speaker 1: the bass baritone. Pick It was like, Hey, but I

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Speaker 1: do this probably this Boris Carlof impression. God. As much

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Speaker 1: as I love most fifties Schmaltz, the whole phenomenon of

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Speaker 1: like the midsong breakdown, where you know, the just doing

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Speaker 1: this are you lonesome tonight? Yeah? I wanted to tell

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Speaker 1: you something. Yeah, I hate that. I just needed to

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Speaker 1: let you know. Yeah, I guess he would. I guess, well,

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Speaker 1: let's find let's find a little lyrics. Let's see if

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Speaker 1: you can do a little little t M I reenactment

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Speaker 1: of what this must have been like. What is the monologue?

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Speaker 1: Oh my god? You know the guy who wrote this song,

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Speaker 1: Dave Summerville. No way, Yeah, okay, So the monologue in

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Speaker 1: the beginning, in the middle, Uh, hang on, I was

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Speaker 1: working in the lab, my darling, I need you to

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Speaker 1: call my own own, never do wrong, to hold my

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Speaker 1: in mind, your little hand, something like that. It sounded

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Speaker 1: something like that, and lightning struck inexplicable way people loved it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Bobby's accounts for the rest of this timeline has varied

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Speaker 1: over the years. In one telling, the very night he

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Speaker 1: did this bid on stage for the first time, his

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Speaker 1: bandmate Lenny said to him, you know, we should record

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Speaker 1: a novelty song like this, something like the Flying Purple

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Speaker 1: People Eater, which had become a big hit around this time. Uh,

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Speaker 1: doing that, just your cousin, Bobby Boris Pickett, you know

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Speaker 1: that news I was working in the lub. And another

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Speaker 1: version of this story, Bobby says that the group was

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Speaker 1: performing on a beach and after he did the Boris

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Speaker 1: karl Off it and a girl came up to them

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Speaker 1: and said, my old man produces records. He did the

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Speaker 1: song Ali Oop. He would love you guys, He'll get

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Speaker 1: your record contract. And that old man was Gary Paxton,

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Speaker 1: who had hits as part of Skip and Flip who

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Speaker 1: I don't know and the Hollywood Argyles who did the

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Speaker 1: song Ali Oop, which was the number one hit, And

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Speaker 1: that song was actually referenced by David Bowie on the

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Speaker 1: song Life on Mars. The lyric look at that Caveman

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Speaker 1: Go is a line from Ali. There's also Mark Bowland,

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Speaker 1: also referenced in a song called Truck on Tyke. Oh yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 1: Gary Paxton, Gary s excuse me, Oh my god, this

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Speaker 1: guy's life is insane. I'm just gonna do the quick

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Speaker 1: bullet point rundown. Paxton grew up with an adopted family

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Speaker 1: on a Kansas farm with no electricity or running water.

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Speaker 1: He started in music, started playing in bands, and twelve

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Speaker 1: years old, I heard at one point backed Um Buck

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Speaker 1: Owens or wait or Merle Haggard, some guy in Bakersfield,

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Speaker 1: because he was part of the Bakersfield sound as well.

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Speaker 1: And he basically never stopped working in music. By the sixties,

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Speaker 1: he operated a bunch of different labels that basically just

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Speaker 1: existed to put out music that he made. I read

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Speaker 1: one account that he owned and operated or at least

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Speaker 1: operated five studios. Uh. He was involved with actual villain

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Speaker 1: of the l A music industry, Kim Fowley. Yes, Kim

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Speaker 1: Fowley worked with the Runaways and he put them together right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but Jackie Fox, the bassist, accused him of rape years later.

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Speaker 1: Nobody has anything nice to say about Kim Fowley. But

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Speaker 1: Paxton was a genuine eccentric. I've heard many people referred

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Speaker 1: to him as just being dirty and long haired, even

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Speaker 1: by sixties standards. Also, this is in the early sixties.

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Speaker 1: This is pre like the hippie stereotype. He alienated musicians

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Speaker 1: with his in studio demeanor and refused to play ball

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Speaker 1: with other labeled executives when it came to getting his

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Speaker 1: stuff played. People just put up with him because he

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Speaker 1: crafted hits. Phil Spector was reportedly literally actually frightened by him.

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Speaker 1: I say good. Once after a radio station turned down

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Speaker 1: one of his songs, Paxton assembled a protest parade down

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Speaker 1: Hollywood Boulevard that started fifteen cheerleaders and a live elephant

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Speaker 1: pulling a Volkswagen convertible. This got him arrested when the

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Speaker 1: elephant pooped in the street. The song was called Elephant

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Speaker 1: Game Parentheses Part one by Renfrow and Jackson for context

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Speaker 1: less Do you think he just got an unsolicited elephant? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Paxston moved to Nashville the nineteen seventies and converted to

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Speaker 1: Christianity after wandering into a church while stoned because he

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Speaker 1: was in the middle of an existential crisis after his

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Speaker 1: musical partner died. Uh. This failed to put a dent

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Speaker 1: in his eccentricities. For nineteen seventy two Clone Affair, he

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Speaker 1: shaved his head and eyebrows and started wearing a cape.

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Speaker 1: When his nineteen seventy five solo album The Astonished Ing Outrageous, Amazing, incredible,

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Speaker 1: unbelievable Different World of Garry S. Paxton one a Grammy,

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Speaker 1: he showed up to the ceremony wearing a sleeveless black

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Speaker 1: vest and leather pants. At this time, it's important to

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Speaker 1: note he had a large Mennonite beard and was going

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Speaker 1: around in a pseudo stovepipe hat. What the hell did

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Speaker 1: he win a Grammy for Best inspirational album In Night,

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Speaker 1: he was shot five times by men hired by a

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Speaker 1: country star he was producing, who was supposedly attempting to

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Speaker 1: get out of his contract or was simply mad about

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Speaker 1: the terms of his contract. I don't remember which one was.

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Speaker 1: This sidelined him for eight years, and he carried two

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Speaker 1: bullets from the shooting in his body for the rest

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Speaker 1: of his life. Nonetheless, he traveled to jail to forgive

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Speaker 1: the men personally. In The Washington Post reported that Tammy

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Speaker 1: Faye Baker had developed a crush on Paxton around the

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Speaker 1: same time that her husband Jim Baker has had the

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Speaker 1: big scandal with Jessica Han, the secretary at the evangelical

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Speaker 1: church the Bakers ran. Sadly, this basically ended Paxton's career

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Speaker 1: in the gospel Christian music world because he was at

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Speaker 1: the center of this Beeg infidelity scandal. In moved to Branson, Missouri,

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Speaker 1: friend of the Pod Branson, Missouri, and began performing in

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Speaker 1: a mask and cape as Grandpa Rock. He died in

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Speaker 1: He once estimated he had written two thousand songs. A

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Speaker 1: sampling of my favorite titles include Jesus is My Lawyer

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Speaker 1: in Heaven. If You're happy, notify your face and when

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Speaker 1: I die, just bury me at Walmart so my wife

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Speaker 1: will come visit me. Garius Paxton, everyone, I just want

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Speaker 1: to pause and say, for all those for a moment,

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Speaker 1: wow uh yeah. Everything that with no matter what I

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Speaker 1: could say after that really feels like a ton of

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Speaker 1: this letdown. But but Bobby Pickett around this time actually

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Speaker 1: quit the Cordials for a brief time his band, the Pursuit,

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Speaker 1: work as an actor, explaining, at one point I got

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Speaker 1: an agent after many, many months, and after two weeks

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Speaker 1: of being with him, he died of a heart attack.

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Speaker 1: So seeing that as some sort of a sign, he

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Speaker 1: returned to work with the Corridinals to revisit the whole

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Speaker 1: novelty song thing. Let's give you some context for the

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Speaker 1: monster craze. Well, let's just give you some context for

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Speaker 1: the monster mash period by two, the monster craze of

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, which was aided by those reissues and

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Speaker 1: television because all this stuff started getting syndicated on TV

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Speaker 1: that had really blossomed. Three, a stymied actress named Malia

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Speaker 1: Nermi created the character of Vampira, which is she created

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Speaker 1: as a rip off of Mortitia Adams, and she launched

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Speaker 1: a successful show that started the template of these horror

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Speaker 1: host shows. Basically in costumes. She would introduce these classic

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Speaker 1: horror films and mock them. It was like a slash

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Speaker 1: comedy show. And it was all this stuff that affiliates

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Speaker 1: could get the rights to rebroadcast, either free or cheap,

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Speaker 1: and so they would just do these buttons with her

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Speaker 1: making fun of them and broadcast these and it was huge.

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Speaker 1: I mean even though only ran for a year. Soon

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Speaker 1: any regional television station that had the budget would have

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Speaker 1: one of these of their own. The one in Philadelphia

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Speaker 1: was hosted by a guy named John Zacherley, who was

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Speaker 1: a buddy with Dick Clark. Zachary actually cut a novelty

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Speaker 1: single called Dinner with drack Um that climate to number six,

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Speaker 1: as high as on Billboard in ninety eight, which is

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Speaker 1: the same year that this very influential fan magazine called

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Speaker 1: Famous Monsters of Film Land debuts. Adjacent to all of

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Speaker 1: this is the atomic age monster movies of the fifties.

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Speaker 1: You have nineteen fifty ones, the day they will sort

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Speaker 1: sill the War the World's nineteen fifty six is Invasion

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Speaker 1: of the Body Snatchers and then right around the turn

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Speaker 1: of the decade or becomes much more popular. We have

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Speaker 1: these proto slashers like Peeping Tom and psyche Go. Both

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen six Mario Bava directs Black Sunday, which

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Speaker 1: is banned. This movie it's a witchcraft theme movie. It

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Speaker 1: was banned for being I believe explicit or the occult themes.

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Speaker 1: And then Roger Corban puts out a series of these

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Speaker 1: Edgar Allan Poe adaptations Mask the Black Death, Hitting the Pendulum, um,

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Speaker 1: and those are all starring Vincent Price. It's amazing to

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Speaker 1: think about this stuff in context because until the exploitation era,

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Speaker 1: horror was like not disreputable. This was like cheesy popcorn entertainment.

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Speaker 1: They were like the Marvel movies of their day. That's

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Speaker 1: really interesting. What what change? Well, basically, I mean, this

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Speaker 1: is kind of an armchair theory of mine, but I

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Speaker 1: feel comfortable putting it out there. Um, you started to

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Speaker 1: get that wave of new Hollywood guys come out of

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Speaker 1: the USC around this time. John Carpenter particularly, and Wes

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Speaker 1: Craven is the other big one. And so in the seventies, well,

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Speaker 1: they had four Bears. There's a guy named Herschel Gordon

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Speaker 1: Lewis who was creating these violent exploitation movies. As early

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Speaker 1: the sixties he had Blood feast Um. His nickname is

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Speaker 1: the Godfather of Gore. But then through the mid seventies

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Speaker 1: the grindhouse circuit really kicks in, and that's when you

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Speaker 1: do see these movies start to get way more explicit.

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Speaker 1: And then the tail end of the seventies you have

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Speaker 1: basically the kind of shots across the Bow, Our Last

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Speaker 1: House on the Left, Texas, Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween. And

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Speaker 1: Halloween was the explicit inspiration for Sean Cunningham, who was

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Speaker 1: directing porn, to make Friday, and that is really what

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Speaker 1: jump starts the slasher craze the eighties. And and then

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Speaker 1: concurrently with that you have what's called the video Nasties

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Speaker 1: in the UK, which was a bunch of band titles.

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Speaker 1: So basically late seventies through the mid eighties is when

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Speaker 1: it gets really gross. I mean also the practical effects

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Speaker 1: advanced to the point where people like Tom Saffini or

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Speaker 1: coming out of Vietnam and just going into Hollywood and

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Speaker 1: making horor effects that reminded him of his Vietnam. That

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Speaker 1: is explicitly his inspiration for the stuff on the Georgia Marrow.

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Speaker 1: He was like, Yeah, I was just doing all this

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Speaker 1: stuff I saw in nom Wow. Anyway, don't ever prompt

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Speaker 1: me about horror movies again, because you get a three

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Speaker 1: minute monologue. We're going to take a quick break, but

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Speaker 1: we'll be right back with more too much information in

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Speaker 1: just a moment. Well, all of us to say back

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Speaker 1: to the Monster Mash by the National Pump was primed

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Speaker 1: for a guy to do an extended Boris Karloff riff

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Speaker 1: in a novelty song and pickup remembers. The may or

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Speaker 1: Sometimes June accounts very two writing session that produced Monster Mash.

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Speaker 1: Thus Lee Lenny Capeezi said, yeah, come on over Saturday.

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Speaker 1: I go over at the designated time, and of course

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Speaker 1: he's asleep. To wake him up, and he continued the

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Speaker 1: account in his two thousand five autobiography, Lenny sat down

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Speaker 1: at the piano and began futson with various four chord progressions,

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Speaker 1: and I stood next to the piano like me. Lenny

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Speaker 1: was a major horror movie fan from childhood. He loved

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Speaker 1: Bella Legosia's Dracula. He knew I had a Boris carl

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Speaker 1: Off voice pretty nailed although in retrospect I feel that

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Speaker 1: what I actually had was a very cartoonish rendition of

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Speaker 1: that wonderful actor's voice. You say that Pickets two thousand

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Speaker 1: five autobiography, which is called Monster Mash Half Dead in Hollywood,

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Speaker 1: is extremely rare, and copies of it are selling for

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Speaker 1: upwards of three on Amazon. Yeah, dude, not available digitally either.

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Speaker 1: I would have read the whole thing. Lenny arrives at

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Speaker 1: the classic doo Wop one minor six, four or five

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Speaker 1: chord progression, and Pickett said it was his idea to

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Speaker 1: capitalize on the monster craze and the novelty dance craze.

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Speaker 1: He said, at the time, I thought the Twist was

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Speaker 1: the latest dance, but Lenny said, no, it's the mashed Potato.

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Speaker 1: So I said, that's even better. We can call up

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Speaker 1: the Monster Mashed Potato. We shortened it to Monster Mash

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Speaker 1: and the rest was history. In about three hours, they

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Speaker 1: cut a piano and voice demo on a Mono Woolen

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Speaker 1: sack tape recorder and brought it to Paxton, who said, boys,

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Speaker 1: you gotta hit on your hands. So Brian Wilson used

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Speaker 1: to use the workouts harmonies in the early Beach Boys

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Speaker 1: song as an old Woolen sap tape recorder. Not the

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Speaker 1: first time the Beach Boys are gonna come up here? YEA. Incidentally,

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Speaker 1: Lenny was correct. Here's a history about the mash, not

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Speaker 1: that you folks asked for it. Uh. D D Sharp's

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Speaker 1: Mashed Potato Time had reached number one on the cash

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Speaker 1: Box Top one hundred, Billboard R and BEA Arts in

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Speaker 1: nine two, as well as the number two spot of

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Speaker 1: the Billboard Hot one. Uh. There's a great article about

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Speaker 1: monster Mash on Billboard that goes into the history of

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Speaker 1: the mashed potato. Billboard claims that this dance actually originated

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Speaker 1: with James brown Baby, the hardest working man in show

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Speaker 1: business in the late fifties. In his live shows, he

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Speaker 1: released a top ten R and B instrumental call do

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Speaker 1: the Mashed Potatoes In? I have that on forty five,

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Speaker 1: I guess for contractual reasons, the recording was credited to

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Speaker 1: Nat Kendrick and the Swans. Uh. And it's just a

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Speaker 1: wild song he got. I don't think it's him. I

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Speaker 1: think it's like a local DJ he got to do

423
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: the vocals for it, just screaming different types of potatoes

424
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 1: over one four or five pattern. It's like sounds mashed potatoes. Yeah,

425
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty weird. You would have thought an Irish

426
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:35,640
Speaker 1: guy would have cut that song too. Sorry our first

427
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: Irish potato famine joke. But in a post twist world

428
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two, the label CAMEO Parkway. They wanted

429
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: a song that would capitalize on the twist, on the

430
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 1: order of Please Mr Postman, Marvolette nine hit, and in fact,

431
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 1: Mashed Potato Time. That d D sharp song is so

432
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: similar to Please Mr Postman that they had to share

433
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 1: writing credit on it, and the lyrics to Ash Potato

434
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: Time include references to not just Please Mr Postman, but

435
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: the Tokens number one hit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and

436
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: Gary Bond's Dear Lady Twist. So you have a reissue

437
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 1: of an older song that has been rewritten to sound

438
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: like new songs, right, and references from other new songs. Yes,

439
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: and this started a phenomenon of what you've very appropriately

440
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:32,120
Speaker 1: called recursive novelty dance numbers, in which pop songs begin

441
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 1: referencing dance crazes that were themselves lifting from earlier dance crazes.

442
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: James Brown responded to mashed Potato time with his song

443
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 1: Mashed Potatoes USA, while Chris Montez is Let's Dance the

444
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: contours do You Love Me? Chris Kenner's Land of a

445
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 1: Thousand Dances, and Connie frances is V A C A

446
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 1: T I O N. And also Sam Cook's Having a

447
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 1: Party All name dropped the mashed Potato dance and Sam

448
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 1: Cook was probably the best at uh surfing this trend.

449
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 1: He calls out the mashed potatoes. Also the soul twist

450
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: in his song Having a Party, which followed his own

451
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: twist hit Twist in the Night Away, and Cook even

452
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: worked the line about a cat named Frankenstein and was

453
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: nine hit Another Saturday Night, Another Saturday Night, and I

454
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: Ain't Got Nobody, which is absolutely a reference to the

455
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: Monster Mash. That means, somewhere in the world there is

456
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:23,640
Speaker 1: a this is probably an outtake somewhere of Sam Cook

457
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 1: singing Monster Mash that I will pay good money for anyway,

458
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 1: Gary s Paxton, Lenning Capezi and Bobby Pickett waste little

459
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:37,679
Speaker 1: time and getting into the studio to record Monster Mash. Uh.

460
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 1: This is so interesting to me, this whole twisted origin

461
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: of this song. I really went a little cross side

462
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: with It. Pickett has frequently repeated this notion that the

463
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: Monster Mash session took place on the same day that

464
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 1: Herb Albert was in the studio recording the Lonely Bull,

465
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,159
Speaker 1: which is the first single released on A and M Records,

466
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: and Jimmy Rogers was there recording his hit Honey Home.

467
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 1: So it has been said that Lonely Bull sessions took

468
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:10,119
Speaker 1: place at Conway Recorders in Hollywood. Gets deeper, though, George,

469
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: that is right. Meanwhile, singer Darlene Love, who is a

470
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: legend in early sixties pop music, sang on He's a

471
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:21,960
Speaker 1: Rebel and Christmas Baby, Please Come Home. Like next to

472
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 1: Ronnie Specter, probably the singer most famously identified with Phil

473
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: Specter and the Wall of Sound type of stuff. She

474
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: was part of a singing group called the Blossoms, who

475
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: were sort of the first call backing singer group for

476
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: all sorts of uh. If you're familiar with The Wrecking Crew,

477
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 1: the group of musicians who were the first call session

478
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: players on all l A pop sessions at this time,

479
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 1: they were sort of the singing equivalent. They sang on

480
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. Anyway, She claims that Monster Mash

481
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: was recorded at gold Star Studios, which is where Phil

482
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 1: Spector cut most of his records, again, not where Bobby

483
00:27:56,160 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: Pickett remembers cutting the song. Darlene says that incredibly super

484
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 1: producer Lou Adler, who worked with The Mamas and the

485
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,639
Speaker 1: Papas and later produced Carol King's Tapestry album, told her

486
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: about the Monster Mash for the first time, and in

487
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: an interview with Billboards, she says she remembers thinking, oh,

488
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 1: please a Halloween song. Who's going to do a song

489
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: about Halloween? She said, quote, we sat down and listened

490
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: to the song and try to figure out what the

491
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,879
Speaker 1: background was going to be. And after the initial backing

492
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 1: trucks were laid down, the vocalist came and sang live

493
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 1: with Bobby Pickett. She said he had to sing his

494
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: vocals so we could figure out where to come in.

495
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:32,160
Speaker 1: It made it more fun with him singing his line

496
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: and then us answering him. It's just like the sun

497
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,719
Speaker 1: record scene from Walk the Line, but there's yeah, Sam Phillips,

498
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: like you have fifteen minutes to sing me something that

499
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: will strike me down to my very core. I was

500
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 1: working in the lab. I told you I polished that

501
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: one that was good. If you were a loved one,

502
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,479
Speaker 1: help record Monster Mash. Please tell us where the hell

503
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 1: it was cut, because it's driving me nuts. Personnel wise,

504
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: the band credited as the crypt Kickers on Monster Mash

505
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: was the aforementioned Garius Paxton, a writing partner of his

506
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: name Johnny Dog McCrae, who I guess I wrote songs

507
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: for Ray Charles, George Jones, Reba McIntyre, possibly the Blossoms

508
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: backup singers The Blossoms, and another session singer named Ricky Page.

509
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: Leon Russell is often credited with playing piano and Monster Mash.

510
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: That is not true. Pickett said he played on the

511
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: B side Monster Mash Party because he said he got

512
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: to the session late. And this is what gives credence

513
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: to the Herb Autpert thing, because Russell was a member

514
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: of the Wrecking Crew and they are credited with playing

515
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 1: on that Herb Alpert track. So I don't know, do

516
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: with that what you will? Apparently Ricky Page is singing

517
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: the line oh tennis shoe Wow Wow in the song's

518
00:29:56,160 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: bridge and Pickaton dr Tamento and do thousand six. We

519
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: don't know. Why isn't that girl by the Beatles. John

520
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: Lennon sneaked in. Um. Yes, instead of deep deep, he's

521
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: singing T T T because he was a child. Yeah. Meanwhile,

522
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: adding to the insane early sixties pop superstardom, brew that

523
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: when making this song, uh, drummer for the Ventures, you

524
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: know walk Don't run fame incredible sixties surf guitar instrumental

525
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 1: group The Ventures, Mel Taylor was credited with playing on

526
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: Monster Mash and Taylor had moved from l A from

527
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: his native Tennessee and was working as a meat cutter

528
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: the Grand Central Market in nine When he wasn't busy

529
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: being adventure and through his gigs at night, he picked

530
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: up session work during the day, including supposedly Monster Mash

531
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 1: and The Lonely Bull by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass,

532
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: for which he was paid ten dollars to record on

533
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: the very same day. Think about that, Thatcher's drummer Mel

534
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: Taylor possibly recorded the very first single on and M

535
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: Records and also a Monster Mash in a single afternoon

536
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: incredible day right yeah for a flat fee. Um. He

537
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: may have been called on this session because of Paxton

538
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: as well. I've heard some sources that credit him with

539
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: playing the drums on alley oop um, but Gary Packson

540
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: said that was not correct, So I don't know, man,

541
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: I mean the whole thing about. I have to stop

542
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: myself from going too far into this because these guys

543
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: were making like seventeen songs a day, five days a week,

544
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: calling in whoever you know. UM pick its own account

545
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: of the session, though, which costs a whopping three hundred bucks,

546
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: is that it took between two and three hours and

547
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: his vocals were done in thirty minutes. Gary Packiston did

548
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: all the sound effects, he said, like a straw in

549
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: into a glass of water to get the bubbling lab sound.

550
00:31:55,840 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: He was he was pulling a rusty name ail out

551
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: of a board to get the sound of the coffin creaking.

552
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: Those are actual chains. He dragged chains across the floor

553
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: to get the sound of chains um. Once they were finished,

554
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: mixes took a day, perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm shocked it took

555
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: that long. Oh yeah, Uh. Paxton took the finish forty

556
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: five around four major labels and they all turned it down,

557
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: so he pressed up. I've heard between five hundred and

558
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 1: a thousand records on his own label, gar Packs or

559
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 1: I guess gear packs, uh, and drove north from l A,

560
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: stopping in Ventura, Bakersfield, Fresnoe to hand distribute copies of

561
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 1: Monster Mash. DJ's Bigott said by the time Gary got

562
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: back to southern California, his phone had been lighting up

563
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 1: like a Christmas tree. London Records, which is of course

564
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 1: one of the outfits that had turned him down, called

565
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: and said they had changed their mind. Of course, the

566
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: records were being ordered on a massive level. Monster Mass

567
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: debut on the Billboard Hot one hundred the week of

568
00:32:56,320 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: September eight, and six weeks later the single not the

569
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: Fourth Season Sherry from the top spot to begin a

570
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: two week reign at number one that ended four days

571
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: before Halloween, and it's returned to the chart multiple times

572
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: over the years, including in nineteen seventy and also nineteen

573
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: seventy three. Uh, this is hilarious to me. The BBC

574
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: famously bands Monster Mash upon its initial release for being

575
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: quote to morbid, and it only lifted the band in

576
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three when it hit number three in the UK.

577
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 1: Did they even do Halloween over there? Like, oh, yeah,

578
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: maybe not. I don't think it is as much of

579
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: a thing over since. Uh. The song obviously recharts digitally

580
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: pretty much every October eighteen, Billboard reported that it appeared

581
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, and also between two thousand

582
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: and seven and two thousand eleven, and again between two

583
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: thousand and thirteen and two thousand and seventeen. What would

584
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: happened to the years when it didn't Just people weren't

585
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: feeling a Halloween spirit, thriller took over. Pickett appeared on

586
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: American Bandstand to perform the song, and again in nineteen

587
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: seventy three, the song recharted and Paxson duly sent him

588
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: out on the road for sock hops and these other

589
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: one off shows. Um. He said he would start in

590
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: northern Maine and then do Jersey, Boston, New York. Uh,

591
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 1: this is hilarious. I always used the house band wherever

592
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:20,239
Speaker 1: it was, much like Chuck Berry. Yes, Bobby, that is

593
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: how you were. Like Chuck Berry. I'd hit town, teach

594
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: the band the chord changes my entire act, and we

595
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: go on stage and do it. My favorite tour story

596
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:30,399
Speaker 1: of his is that his bust supposedly once broke down

597
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: outside of Frankenstein, Missouri. No way, no way, that's too

598
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:41,280
Speaker 1: he's making that out might be the song launched fans

599
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: and enemies, as we'll get to in a minute in

600
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: high Places. From an early live performance, Bobby Boris Pickett

601
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 1: was backed by a then unknown Beach Boys, and there's

602
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: a truly surreal clip of the band performing the Monster

603
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: Mash with a I'll just say animated, you said, unhinged

604
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:04,399
Speaker 1: Mike Love on vocals, uh, visibly miserable. Brian Wilson introduces

605
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 1: it as Mike's favorite song. History between Mike lev and

606
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys will know how loaded

607
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:18,240
Speaker 1: that exchange. It's probably was. Boris Karloff himself was apparently

608
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: a fan of the Monster Mash. Pick It later said

609
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:23,840
Speaker 1: one of the London Records promotion men, a guy by

610
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: the name of George Sherlock, ran in the Boris Karloff

611
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,879
Speaker 1: at Wallacks Music City, which is a big record store

612
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 1: in l a as he was buying a copy of

613
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: the Monster Mash album. And in fact you can actually

614
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: see Boris Karloff alongside Ted Cassidy, who played Lurch on

615
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 1: The Adams Family, performing Monster Mash on the TV show

616
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: Shin Dig in nineteen, a music show. In other words,

617
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,399
Speaker 1: Boris Karloff is doing an impression of the guy who's

618
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: doing an impression of him. Sadly, apparently Bobby, Boris Pickett,

619
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: and Boris Karloff never actually met. That's a shame. But

620
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: lest you thought that was as weird as it gets,

621
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: you can see a of this song performed by Mike

622
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,359
Speaker 1: Tyson and Bobby Brown on Kimmel in two thousand five.

623
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 1: So if that's the thing that you want, go nuts. Um.

624
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: There is an oft repeated line that Elvis Presley hated

625
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: Monster Mash and I was able to trace this anecdote

626
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: to a book that came out called The Wacky Top

627
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: forty by guy's named Bruce Nash and Alan Zulo. These

628
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 1: are Picketts words. I was a real Elvis fan. One

629
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,240
Speaker 1: day after the song had become a hit, I bumped

630
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: into this girl who used to hang around Elvis's house

631
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. So I asked her, how's the king?

632
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: She wrote? She said, well, he hates your record, Bobby.

633
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: When I asked why, she told me he thinks it's

634
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 1: the stupidest thing he's ever heard. So I said, well,

635
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 1: whoever liked him anyway? I don't think he knew who

636
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: Boris Karlov was to tell you the truth. Uh. Picky

637
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: would often retell this story when performing the song live,

638
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: ending it with if you're still out there listening Elvis,

639
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,800
Speaker 1: I'm still here, which is such a great shot across

640
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 1: the bow. Apparently, Tiny Tim these two did a lot

641
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: of tours together. Pikett just mentioned talking about touring with

642
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,360
Speaker 1: Tiny Tim. He said, Tiny Tim thinks Elvis is still alive.

643
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: It's arguably Bobby Boris Pickett and Tiny Tim of the

644
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: two biggest novelty artists, I would argue, possibly of all time,

645
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,800
Speaker 1: certainly of the twentieth century. Oh kings of the novelty circuit.

646
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: Tight Tim man, eccentric dude. He apparently used to drink

647
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: bottles of salsa and what's going through your head? But

648
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 1: I'm just just him like braiding a manager, like his manager.

649
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: But it's in the like Shutton, it's time to my

650
00:37:53,280 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: three pm s So yeah, he as have had an

651
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,399
Speaker 1: undiagnosed maybe undiagnosed o c D. He used to use

652
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:06,879
Speaker 1: um not only paper towels, but a very specific brand

653
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: of paper towels, Viva paper towels, whenever he went to

654
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:12,279
Speaker 1: hotels because he didn't trust that the towels were clean.

655
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: So he would always dry himself off with paper towels

656
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 1: after showers. Uh. He wore adult diapers when he was

657
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:21,240
Speaker 1: out because he didn't like using other people's bathrooms. Jesus.

658
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 1: And he applied oil of l A eight times a day. Um, yeah, yeah, Elvis.

659
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 1: Elvis was very um. When he hated something, he let

660
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,280
Speaker 1: you know. There's a famous story about he apparently hated

661
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: Robert Goulay. I don't know why she actually hated him,

662
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,320
Speaker 1: or it became a bit And whenever he'd be watching

663
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 1: TV and Robert Gulay came on, he would just take

664
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: out his gun and shoot the TV. And so the

665
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: Graceland archive have all these TVs with gun shots in

666
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: him from when was shot the TV out when Robert

667
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: gul was on. That is incredible. He's got no heart,

668
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: That's what always used to say whenever he was on that.

669
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 1: He's wild. Poebe and Jane Bacon sandwich in one hand

670
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 1: and a still the other, just getting furious at Robert Coulay.

671
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 1: As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with more.

672
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:24,840
Speaker 1: Too much information after these messages. Anyway, Pickett was not

673
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: able to successfully capitalize on that hit. In another example

674
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: of music industry throat cutting. John Zacherley, who you'll remember

675
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: was one of the original TV whore hosts and predated

676
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 1: Pickett with his own novelty hit Dinner with Drack, actually

677
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: beat him to the punch to record a Monster Mash album,

678
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 1: a full length Monster Mash. He released his own LP

679
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: with a cover of Bobby Bores Pickett's song on Cameo

680
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: Parkway before Pickett could get Capezi and packs And into

681
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 1: the studio for a follow up, which is why Picket's

682
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 1: full length is called the original Monster Mash. But there's

683
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: apparently no bad blood. You can see footage of the

684
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: pair performing this song together on YouTube. Pick And said, Gary,

685
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,840
Speaker 1: like Lenny, was not a terribly professional individual, which is

686
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:13,360
Speaker 1: a tremendous understatement, so there would always be delays in

687
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: areas of promotion and recording dates. By the time we

688
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 1: had finished Monsters Holiday and Monster Motion, which was the

689
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: follow up single, John Zacherlely on Cameo Parkway Records had

690
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: sold forty copies of a unit called Monster Mash. That's

691
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift numbers these days. Yeah, yeah, seriously, I blamed Gary,

692
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: and I blamed London Records for not getting an LP

693
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: out to follow the two singles. Getting Gary and Me

694
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 1: into the studio was a laborious process. Once we got there,

695
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 1: it was done in a rush and it was slip shot.

696
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,479
Speaker 1: It was amazing that anything got done at all. Monster motion.

697
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: That's gotta be a locomotion. Uh that he did move on,

698
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: at least artistically, relatively quickly, at least in the moment.

699
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 1: He attempted to pivot to teen idol style crooning with

700
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 1: a gloppy ballad called Graduation Day, which he has repeatedly

701
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 1: called embarrassing, although it did crack the Hot one hundred

702
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: in June sixty three, which keeps him from being a

703
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 1: true one hit wonder in the strictest definition of the word.

704
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good song. That the Beach Boys did

705
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:14,479
Speaker 1: a version of that that was released as a bonus track.

706
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: I love the fact that Mike Love was out there

707
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 1: just agitating for Bobby Boris Pickett in the Beach Boys.

708
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: It's like, we gotta do it a cover. When Star

709
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 1: Trek came out into The Doctor Tremento Show twelve years later,

710
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 1: Mike Love somewhere was like, it's a good song. Brian,

711
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,320
Speaker 1: get out of bed. I got a song for you.

712
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:35,399
Speaker 1: I'll give you a cheeseburger if you do this Star

713
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 1: Trek parody. They did, They know him the right songs

714
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:43,879
Speaker 1: with bags of cheeseburgers. Who among us? I mean, that's

715
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: how you get me to do this podcast. A year later,

716
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: Bobby rehashed the Carloff impression for cover of an old

717
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: novelty Western swing song called Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that cigarette.

718
00:41:57,160 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: You may remember, the original being in the opening credits

719
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: of the Air and cart film Thank You for Smoking,

720
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: the band on that he christened to the Filter Tip Kickers. Sadly,

721
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: that had the poor timing to be released just as

722
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: the dangers of smoking were beginning to be made public,

723
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: so whoops. He was, however, able to parlay his success

724
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: into a run of guest spots on TV shows like

725
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 1: Dr Kildair, Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, Bobby Bores

726
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 1: but it was on Bonanza You Know It Wow, and

727
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 1: later t J. Hooker starring William Shatner. And he was

728
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 1: also when commercials for things like Schlitz beer and lipped

729
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: in iced tea just as it. I just can't imagine

730
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,320
Speaker 1: him appearing in any of these things without referencing the

731
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: fact that he was the voice of Monster Match. I

732
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 1: just love Bobby's work. Ethic man, you cannot accuse this

733
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 1: guy of not getting out there and pounding the damp pavement,

734
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: just covered in flop sweat, staggering from one commercial bit

735
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 1: part God of Him. But unfortunately, real success as an

736
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 1: actor eluded him, though he continued to appear in regional

737
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: theater wherever he lived throughout the rest of his life,

738
00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: including it an off Broadway performance in New York, and

739
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 1: he would later co star with Tony Curtis in a

740
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,800
Speaker 1: movie that Orson Wells was supposed to have been involved with,

741
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: Lobster Man from Mars. I have heard that Orson Welles

742
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: was supposed to hurt I read this. I gotta stop

743
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 1: saying that. Sources tell me me googling things alone at

744
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: three in the morning, and my pajama pants told me

745
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 1: that Orson Wells was supposed to star in this movie

746
00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 1: and died, and Tony Curtis picked it up anyway. From

747
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 1: the late sixties into the early seventies, pick It apparently

748
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: pivoted to working in a folk duo with his then

749
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: wife Joan Payne, working what he called the Ski resort

750
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: areas singing soft folk harmonies. There are photos or at

751
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 1: least a photo of the two of them together doing

752
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 1: this act as Picket and Paine on Sale and eBay.

753
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: He has a must sash and long hair and looks

754
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: like Lee hazel Wood. It's amazing. Uh. They supposedly toward Europe.

755
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that they got as far as Afghanistan.

756
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: Then they both moved to New York in nineteen seventy two,

757
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:12,919
Speaker 1: where Picky was driving a cab and she was working

758
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 1: as a waitress before Monster Mash recharted again in seventy three. Uh,

759
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,320
Speaker 1: he said either to the Washington Post of the l

760
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 1: A Times. I forget what he said. It was on

761
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,279
Speaker 1: the charts for six months before anyone told me that

762
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:29,720
Speaker 1: it had been re released, let alone charted. I called

763
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 1: the head of London Records, Walt McGuire, and said, well,

764
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:36,919
Speaker 1: I hear the records doing well. He said yeah. I said, well,

765
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: I'm driving a cab here in New York City. I

766
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 1: was wondering if I could turn my cabin and come

767
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:44,839
Speaker 1: get a check I have. Oh yeah, a little bit. Hey,

768
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:47,879
Speaker 1: Philip Glass drove a cab until I stand on the beach.

769
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: He was driving a cabin instant on the beach came out.

770
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, um. I have read this and been unable

771
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: to substantiate, but I dearly hope it is true that

772
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: when Pickett took the crypt Kickers out again in seventy three,

773
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: a teenaged Eddie Van Halen was among the musicians who

774
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: backed him up the timeline tracks. And it would have

775
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: been like eighteen or nineteen when they came through California,

776
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 1: so might have been in one of the pickup bands. Uh.

777
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: He did pop sort of back into the main stream

778
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:20,360
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies with a truly truly star trek

779
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: novelty hit called star Drek. I've never heard this. It's

780
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:28,320
Speaker 1: just like spoken word. It's awful. It's not even to

781
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: like a like a recognizable tune. Uh. It appeared on

782
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 1: Dr Demento and apparently became its most requested number. I

783
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: dcor Demento was a huge I guess and dear friend,

784
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 1: big fan and friend of Bobby Boris Pickett. He would

785
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: just play whatever Bobby put out. But in that song,

786
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: the USS Enterprise is renamed the Booby Prize. I don't

787
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 1: get it. I think Booby Prize was like it was

788
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 1: like a gag prize. But I don't think it was

789
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 1: like a boom. I don't think it was like a

790
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 1: cleavage reference. But who's to say, Who's who's to say? Uh?

791
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:11,359
Speaker 1: The year after that, Bobby came out with you can't

792
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: even say with the straight I can't because I, as

793
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:17,799
Speaker 1: you referenced, I thought it was gonna be an Elton

794
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:21,600
Speaker 1: johnre so did. I'm so mad it wasn't. He came

795
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: out with Kings with King Kong Your Song, which is

796
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 1: sadly not a parody of Elton John's Your Song. It

797
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 1: was right there. Who uh? In Bobby released Monster Rap,

798
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 1: which is what you'd expect. Frankenstein's Monster is having trouble

799
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 1: learning how to speak. So the scientist who takes the

800
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: form of Bobby Boris Pickets bores call off impression teaches

801
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 1: him how to rap, and amazingly, have you heard that?

802
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: Did you listen to that one? Oh? It's so good.

803
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,799
Speaker 1: It's actually like it's pretty funny because it's like there

804
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 1: are in fact, like there's like drum programming and synths

805
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: on it, so it it's like sort of sounds like

806
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 1: hip hop of the time. Amazingly, Bobby bors. Picket kept

807
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: this going into two thousand five, when he teamed with

808
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:16,839
Speaker 1: an environmental organization, Clean Air, and released Climate Mash, which

809
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: that's that's a that's a stretch. It's Monster Mash, as

810
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:25,879
Speaker 1: you can imagine, with lyrics about climate change. A worthy cause, yes,

811
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: but and one near and dear to his heart. Yes,

812
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: that's true. Just the year prior, in two thousand and four,

813
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: he'd released Monster Slash. I'm sponsored by the Campaign to

814
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 1: Protect America's Lands and the Feathers of Wildlife Action Fund,

815
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 1: which encouraged citizens to write in against the proposal to

816
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 1: permit logging, mining, and other activities and protected areas. God

817
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 1: love him. One of his most common quips about the

818
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:53,760
Speaker 1: song was, it's paid my rent for the last insert.

819
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: However many decades it has been. He said that in

820
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:59,919
Speaker 1: every interview. Um, but the rights to the song we're

821
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: messed up, you know, as you would expect for an

822
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: early sixties novelty song cut by the likes of Garyus Paxton.

823
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: So he's recut Monster Mash a few times. Um. When

824
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: Paxiston was still alive, pick It told the l a

825
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: Times this is an eight seven that the two had

826
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:15,760
Speaker 1: planned to re release Monster Mash in ninety seven. London

827
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: Records had distributed the initial single. That label was later

828
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 1: bought by PolyGram, so pick It explained. The lawyers told

829
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 1: us that PolyGram International held the rights, so we went

830
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: to them, but they told us we don't own that song.

831
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 1: So we went ahead and released it on Rhino Records,

832
00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 1: and PolyGram's lawyers call us and say, you can't do that.

833
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 1: We own that record. It's been kind of that thing

834
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 1: all along. A single that sells four million copies still

835
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:43,359
Speaker 1: gets lost in the paperwork. Two years later, a guy

836
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:45,319
Speaker 1: by the name of Stuart Kirsch, who was the son

837
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:49,439
Speaker 1: of Marshall King, the resident hypnotist on the Howard Stern Show,

838
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 1: began managing Picket and learned that he did not own

839
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: the master recording of the original song, so they recut

840
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: a note perfect recreation of the song, which they began

841
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 1: marketing for licensing opportunities via a direct website www dot

842
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 1: The Monster mash dot com, which is still live to

843
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 1: this day, and it features the promise we monstrously undercut

844
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:19,919
Speaker 1: Universal and Rheino for the other two people you would

845
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: have to go through to license it. As I mentioned,

846
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:24,479
Speaker 1: is still up and it contains Hirsh's personal phone number

847
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: and his email address, which is simply the nineteen sixties

848
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: at a o L dot com. Incredible as think it

849
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:39,239
Speaker 1: was telling journalist jan Alan Henderson that I've worked more

850
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 1: in the last five years than i have in fifteen

851
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 1: or twenty, including a theme park called Spooky World. I

852
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: guess there were two of them. This was like an

853
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,880
Speaker 1: international thing and now I yeah, I don't know, I

854
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 1: don't know. I was one in New Hampshire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um.

855
00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:59,839
Speaker 1: Around this time, another thing came, another thing rose from

856
00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 1: the dead in Bobby Pickett's life. Uh. He had written

857
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:06,399
Speaker 1: a musical called I'm Sorry the Bridge is out You'll

858
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 1: have to spend the night with a guy named Shelton Allman,

859
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: who is a television writer who also wrote the lyrics

860
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:15,319
Speaker 1: to the George of the Jungle theme song. And they

861
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,800
Speaker 1: teamed up on this um and I guess it was

862
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 1: picked up by some local theaters. At some point it

863
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:23,959
Speaker 1: came to the attention of the guys who co wrote

864
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: toy Story, Joel Cohen not the one you're thinking of,

865
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:32,919
Speaker 1: and Alex Sokolow. They produced a movie called Monster Mash.

866
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: The movie of this which starts not only Bobby Pickett

867
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:39,880
Speaker 1: and Dr Demento, but John Waters, bit player, mink Stole,

868
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,399
Speaker 1: Fullhouse is Candice Camberon and the host of the View

869
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 1: and Dancing with the Stars, Judge Carry and in Naba.

870
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: Not the Joel Cohen you're thinking of, but you wouldn't

871
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:50,800
Speaker 1: be the first person to make that mistake. Bill Murray

872
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:53,800
Speaker 1: famously only signed on to do the Garfield movie because

873
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:57,399
Speaker 1: he saw Joel Cohen's name on the script and thought

874
00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:03,280
Speaker 1: it was the good one. As I mentioned earlier, Bobby

875
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: Boris pickets autobiography is currently going for hundreds of dollars

876
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:08,839
Speaker 1: on E Day, so I was not able to get

877
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 1: a lot of details about his personal life, but from

878
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 1: what I was it seemed kind of sad. He and

879
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: Joan divorced, uh and at some point in seventies their

880
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: son drowned in a swimming pool when he was three

881
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:23,360
Speaker 1: years old. Um, you know, you want to put like

882
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 1: review lens on this, but it does seem like this

883
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:29,400
Speaker 1: guy's life had a lot of death in it. There

884
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: was his agent who died two weeks after signing him.

885
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 1: Is you know his son tragically drowned. And Lenny Capezi,

886
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:40,920
Speaker 1: who wrote the song with him died after battling heroin addiction.

887
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: But there was an even bigger twist waiting in the

888
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:47,320
Speaker 1: wings for Pickett. His manager Stuart Harrish told Vice inteen

889
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 1: that at one point pick And made an offhand comment

890
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 1: to him that he might have a daughter somewhere out

891
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 1: in the world, and the pair undertook a search and

892
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:58,720
Speaker 1: found the likely candidate, but a DNA test proved negative.

893
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 1: Soon after, a completely different woman contacted them, claiming to

894
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:06,320
Speaker 1: be Pickett's daughter. Incredibly, this happened a week before Halloween

895
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: that year, of course, uh and Pikett's sister, Linda s Proctor,

896
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 1: said she remembered the day of the call. She told

897
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:15,960
Speaker 1: a newspaper that when Bigot hung up the phone that day,

898
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:18,800
Speaker 1: he said he knew she was someone special, that minity

899
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 1: heard her voice, and his manager, Stuart Hirst added, they

900
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:24,320
Speaker 1: met up at the airport and they looked so similar

901
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:26,280
Speaker 1: that they didn't even have to do a DNA test,

902
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: and pick It, he said, went from this loader to

903
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: a family guy, and he loved it. And he spent

904
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 1: the holidays with his newfound daughter and grandkids, and it

905
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:36,840
Speaker 1: was beautiful. And the woman whose name was Nancy, who's

906
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:39,719
Speaker 1: h u U s she'd obviously heard the song Monster

907
00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 1: Match before. She told Billboard. When I found him, he

908
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 1: was out of his mind, thrilled since he thought he

909
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 1: was going to grow old alone. I still remember the

910
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:49,320
Speaker 1: night I told my kids that Grandpa is the Monster

911
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 1: Match singer. Not every child gets to hear their dad

912
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: on the radio every year. I feel blessed that story.

913
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 1: Man just comes out of nowhere and it just gets me.

914
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 1: I just I love that our for him. Um. Bobby

915
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,920
Speaker 1: Pickett died in April of two thousand seven of leukemia.

916
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 1: He kept performing live until November two thousand six. That's unbelievable.

917
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:15,840
Speaker 1: Hersch has this tremendous anecdote. He said that he he

918
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: told Vice that he would call Picket at the hospital

919
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,760
Speaker 1: to check up on him after his regular blood transfusions,

920
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 1: and Pickett would get on the phone and say, in

921
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 1: his dracular voice, STU, there's nothing like fresh blood. This

922
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: guy commits to love it. Um. Nancy was at pickets

923
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,720
Speaker 1: side when he died, and true to form, Bobby Boris

924
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:42,759
Speaker 1: Pickett was able to get his name in the headlines

925
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,800
Speaker 1: one last time after he shuffled loose this mortal coil.

926
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 1: She said in two thousand and seven, I saw a

927
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:53,759
Speaker 1: show about turning cremated remains into diamonds, and I immediately

928
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 1: called my father and told him that I wanted to

929
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:59,840
Speaker 1: make a diamond from his cremated remains. He loved the idea.

930
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 1: H This company called Life Jem complied, creating a point

931
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: forty four carrot colorless diamond from Bobby's remains, and she

932
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 1: wears in a white gold solitaire ring to this day.

933
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:15,440
Speaker 1: They sent out a press release with this news and

934
00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:20,080
Speaker 1: that quote, and everyone and their mother gleefully aggregated it

935
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 1: because you can't keep Bobby Boris pick it down. I

936
00:54:24,719 --> 00:54:27,720
Speaker 1: love this story. I love this song. There is something

937
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:32,719
Speaker 1: so wonderfully American about the story of Bobby Pickett. Here

938
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 1: was a guy, Here's a guy who wanted to be

939
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 1: one thing, lucked into being another thing that he didn't

940
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: love that much, which he stole in the first place,

941
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 1: and then maintained an iron grip on that consolation prize

942
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: for his entire life, choking every last bit of life

943
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:52,759
Speaker 1: out of it until the end of his own And

944
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:55,800
Speaker 1: now every year he rises from the grave with a

945
00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:59,920
Speaker 1: gleeful laugh to help us celebrate Halloween. The most wonder

946
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 1: fulle American of all holidays. The day we stopped shutting

947
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:07,560
Speaker 1: death away and it's sterile cloisters, march it out into

948
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:09,800
Speaker 1: our streets and windows to stare it full in the

949
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:13,720
Speaker 1: eye and threaten ut, telling it to give us candy

950
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:18,279
Speaker 1: or we'll tp its house. God, I love Halloween. I'm

951
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:20,719
Speaker 1: glad I did the song pick it set in the

952
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:27,120
Speaker 1: interview because some people never get to do anything that's

953
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:31,880
Speaker 1: really sweet. That's God love him. Say it with us, folks.

954
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:37,520
Speaker 1: I was working in the lab one night. I'm going

955
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:41,120
Speaker 1: horse with my enthusiasm for Bobby Boris Pickett. Jordan is

956
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:44,440
Speaker 1: staring into middle distance like a like a shell shocked,

957
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:50,759
Speaker 1: hollow version of himself. This has been too much information.

958
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:53,319
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Keep listening for more of our

959
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:59,759
Speaker 1: October Fest two right, Jordan, we got we got two

960
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 1: more weeks. This yea believe so yes to keep the

961
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:09,880
Speaker 1: SOPs occupied for a little while. Thanks for listening, folks.

962
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:12,920
Speaker 1: Has been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel and I'm

963
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:20,560
Speaker 1: Jordan Runt Talk. We'll catch you next time. Too Much

964
00:56:20,600 --> 00:56:23,320
Speaker 1: Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's

965
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:26,360
Speaker 1: executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The

966
00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written

967
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,719
Speaker 1: and hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Heigel, with

968
00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:35,800
Speaker 1: original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

969
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

970
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:41,279
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeart Radio, visit

971
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you

972
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows,