Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, welcome to Too Much Information, the show that
Speaker 1: gives you the secret histories and little known fascinating facts
Speaker 1: and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more.
Speaker 1: We are your two Bobby Boris pickets of Banality. I'm
Speaker 1: Alex Hegel and I'm during Talk. And as you may
Speaker 1: have surmised from that intro, we are forging ahead with
Speaker 1: our special October Fest here at t M I with
Speaker 1: an installment on that deathless slice of sixties novelty music Cheese.
Speaker 1: It's the velveta of sixties novelty hits Monster Match by
Speaker 1: the aforementioned Bobby Boris p bar Bar's. I would ask
Speaker 1: you your personal history with it? Do you have one? No, Well,
Speaker 1: you know what I do. You may not remember this, Uh,
Speaker 1: this song actually played a crucial role in our friendship
Speaker 1: and indirectly the creation to the show. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: think you know that. Maybe I've never told you this.
Speaker 1: For those of you who don't know, which I assume
Speaker 1: is all of you, because why would you know this.
Speaker 1: I met Higel on my first day working at People
Speaker 1: Magazine in twenty sixteen, and I spent my first day,
Speaker 1: decorating my desk with posters of Who and the Beatles
Speaker 1: and asking loudly if there was any chance I could
Speaker 1: interview Neil Young. And this was emphatically not the subject
Speaker 1: matter that people covered. We were usually doing the ins
Speaker 1: and outs of Justin Bieber's love life, and I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure the first interview I ever did there was either
Speaker 1: Josh Groban or Harry Connick Jr. But my boss, the
Speaker 1: wise and wonderful Sarah Ma Schaud, quickly sized up the
Speaker 1: situation and said, Hey, there's someone who wants you to meet.
Speaker 1: His name's Alex Heigel. And the unspoken subtext of this
Speaker 1: was he doesn't belong here either, and if you're gonna
Speaker 1: have any friends while you work here, you guys should connect.
Speaker 1: And we did, and it was an immediate bond, and
Speaker 1: you intimidated me greatly because you had tattoos and I
Speaker 1: had none, and you didn't suffer fools gladly and I do.
Speaker 1: And we got to know each other. We never really
Speaker 1: worked together. I was an editor in the music section
Speaker 1: and you were more of a generalist writer reporter, I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, so our past didn't really cross on the
Speaker 1: day to day, but then one day I was assigned
Speaker 1: to edit one of your stories for the first time,
Speaker 1: and it was this compelling, amazingly exhaustively researched history of
Speaker 1: Monster Mash by Bobby bors Picket, And that was the
Speaker 1: moment that we connected on this level, the t M
Speaker 1: I level. I realized that you were just as much
Speaker 1: of a freak as I was. So I actually will
Speaker 1: always think of you when I hear this song. I
Speaker 1: know that it was an amazing piece. It's still out
Speaker 1: there on people right now, on people dot com, so
Speaker 1: I got check it out. My parents got me. One
Speaker 1: of the tapes that I had as a kid was
Speaker 1: a compilation of sixties novelty songs. So it was like
Speaker 1: this and like chev Wouli, Purple People Leader, And I
Speaker 1: was trying to ask my dad this. He didn't remember.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what that song was? That's like music
Speaker 1: concrete like style, cut up collage. It's a fake news
Speaker 1: bulletin about aliens coming to earth. But it's like cut
Speaker 1: up from single lines of like dozens of other songs.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's not Joe Meek, is it? No? No sixties?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know anyway. That's so. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: was one of my I used to play that tape
Speaker 1: over and over again. It's one of my earliest musical memories. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: from the possibly legally insane and wildly prolific producer behind
Speaker 1: this track, to the song's tenuous connection to James Brown
Speaker 1: to Bobby Boris Pickets dogged attempts to continually update his
Speaker 1: song with the times. Here is everything you didn't know
Speaker 1: about the Monster Mash Pickett was born in summer Real, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: As he explained in one often aggregated interviews, he said,
Speaker 1: you had two choices as a young man. You could
Speaker 1: either be a gangster when you grew up, or an athlete.
Speaker 1: Somerville was a tough place to live, but it was
Speaker 1: a place where you could leave your door open and
Speaker 1: no one would rob you. Well, maybe everyone knew everyone,
Speaker 1: even though it was a city three miles long. And
Speaker 1: if Somerville brings a crime related name for you, that's
Speaker 1: because it's Winter Hill. Neighborhood where Bobby Boris Pickett grew up,
Speaker 1: was the principal operating area of Whitey Bulger, famous criminal
Speaker 1: head honcho famously fictionized by Jack Nicholson in The Departed.
Speaker 1: Bulger was born nine years before Pickett and was already
Speaker 1: a young man when the Winter Hill Gang was founded
Speaker 1: by James Buddy McLean In and the Winter Hill Gang
Speaker 1: fought a six year war with a group called the
Speaker 1: McLoughlin Gang uh and what's now known as the Boston
Speaker 1: Irish Gang War. And that started when one guy hit
Speaker 1: on a rival gang member's girlfriend at Salisbury Beach. And
Speaker 1: following said war, the Winter Hill Gang became the most
Speaker 1: powerful Irish gang on the East Coast. This is all
Speaker 1: operating in Bobby boris Pickets backyard. Well pick it. Fond
Speaker 1: livercalls his childhood in Somerville not a place if I remember.
Speaker 1: His father managed a movie theater, though, and he spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time taking in the horror hits of
Speaker 1: Universal Studios, watching Boris Karlov, Belle Legozi and Lawn Cheney Jr.
Speaker 1: Stocked the screen in iconic films like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy,
Speaker 1: and The Wolfman. At this point, the final Universal monster
Speaker 1: that anyone actually remembers came out in fifty four, The
Speaker 1: Creature of the Black Lagoon. But prior to that, you know,
Speaker 1: this iconic period was kind of gone because they had
Speaker 1: spent the intervening decade, introducing that entire roster of iconic
Speaker 1: monsters to Abbott and Costello. I am not exaggerating that
Speaker 1: was like their whole nineteen forties and come to think
Speaker 1: that though that approach probably informed Pickett's entire life of
Speaker 1: combining spooky stuff and cheesy humor. He did mention this
Speaker 1: distribution company called Real Art, which actually cherry picked a
Speaker 1: bunch of these old universal monster flack and reissued them
Speaker 1: in the forties and fifties. And he also said that
Speaker 1: he loved the William Castle road Show extravaganzas guy who
Speaker 1: did Um House on hon Hill, where he had a
Speaker 1: gimmick where a fake ghost on a wire would fly
Speaker 1: from one end of the movie theater to the other,
Speaker 1: and the buzzing seats in The Tingler, Friend of the
Speaker 1: The Tingler making its third appearance on the t m
Speaker 1: I podcast. Oh I didn't realize. I put it that
Speaker 1: many times. Um Pickett did not actually have a musical childhood.
Speaker 1: He didn't grow up singing. After a year and a
Speaker 1: half in Korea with the Army as part of the
Speaker 1: Signal Corps, he was actually on his way back that
Speaker 1: he got his first experience with a singing group. He said,
Speaker 1: on the ship we came back on, these guys were
Speaker 1: putting together a show and there were three or four
Speaker 1: of them who were singing doo wop and acapella stuff,
Speaker 1: and they needed a bass baritone. So I became a
Speaker 1: member of that group. But Boris wasn't exactly bitten by
Speaker 1: the music bug when he got back to Massachusetts. Rather
Speaker 1: than forming a band, he started performing stand up at
Speaker 1: local places like the Irish American Club and Everett, performing
Speaker 1: an act that he freely admits he stole. He said,
Speaker 1: the first time I went on stage and Everett was
Speaker 1: to do a five minute stand up comedy spoof of monsters,
Speaker 1: which had kind of ripped off from a guy I
Speaker 1: had seen do it on a boat when I was
Speaker 1: returning from Korea in nineteen fifty eight. He did a
Speaker 1: spoof of monsters. I just watched him and thought that's
Speaker 1: a great act. He was doing Boris Karlof and Bella
Speaker 1: Neegosti impressions. I said, you wrote that act, He said, no,
Speaker 1: I stole it from Jack Carter. I saw it on TV.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, then you won't mind if I use it,
Speaker 1: and he said no, and pick it took that act
Speaker 1: and started winning weekly talent contests with it, and uh,
Speaker 1: I guess you get twenty five bucks a pop each
Speaker 1: time he one, which, as he said, it was a
Speaker 1: lot of money in those days for an unemployed x G. I.
Speaker 1: But pick it could not be kept in Summerville. No,
Speaker 1: his ambitions were larger. He spent a year in Massachusetts
Speaker 1: before moving out to Hollywood to try and make it
Speaker 1: as an actor, during which time he apparently dated Chloris
Speaker 1: Leachman and Diane Kennon, the eventual wife of Carry grant Um.
Speaker 1: And this is just this is so funny. This is
Speaker 1: that truth is stranger than fiction. Stuff. Man, he happened
Speaker 1: to run into some other dudes from Somerville while he
Speaker 1: was bumping around Hollywood, with the astoundingly perfect names of
Speaker 1: Lenny and Billy Capezzi. They grew up in winter Hill
Speaker 1: as well, and uh, he said that they had shown
Speaker 1: up in Hollywood at this time with two other Italian boys,
Speaker 1: Ronnie del Toro and Lou Toscano. Who's bat a thousand.
Speaker 1: This is the smell of olive oil suddenly came into
Speaker 1: my folks. I can say that, uh, and they were
Speaker 1: going to start a singing group called the Cordials, and
Speaker 1: they asked me if I wanted to join them. Um, we,
Speaker 1: he continued, We'd sing in a place called Alvo Turnos
Speaker 1: on Pico Boulevard on Friday nights. We sang in the
Speaker 1: parking lot of Ben Frank's wherever we could get a
Speaker 1: paying gig. Uh. Interestingly enough, Alo Turno's was owned by
Speaker 1: Timmy Euro, who is a singer who counted Elvis among
Speaker 1: her fans. He bought a private table for her Vegas shows,
Speaker 1: and Morrissey, who announced her death on his website in
Speaker 1: two thousand four. Um she do you know these songs?
Speaker 1: It will never be over for me? And what's the
Speaker 1: Matter Baby? What's the Matter Baby was covered by The
Speaker 1: Small Faces. It's the B side of their debut single
Speaker 1: in n There you have it, folks, we got to
Speaker 1: one degree of separation between Morrissey and The Faces and
Speaker 1: Monster Mash. That is the t M I guarantee. Jordan
Speaker 1: tell us about Ben Frank's. Yeah, Ben Frank's the place
Speaker 1: where I used to play in the parking lot. That
Speaker 1: was a well known hippie hangout in l A and
Speaker 1: the sixties. The advertisement that was soliciting actors to audition
Speaker 1: for The Monkeys in nineteen sixty five specified Ben Frank types,
Speaker 1: which basically euphanism for long hairs. That was a Mels
Speaker 1: Diner on Sunset and they kept all the original architecture
Speaker 1: and everything. It's really cool. One of the songs that
Speaker 1: was in the Cordial set Bobby's early band was Little
Speaker 1: Darlin recorded by the Diamonds, a do wop classic. I
Speaker 1: love that song, uh, and I guess Pickett asked Lenny
Speaker 1: if he could do a Boris Karloff impression in the
Speaker 1: middle of song, which apparently audiences immediately loved. I don't
Speaker 1: know how they would shoehorn that in there, but pick
Speaker 1: it's a monologue. There's like a monologue part in the beginning,
Speaker 1: like the middle of the song, and it's sung by
Speaker 1: the bass baritone. Pick It was like, Hey, but I
Speaker 1: do this probably this Boris Carlof impression. God. As much
Speaker 1: as I love most fifties Schmaltz, the whole phenomenon of
Speaker 1: like the midsong breakdown, where you know, the just doing
Speaker 1: this are you lonesome tonight? Yeah? I wanted to tell
Speaker 1: you something. Yeah, I hate that. I just needed to
Speaker 1: let you know. Yeah, I guess he would. I guess, well,
Speaker 1: let's find let's find a little lyrics. Let's see if
Speaker 1: you can do a little little t M I reenactment
Speaker 1: of what this must have been like. What is the monologue?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? You know the guy who wrote this song,
Speaker 1: Dave Summerville. No way, Yeah, okay, So the monologue in
Speaker 1: the beginning, in the middle, Uh, hang on, I was
Speaker 1: working in the lab, my darling, I need you to
Speaker 1: call my own own, never do wrong, to hold my
Speaker 1: in mind, your little hand, something like that. It sounded
Speaker 1: something like that, and lightning struck inexplicable way people loved it. Uh.
Speaker 1: Bobby's accounts for the rest of this timeline has varied
Speaker 1: over the years. In one telling, the very night he
Speaker 1: did this bid on stage for the first time, his
Speaker 1: bandmate Lenny said to him, you know, we should record
Speaker 1: a novelty song like this, something like the Flying Purple
Speaker 1: People Eater, which had become a big hit around this time. Uh,
Speaker 1: doing that, just your cousin, Bobby Boris Pickett, you know
Speaker 1: that news I was working in the lub. And another
Speaker 1: version of this story, Bobby says that the group was
Speaker 1: performing on a beach and after he did the Boris
Speaker 1: karl Off it and a girl came up to them
Speaker 1: and said, my old man produces records. He did the
Speaker 1: song Ali Oop. He would love you guys, He'll get
Speaker 1: your record contract. And that old man was Gary Paxton,
Speaker 1: who had hits as part of Skip and Flip who
Speaker 1: I don't know and the Hollywood Argyles who did the
Speaker 1: song Ali Oop, which was the number one hit, And
Speaker 1: that song was actually referenced by David Bowie on the
Speaker 1: song Life on Mars. The lyric look at that Caveman
Speaker 1: Go is a line from Ali. There's also Mark Bowland,
Speaker 1: also referenced in a song called Truck on Tyke. Oh yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: Gary Paxton, Gary s excuse me, Oh my god, this
Speaker 1: guy's life is insane. I'm just gonna do the quick
Speaker 1: bullet point rundown. Paxton grew up with an adopted family
Speaker 1: on a Kansas farm with no electricity or running water.
Speaker 1: He started in music, started playing in bands, and twelve
Speaker 1: years old, I heard at one point backed Um Buck
Speaker 1: Owens or wait or Merle Haggard, some guy in Bakersfield,
Speaker 1: because he was part of the Bakersfield sound as well.
Speaker 1: And he basically never stopped working in music. By the sixties,
Speaker 1: he operated a bunch of different labels that basically just
Speaker 1: existed to put out music that he made. I read
Speaker 1: one account that he owned and operated or at least
Speaker 1: operated five studios. Uh. He was involved with actual villain
Speaker 1: of the l A music industry, Kim Fowley. Yes, Kim
Speaker 1: Fowley worked with the Runaways and he put them together right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Jackie Fox, the bassist, accused him of rape years later.
Speaker 1: Nobody has anything nice to say about Kim Fowley. But
Speaker 1: Paxton was a genuine eccentric. I've heard many people referred
Speaker 1: to him as just being dirty and long haired, even
Speaker 1: by sixties standards. Also, this is in the early sixties.
Speaker 1: This is pre like the hippie stereotype. He alienated musicians
Speaker 1: with his in studio demeanor and refused to play ball
Speaker 1: with other labeled executives when it came to getting his
Speaker 1: stuff played. People just put up with him because he
Speaker 1: crafted hits. Phil Spector was reportedly literally actually frightened by him.
Speaker 1: I say good. Once after a radio station turned down
Speaker 1: one of his songs, Paxton assembled a protest parade down
Speaker 1: Hollywood Boulevard that started fifteen cheerleaders and a live elephant
Speaker 1: pulling a Volkswagen convertible. This got him arrested when the
Speaker 1: elephant pooped in the street. The song was called Elephant
Speaker 1: Game Parentheses Part one by Renfrow and Jackson for context
Speaker 1: less Do you think he just got an unsolicited elephant? Uh?
Speaker 1: Paxston moved to Nashville the nineteen seventies and converted to
Speaker 1: Christianity after wandering into a church while stoned because he
Speaker 1: was in the middle of an existential crisis after his
Speaker 1: musical partner died. Uh. This failed to put a dent
Speaker 1: in his eccentricities. For nineteen seventy two Clone Affair, he
Speaker 1: shaved his head and eyebrows and started wearing a cape.
Speaker 1: When his nineteen seventy five solo album The Astonished Ing Outrageous, Amazing, incredible,
Speaker 1: unbelievable Different World of Garry S. Paxton one a Grammy,
Speaker 1: he showed up to the ceremony wearing a sleeveless black
Speaker 1: vest and leather pants. At this time, it's important to
Speaker 1: note he had a large Mennonite beard and was going
Speaker 1: around in a pseudo stovepipe hat. What the hell did
Speaker 1: he win a Grammy for Best inspirational album In Night,
Speaker 1: he was shot five times by men hired by a
Speaker 1: country star he was producing, who was supposedly attempting to
Speaker 1: get out of his contract or was simply mad about
Speaker 1: the terms of his contract. I don't remember which one was.
Speaker 1: This sidelined him for eight years, and he carried two
Speaker 1: bullets from the shooting in his body for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life. Nonetheless, he traveled to jail to forgive
Speaker 1: the men personally. In The Washington Post reported that Tammy
Speaker 1: Faye Baker had developed a crush on Paxton around the
Speaker 1: same time that her husband Jim Baker has had the
Speaker 1: big scandal with Jessica Han, the secretary at the evangelical
Speaker 1: church the Bakers ran. Sadly, this basically ended Paxton's career
Speaker 1: in the gospel Christian music world because he was at
Speaker 1: the center of this Beeg infidelity scandal. In moved to Branson, Missouri,
Speaker 1: friend of the Pod Branson, Missouri, and began performing in
Speaker 1: a mask and cape as Grandpa Rock. He died in
Speaker 1: He once estimated he had written two thousand songs. A
Speaker 1: sampling of my favorite titles include Jesus is My Lawyer
Speaker 1: in Heaven. If You're happy, notify your face and when
Speaker 1: I die, just bury me at Walmart so my wife
Speaker 1: will come visit me. Garius Paxton, everyone, I just want
Speaker 1: to pause and say, for all those for a moment,
Speaker 1: wow uh yeah. Everything that with no matter what I
Speaker 1: could say after that really feels like a ton of
Speaker 1: this letdown. But but Bobby Pickett around this time actually
Speaker 1: quit the Cordials for a brief time his band, the Pursuit,
Speaker 1: work as an actor, explaining, at one point I got
Speaker 1: an agent after many, many months, and after two weeks
Speaker 1: of being with him, he died of a heart attack.
Speaker 1: So seeing that as some sort of a sign, he
Speaker 1: returned to work with the Corridinals to revisit the whole
Speaker 1: novelty song thing. Let's give you some context for the
Speaker 1: monster craze. Well, let's just give you some context for
Speaker 1: the monster mash period by two, the monster craze of
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, which was aided by those reissues and
Speaker 1: television because all this stuff started getting syndicated on TV
Speaker 1: that had really blossomed. Three, a stymied actress named Malia
Speaker 1: Nermi created the character of Vampira, which is she created
Speaker 1: as a rip off of Mortitia Adams, and she launched
Speaker 1: a successful show that started the template of these horror
Speaker 1: host shows. Basically in costumes. She would introduce these classic
Speaker 1: horror films and mock them. It was like a slash
Speaker 1: comedy show. And it was all this stuff that affiliates
Speaker 1: could get the rights to rebroadcast, either free or cheap,
Speaker 1: and so they would just do these buttons with her
Speaker 1: making fun of them and broadcast these and it was huge.
Speaker 1: I mean even though only ran for a year. Soon
Speaker 1: any regional television station that had the budget would have
Speaker 1: one of these of their own. The one in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: was hosted by a guy named John Zacherley, who was
Speaker 1: a buddy with Dick Clark. Zachary actually cut a novelty
Speaker 1: single called Dinner with drack Um that climate to number six,
Speaker 1: as high as on Billboard in ninety eight, which is
Speaker 1: the same year that this very influential fan magazine called
Speaker 1: Famous Monsters of Film Land debuts. Adjacent to all of
Speaker 1: this is the atomic age monster movies of the fifties.
Speaker 1: You have nineteen fifty ones, the day they will sort
Speaker 1: sill the War the World's nineteen fifty six is Invasion
Speaker 1: of the Body Snatchers and then right around the turn
Speaker 1: of the decade or becomes much more popular. We have
Speaker 1: these proto slashers like Peeping Tom and psyche Go. Both
Speaker 1: In the nineteen six Mario Bava directs Black Sunday, which
Speaker 1: is banned. This movie it's a witchcraft theme movie. It
Speaker 1: was banned for being I believe explicit or the occult themes.
Speaker 1: And then Roger Corban puts out a series of these
Speaker 1: Edgar Allan Poe adaptations Mask the Black Death, Hitting the Pendulum, um,
Speaker 1: and those are all starring Vincent Price. It's amazing to
Speaker 1: think about this stuff in context because until the exploitation era,
Speaker 1: horror was like not disreputable. This was like cheesy popcorn entertainment.
Speaker 1: They were like the Marvel movies of their day. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting. What what change? Well, basically, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is kind of an armchair theory of mine, but I
Speaker 1: feel comfortable putting it out there. Um, you started to
Speaker 1: get that wave of new Hollywood guys come out of
Speaker 1: the USC around this time. John Carpenter particularly, and Wes
Speaker 1: Craven is the other big one. And so in the seventies, well,
Speaker 1: they had four Bears. There's a guy named Herschel Gordon
Speaker 1: Lewis who was creating these violent exploitation movies. As early
Speaker 1: the sixties he had Blood feast Um. His nickname is
Speaker 1: the Godfather of Gore. But then through the mid seventies
Speaker 1: the grindhouse circuit really kicks in, and that's when you
Speaker 1: do see these movies start to get way more explicit.
Speaker 1: And then the tail end of the seventies you have
Speaker 1: basically the kind of shots across the Bow, Our Last
Speaker 1: House on the Left, Texas, Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween. And
Speaker 1: Halloween was the explicit inspiration for Sean Cunningham, who was
Speaker 1: directing porn, to make Friday, and that is really what
Speaker 1: jump starts the slasher craze the eighties. And and then
Speaker 1: concurrently with that you have what's called the video Nasties
Speaker 1: in the UK, which was a bunch of band titles.
Speaker 1: So basically late seventies through the mid eighties is when
Speaker 1: it gets really gross. I mean also the practical effects
Speaker 1: advanced to the point where people like Tom Saffini or
Speaker 1: coming out of Vietnam and just going into Hollywood and
Speaker 1: making horor effects that reminded him of his Vietnam. That
Speaker 1: is explicitly his inspiration for the stuff on the Georgia Marrow.
Speaker 1: He was like, Yeah, I was just doing all this
Speaker 1: stuff I saw in nom Wow. Anyway, don't ever prompt
Speaker 1: me about horror movies again, because you get a three
Speaker 1: minute monologue. We're going to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: we'll be right back with more too much information in
Speaker 1: just a moment. Well, all of us to say back
Speaker 1: to the Monster Mash by the National Pump was primed
Speaker 1: for a guy to do an extended Boris Karloff riff
Speaker 1: in a novelty song and pickup remembers. The may or
Speaker 1: Sometimes June accounts very two writing session that produced Monster Mash.
Speaker 1: Thus Lee Lenny Capeezi said, yeah, come on over Saturday.
Speaker 1: I go over at the designated time, and of course
Speaker 1: he's asleep. To wake him up, and he continued the
Speaker 1: account in his two thousand five autobiography, Lenny sat down
Speaker 1: at the piano and began futson with various four chord progressions,
Speaker 1: and I stood next to the piano like me. Lenny
Speaker 1: was a major horror movie fan from childhood. He loved
Speaker 1: Bella Legosia's Dracula. He knew I had a Boris carl
Speaker 1: Off voice pretty nailed although in retrospect I feel that
Speaker 1: what I actually had was a very cartoonish rendition of
Speaker 1: that wonderful actor's voice. You say that Pickets two thousand
Speaker 1: five autobiography, which is called Monster Mash Half Dead in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: is extremely rare, and copies of it are selling for
Speaker 1: upwards of three on Amazon. Yeah, dude, not available digitally either.
Speaker 1: I would have read the whole thing. Lenny arrives at
Speaker 1: the classic doo Wop one minor six, four or five
Speaker 1: chord progression, and Pickett said it was his idea to
Speaker 1: capitalize on the monster craze and the novelty dance craze.
Speaker 1: He said, at the time, I thought the Twist was
Speaker 1: the latest dance, but Lenny said, no, it's the mashed Potato.
Speaker 1: So I said, that's even better. We can call up
Speaker 1: the Monster Mashed Potato. We shortened it to Monster Mash
Speaker 1: and the rest was history. In about three hours, they
Speaker 1: cut a piano and voice demo on a Mono Woolen
Speaker 1: sack tape recorder and brought it to Paxton, who said, boys,
Speaker 1: you gotta hit on your hands. So Brian Wilson used
Speaker 1: to use the workouts harmonies in the early Beach Boys
Speaker 1: song as an old Woolen sap tape recorder. Not the
Speaker 1: first time the Beach Boys are gonna come up here? YEA. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: Lenny was correct. Here's a history about the mash, not
Speaker 1: that you folks asked for it. Uh. D D Sharp's
Speaker 1: Mashed Potato Time had reached number one on the cash
Speaker 1: Box Top one hundred, Billboard R and BEA Arts in
Speaker 1: nine two, as well as the number two spot of
Speaker 1: the Billboard Hot one. Uh. There's a great article about
Speaker 1: monster Mash on Billboard that goes into the history of
Speaker 1: the mashed potato. Billboard claims that this dance actually originated
Speaker 1: with James brown Baby, the hardest working man in show
Speaker 1: business in the late fifties. In his live shows, he
Speaker 1: released a top ten R and B instrumental call do
Speaker 1: the Mashed Potatoes In? I have that on forty five,
Speaker 1: I guess for contractual reasons, the recording was credited to
Speaker 1: Nat Kendrick and the Swans. Uh. And it's just a
Speaker 1: wild song he got. I don't think it's him. I
Speaker 1: think it's like a local DJ he got to do
Speaker 1: the vocals for it, just screaming different types of potatoes
Speaker 1: over one four or five pattern. It's like sounds mashed potatoes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty weird. You would have thought an Irish
Speaker 1: guy would have cut that song too. Sorry our first
Speaker 1: Irish potato famine joke. But in a post twist world
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two, the label CAMEO Parkway. They wanted
Speaker 1: a song that would capitalize on the twist, on the
Speaker 1: order of Please Mr Postman, Marvolette nine hit, and in fact,
Speaker 1: Mashed Potato Time. That d D sharp song is so
Speaker 1: similar to Please Mr Postman that they had to share
Speaker 1: writing credit on it, and the lyrics to Ash Potato
Speaker 1: Time include references to not just Please Mr Postman, but
Speaker 1: the Tokens number one hit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and
Speaker 1: Gary Bond's Dear Lady Twist. So you have a reissue
Speaker 1: of an older song that has been rewritten to sound
Speaker 1: like new songs, right, and references from other new songs. Yes,
Speaker 1: and this started a phenomenon of what you've very appropriately
Speaker 1: called recursive novelty dance numbers, in which pop songs begin
Speaker 1: referencing dance crazes that were themselves lifting from earlier dance crazes.
Speaker 1: James Brown responded to mashed Potato time with his song
Speaker 1: Mashed Potatoes USA, while Chris Montez is Let's Dance the
Speaker 1: contours do You Love Me? Chris Kenner's Land of a
Speaker 1: Thousand Dances, and Connie frances is V A C A
Speaker 1: T I O N. And also Sam Cook's Having a
Speaker 1: Party All name dropped the mashed Potato dance and Sam
Speaker 1: Cook was probably the best at uh surfing this trend.
Speaker 1: He calls out the mashed potatoes. Also the soul twist
Speaker 1: in his song Having a Party, which followed his own
Speaker 1: twist hit Twist in the Night Away, and Cook even
Speaker 1: worked the line about a cat named Frankenstein and was
Speaker 1: nine hit Another Saturday Night, Another Saturday Night, and I
Speaker 1: Ain't Got Nobody, which is absolutely a reference to the
Speaker 1: Monster Mash. That means, somewhere in the world there is
Speaker 1: a this is probably an outtake somewhere of Sam Cook
Speaker 1: singing Monster Mash that I will pay good money for anyway,
Speaker 1: Gary s Paxton, Lenning Capezi and Bobby Pickett waste little
Speaker 1: time and getting into the studio to record Monster Mash. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is so interesting to me, this whole twisted origin
Speaker 1: of this song. I really went a little cross side
Speaker 1: with It. Pickett has frequently repeated this notion that the
Speaker 1: Monster Mash session took place on the same day that
Speaker 1: Herb Albert was in the studio recording the Lonely Bull,
Speaker 1: which is the first single released on A and M Records,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy Rogers was there recording his hit Honey Home.
Speaker 1: So it has been said that Lonely Bull sessions took
Speaker 1: place at Conway Recorders in Hollywood. Gets deeper, though, George,
Speaker 1: that is right. Meanwhile, singer Darlene Love, who is a
Speaker 1: legend in early sixties pop music, sang on He's a
Speaker 1: Rebel and Christmas Baby, Please Come Home. Like next to
Speaker 1: Ronnie Specter, probably the singer most famously identified with Phil
Speaker 1: Specter and the Wall of Sound type of stuff. She
Speaker 1: was part of a singing group called the Blossoms, who
Speaker 1: were sort of the first call backing singer group for
Speaker 1: all sorts of uh. If you're familiar with The Wrecking Crew,
Speaker 1: the group of musicians who were the first call session
Speaker 1: players on all l A pop sessions at this time,
Speaker 1: they were sort of the singing equivalent. They sang on
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. Anyway, She claims that Monster Mash
Speaker 1: was recorded at gold Star Studios, which is where Phil
Speaker 1: Spector cut most of his records, again, not where Bobby
Speaker 1: Pickett remembers cutting the song. Darlene says that incredibly super
Speaker 1: producer Lou Adler, who worked with The Mamas and the
Speaker 1: Papas and later produced Carol King's Tapestry album, told her
Speaker 1: about the Monster Mash for the first time, and in
Speaker 1: an interview with Billboards, she says she remembers thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: please a Halloween song. Who's going to do a song
Speaker 1: about Halloween? She said, quote, we sat down and listened
Speaker 1: to the song and try to figure out what the
Speaker 1: background was going to be. And after the initial backing
Speaker 1: trucks were laid down, the vocalist came and sang live
Speaker 1: with Bobby Pickett. She said he had to sing his
Speaker 1: vocals so we could figure out where to come in.
Speaker 1: It made it more fun with him singing his line
Speaker 1: and then us answering him. It's just like the sun
Speaker 1: record scene from Walk the Line, but there's yeah, Sam Phillips,
Speaker 1: like you have fifteen minutes to sing me something that
Speaker 1: will strike me down to my very core. I was
Speaker 1: working in the lab. I told you I polished that
Speaker 1: one that was good. If you were a loved one,
Speaker 1: help record Monster Mash. Please tell us where the hell
Speaker 1: it was cut, because it's driving me nuts. Personnel wise,
Speaker 1: the band credited as the crypt Kickers on Monster Mash
Speaker 1: was the aforementioned Garius Paxton, a writing partner of his
Speaker 1: name Johnny Dog McCrae, who I guess I wrote songs
Speaker 1: for Ray Charles, George Jones, Reba McIntyre, possibly the Blossoms
Speaker 1: backup singers The Blossoms, and another session singer named Ricky Page.
Speaker 1: Leon Russell is often credited with playing piano and Monster Mash.
Speaker 1: That is not true. Pickett said he played on the
Speaker 1: B side Monster Mash Party because he said he got
Speaker 1: to the session late. And this is what gives credence
Speaker 1: to the Herb Autpert thing, because Russell was a member
Speaker 1: of the Wrecking Crew and they are credited with playing
Speaker 1: on that Herb Alpert track. So I don't know, do
Speaker 1: with that what you will? Apparently Ricky Page is singing
Speaker 1: the line oh tennis shoe Wow Wow in the song's
Speaker 1: bridge and Pickaton dr Tamento and do thousand six. We
Speaker 1: don't know. Why isn't that girl by the Beatles. John
Speaker 1: Lennon sneaked in. Um. Yes, instead of deep deep, he's
Speaker 1: singing T T T because he was a child. Yeah. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: adding to the insane early sixties pop superstardom, brew that
Speaker 1: when making this song, uh, drummer for the Ventures, you
Speaker 1: know walk Don't run fame incredible sixties surf guitar instrumental
Speaker 1: group The Ventures, Mel Taylor was credited with playing on
Speaker 1: Monster Mash and Taylor had moved from l A from
Speaker 1: his native Tennessee and was working as a meat cutter
Speaker 1: the Grand Central Market in nine When he wasn't busy
Speaker 1: being adventure and through his gigs at night, he picked
Speaker 1: up session work during the day, including supposedly Monster Mash
Speaker 1: and The Lonely Bull by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass,
Speaker 1: for which he was paid ten dollars to record on
Speaker 1: the very same day. Think about that, Thatcher's drummer Mel
Speaker 1: Taylor possibly recorded the very first single on and M
Speaker 1: Records and also a Monster Mash in a single afternoon
Speaker 1: incredible day right yeah for a flat fee. Um. He
Speaker 1: may have been called on this session because of Paxton
Speaker 1: as well. I've heard some sources that credit him with
Speaker 1: playing the drums on alley oop um, but Gary Packson
Speaker 1: said that was not correct, So I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I mean the whole thing about. I have to stop
Speaker 1: myself from going too far into this because these guys
Speaker 1: were making like seventeen songs a day, five days a week,
Speaker 1: calling in whoever you know. UM pick its own account
Speaker 1: of the session, though, which costs a whopping three hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: is that it took between two and three hours and
Speaker 1: his vocals were done in thirty minutes. Gary Packiston did
Speaker 1: all the sound effects, he said, like a straw in
Speaker 1: into a glass of water to get the bubbling lab sound.
Speaker 1: He was he was pulling a rusty name ail out
Speaker 1: of a board to get the sound of the coffin creaking.
Speaker 1: Those are actual chains. He dragged chains across the floor
Speaker 1: to get the sound of chains um. Once they were finished,
Speaker 1: mixes took a day, perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm shocked it took
Speaker 1: that long. Oh yeah, Uh. Paxton took the finish forty
Speaker 1: five around four major labels and they all turned it down,
Speaker 1: so he pressed up. I've heard between five hundred and
Speaker 1: a thousand records on his own label, gar Packs or
Speaker 1: I guess gear packs, uh, and drove north from l A,
Speaker 1: stopping in Ventura, Bakersfield, Fresnoe to hand distribute copies of
Speaker 1: Monster Mash. DJ's Bigott said by the time Gary got
Speaker 1: back to southern California, his phone had been lighting up
Speaker 1: like a Christmas tree. London Records, which is of course
Speaker 1: one of the outfits that had turned him down, called
Speaker 1: and said they had changed their mind. Of course, the
Speaker 1: records were being ordered on a massive level. Monster Mass
Speaker 1: debut on the Billboard Hot one hundred the week of
Speaker 1: September eight, and six weeks later the single not the
Speaker 1: Fourth Season Sherry from the top spot to begin a
Speaker 1: two week reign at number one that ended four days
Speaker 1: before Halloween, and it's returned to the chart multiple times
Speaker 1: over the years, including in nineteen seventy and also nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three. Uh, this is hilarious to me. The BBC
Speaker 1: famously bands Monster Mash upon its initial release for being
Speaker 1: quote to morbid, and it only lifted the band in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three when it hit number three in the UK.
Speaker 1: Did they even do Halloween over there? Like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe not. I don't think it is as much of
Speaker 1: a thing over since. Uh. The song obviously recharts digitally
Speaker 1: pretty much every October eighteen, Billboard reported that it appeared
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, and also between two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven and two thousand eleven, and again between two
Speaker 1: thousand and thirteen and two thousand and seventeen. What would
Speaker 1: happened to the years when it didn't Just people weren't
Speaker 1: feeling a Halloween spirit, thriller took over. Pickett appeared on
Speaker 1: American Bandstand to perform the song, and again in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, the song recharted and Paxson duly sent him
Speaker 1: out on the road for sock hops and these other
Speaker 1: one off shows. Um. He said he would start in
Speaker 1: northern Maine and then do Jersey, Boston, New York. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is hilarious. I always used the house band wherever
Speaker 1: it was, much like Chuck Berry. Yes, Bobby, that is
Speaker 1: how you were. Like Chuck Berry. I'd hit town, teach
Speaker 1: the band the chord changes my entire act, and we
Speaker 1: go on stage and do it. My favorite tour story
Speaker 1: of his is that his bust supposedly once broke down
Speaker 1: outside of Frankenstein, Missouri. No way, no way, that's too
Speaker 1: he's making that out might be the song launched fans
Speaker 1: and enemies, as we'll get to in a minute in
Speaker 1: high Places. From an early live performance, Bobby Boris Pickett
Speaker 1: was backed by a then unknown Beach Boys, and there's
Speaker 1: a truly surreal clip of the band performing the Monster
Speaker 1: Mash with a I'll just say animated, you said, unhinged
Speaker 1: Mike Love on vocals, uh, visibly miserable. Brian Wilson introduces
Speaker 1: it as Mike's favorite song. History between Mike lev and
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys will know how loaded
Speaker 1: that exchange. It's probably was. Boris Karloff himself was apparently
Speaker 1: a fan of the Monster Mash. Pick It later said
Speaker 1: one of the London Records promotion men, a guy by
Speaker 1: the name of George Sherlock, ran in the Boris Karloff
Speaker 1: at Wallacks Music City, which is a big record store
Speaker 1: in l a as he was buying a copy of
Speaker 1: the Monster Mash album. And in fact you can actually
Speaker 1: see Boris Karloff alongside Ted Cassidy, who played Lurch on
Speaker 1: The Adams Family, performing Monster Mash on the TV show
Speaker 1: Shin Dig in nineteen, a music show. In other words,
Speaker 1: Boris Karloff is doing an impression of the guy who's
Speaker 1: doing an impression of him. Sadly, apparently Bobby, Boris Pickett,
Speaker 1: and Boris Karloff never actually met. That's a shame. But
Speaker 1: lest you thought that was as weird as it gets,
Speaker 1: you can see a of this song performed by Mike
Speaker 1: Tyson and Bobby Brown on Kimmel in two thousand five.
Speaker 1: So if that's the thing that you want, go nuts. Um.
Speaker 1: There is an oft repeated line that Elvis Presley hated
Speaker 1: Monster Mash and I was able to trace this anecdote
Speaker 1: to a book that came out called The Wacky Top
Speaker 1: forty by guy's named Bruce Nash and Alan Zulo. These
Speaker 1: are Picketts words. I was a real Elvis fan. One
Speaker 1: day after the song had become a hit, I bumped
Speaker 1: into this girl who used to hang around Elvis's house
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. So I asked her, how's the king?
Speaker 1: She wrote? She said, well, he hates your record, Bobby.
Speaker 1: When I asked why, she told me he thinks it's
Speaker 1: the stupidest thing he's ever heard. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: whoever liked him anyway? I don't think he knew who
Speaker 1: Boris Karlov was to tell you the truth. Uh. Picky
Speaker 1: would often retell this story when performing the song live,
Speaker 1: ending it with if you're still out there listening Elvis,
Speaker 1: I'm still here, which is such a great shot across
Speaker 1: the bow. Apparently, Tiny Tim these two did a lot
Speaker 1: of tours together. Pikett just mentioned talking about touring with
Speaker 1: Tiny Tim. He said, Tiny Tim thinks Elvis is still alive.
Speaker 1: It's arguably Bobby Boris Pickett and Tiny Tim of the
Speaker 1: two biggest novelty artists, I would argue, possibly of all time,
Speaker 1: certainly of the twentieth century. Oh kings of the novelty circuit.
Speaker 1: Tight Tim man, eccentric dude. He apparently used to drink
Speaker 1: bottles of salsa and what's going through your head? But
Speaker 1: I'm just just him like braiding a manager, like his manager.
Speaker 1: But it's in the like Shutton, it's time to my
Speaker 1: three pm s So yeah, he as have had an
Speaker 1: undiagnosed maybe undiagnosed o c D. He used to use
Speaker 1: um not only paper towels, but a very specific brand
Speaker 1: of paper towels, Viva paper towels, whenever he went to
Speaker 1: hotels because he didn't trust that the towels were clean.
Speaker 1: So he would always dry himself off with paper towels
Speaker 1: after showers. Uh. He wore adult diapers when he was
Speaker 1: out because he didn't like using other people's bathrooms. Jesus.
Speaker 1: And he applied oil of l A eight times a day. Um, yeah, yeah, Elvis.
Speaker 1: Elvis was very um. When he hated something, he let
Speaker 1: you know. There's a famous story about he apparently hated
Speaker 1: Robert Goulay. I don't know why she actually hated him,
Speaker 1: or it became a bit And whenever he'd be watching
Speaker 1: TV and Robert Gulay came on, he would just take
Speaker 1: out his gun and shoot the TV. And so the
Speaker 1: Graceland archive have all these TVs with gun shots in
Speaker 1: him from when was shot the TV out when Robert
Speaker 1: gul was on. That is incredible. He's got no heart,
Speaker 1: That's what always used to say whenever he was on that.
Speaker 1: He's wild. Poebe and Jane Bacon sandwich in one hand
Speaker 1: and a still the other, just getting furious at Robert Coulay.
Speaker 1: As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with more.
Speaker 1: Too much information after these messages. Anyway, Pickett was not
Speaker 1: able to successfully capitalize on that hit. In another example
Speaker 1: of music industry throat cutting. John Zacherley, who you'll remember
Speaker 1: was one of the original TV whore hosts and predated
Speaker 1: Pickett with his own novelty hit Dinner with Drack, actually
Speaker 1: beat him to the punch to record a Monster Mash album,
Speaker 1: a full length Monster Mash. He released his own LP
Speaker 1: with a cover of Bobby Bores Pickett's song on Cameo
Speaker 1: Parkway before Pickett could get Capezi and packs And into
Speaker 1: the studio for a follow up, which is why Picket's
Speaker 1: full length is called the original Monster Mash. But there's
Speaker 1: apparently no bad blood. You can see footage of the
Speaker 1: pair performing this song together on YouTube. Pick And said, Gary,
Speaker 1: like Lenny, was not a terribly professional individual, which is
Speaker 1: a tremendous understatement, so there would always be delays in
Speaker 1: areas of promotion and recording dates. By the time we
Speaker 1: had finished Monsters Holiday and Monster Motion, which was the
Speaker 1: follow up single, John Zacherlely on Cameo Parkway Records had
Speaker 1: sold forty copies of a unit called Monster Mash. That's
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift numbers these days. Yeah, yeah, seriously, I blamed Gary,
Speaker 1: and I blamed London Records for not getting an LP
Speaker 1: out to follow the two singles. Getting Gary and Me
Speaker 1: into the studio was a laborious process. Once we got there,
Speaker 1: it was done in a rush and it was slip shot.
Speaker 1: It was amazing that anything got done at all. Monster motion.
Speaker 1: That's gotta be a locomotion. Uh that he did move on,
Speaker 1: at least artistically, relatively quickly, at least in the moment.
Speaker 1: He attempted to pivot to teen idol style crooning with
Speaker 1: a gloppy ballad called Graduation Day, which he has repeatedly
Speaker 1: called embarrassing, although it did crack the Hot one hundred
Speaker 1: in June sixty three, which keeps him from being a
Speaker 1: true one hit wonder in the strictest definition of the word.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good song. That the Beach Boys did
Speaker 1: a version of that that was released as a bonus track.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that Mike Love was out there
Speaker 1: just agitating for Bobby Boris Pickett in the Beach Boys.
Speaker 1: It's like, we gotta do it a cover. When Star
Speaker 1: Trek came out into The Doctor Tremento Show twelve years later,
Speaker 1: Mike Love somewhere was like, it's a good song. Brian,
Speaker 1: get out of bed. I got a song for you.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a cheeseburger if you do this Star
Speaker 1: Trek parody. They did, They know him the right songs
Speaker 1: with bags of cheeseburgers. Who among us? I mean, that's
Speaker 1: how you get me to do this podcast. A year later,
Speaker 1: Bobby rehashed the Carloff impression for cover of an old
Speaker 1: novelty Western swing song called Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that cigarette.
Speaker 1: You may remember, the original being in the opening credits
Speaker 1: of the Air and cart film Thank You for Smoking,
Speaker 1: the band on that he christened to the Filter Tip Kickers. Sadly,
Speaker 1: that had the poor timing to be released just as
Speaker 1: the dangers of smoking were beginning to be made public,
Speaker 1: so whoops. He was, however, able to parlay his success
Speaker 1: into a run of guest spots on TV shows like
Speaker 1: Dr Kildair, Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, Bobby Bores
Speaker 1: but it was on Bonanza You Know It Wow, and
Speaker 1: later t J. Hooker starring William Shatner. And he was
Speaker 1: also when commercials for things like Schlitz beer and lipped
Speaker 1: in iced tea just as it. I just can't imagine
Speaker 1: him appearing in any of these things without referencing the
Speaker 1: fact that he was the voice of Monster Match. I
Speaker 1: just love Bobby's work. Ethic man, you cannot accuse this
Speaker 1: guy of not getting out there and pounding the damp pavement,
Speaker 1: just covered in flop sweat, staggering from one commercial bit
Speaker 1: part God of Him. But unfortunately, real success as an
Speaker 1: actor eluded him, though he continued to appear in regional
Speaker 1: theater wherever he lived throughout the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: including it an off Broadway performance in New York, and
Speaker 1: he would later co star with Tony Curtis in a
Speaker 1: movie that Orson Wells was supposed to have been involved with,
Speaker 1: Lobster Man from Mars. I have heard that Orson Welles
Speaker 1: was supposed to hurt I read this. I gotta stop
Speaker 1: saying that. Sources tell me me googling things alone at
Speaker 1: three in the morning, and my pajama pants told me
Speaker 1: that Orson Wells was supposed to star in this movie
Speaker 1: and died, and Tony Curtis picked it up anyway. From
Speaker 1: the late sixties into the early seventies, pick It apparently
Speaker 1: pivoted to working in a folk duo with his then
Speaker 1: wife Joan Payne, working what he called the Ski resort
Speaker 1: areas singing soft folk harmonies. There are photos or at
Speaker 1: least a photo of the two of them together doing
Speaker 1: this act as Picket and Paine on Sale and eBay.
Speaker 1: He has a must sash and long hair and looks
Speaker 1: like Lee hazel Wood. It's amazing. Uh. They supposedly toward Europe.
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that they got as far as Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Then they both moved to New York in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: where Picky was driving a cab and she was working
Speaker 1: as a waitress before Monster Mash recharted again in seventy three. Uh,
Speaker 1: he said either to the Washington Post of the l
Speaker 1: A Times. I forget what he said. It was on
Speaker 1: the charts for six months before anyone told me that
Speaker 1: it had been re released, let alone charted. I called
Speaker 1: the head of London Records, Walt McGuire, and said, well,
Speaker 1: I hear the records doing well. He said yeah. I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm driving a cab here in New York City. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if I could turn my cabin and come
Speaker 1: get a check I have. Oh yeah, a little bit. Hey,
Speaker 1: Philip Glass drove a cab until I stand on the beach.
Speaker 1: He was driving a cabin instant on the beach came out.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, um. I have read this and been unable
Speaker 1: to substantiate, but I dearly hope it is true that
Speaker 1: when Pickett took the crypt Kickers out again in seventy three,
Speaker 1: a teenaged Eddie Van Halen was among the musicians who
Speaker 1: backed him up the timeline tracks. And it would have
Speaker 1: been like eighteen or nineteen when they came through California,
Speaker 1: so might have been in one of the pickup bands. Uh.
Speaker 1: He did pop sort of back into the main stream
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies with a truly truly star trek
Speaker 1: novelty hit called star Drek. I've never heard this. It's
Speaker 1: just like spoken word. It's awful. It's not even to
Speaker 1: like a like a recognizable tune. Uh. It appeared on
Speaker 1: Dr Demento and apparently became its most requested number. I
Speaker 1: dcor Demento was a huge I guess and dear friend,
Speaker 1: big fan and friend of Bobby Boris Pickett. He would
Speaker 1: just play whatever Bobby put out. But in that song,
Speaker 1: the USS Enterprise is renamed the Booby Prize. I don't
Speaker 1: get it. I think Booby Prize was like it was
Speaker 1: like a gag prize. But I don't think it was
Speaker 1: like a boom. I don't think it was like a
Speaker 1: cleavage reference. But who's to say, Who's who's to say? Uh?
Speaker 1: The year after that, Bobby came out with you can't
Speaker 1: even say with the straight I can't because I, as
Speaker 1: you referenced, I thought it was gonna be an Elton
Speaker 1: johnre so did. I'm so mad it wasn't. He came
Speaker 1: out with Kings with King Kong Your Song, which is
Speaker 1: sadly not a parody of Elton John's Your Song. It
Speaker 1: was right there. Who uh? In Bobby released Monster Rap,
Speaker 1: which is what you'd expect. Frankenstein's Monster is having trouble
Speaker 1: learning how to speak. So the scientist who takes the
Speaker 1: form of Bobby Boris Pickets bores call off impression teaches
Speaker 1: him how to rap, and amazingly, have you heard that?
Speaker 1: Did you listen to that one? Oh? It's so good.
Speaker 1: It's actually like it's pretty funny because it's like there
Speaker 1: are in fact, like there's like drum programming and synths
Speaker 1: on it, so it it's like sort of sounds like
Speaker 1: hip hop of the time. Amazingly, Bobby bors. Picket kept
Speaker 1: this going into two thousand five, when he teamed with
Speaker 1: an environmental organization, Clean Air, and released Climate Mash, which
Speaker 1: that's that's a that's a stretch. It's Monster Mash, as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, with lyrics about climate change. A worthy cause, yes,
Speaker 1: but and one near and dear to his heart. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's true. Just the year prior, in two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: he'd released Monster Slash. I'm sponsored by the Campaign to
Speaker 1: Protect America's Lands and the Feathers of Wildlife Action Fund,
Speaker 1: which encouraged citizens to write in against the proposal to
Speaker 1: permit logging, mining, and other activities and protected areas. God
Speaker 1: love him. One of his most common quips about the
Speaker 1: song was, it's paid my rent for the last insert.
Speaker 1: However many decades it has been. He said that in
Speaker 1: every interview. Um, but the rights to the song we're
Speaker 1: messed up, you know, as you would expect for an
Speaker 1: early sixties novelty song cut by the likes of Garyus Paxton.
Speaker 1: So he's recut Monster Mash a few times. Um. When
Speaker 1: Paxiston was still alive, pick It told the l a
Speaker 1: Times this is an eight seven that the two had
Speaker 1: planned to re release Monster Mash in ninety seven. London
Speaker 1: Records had distributed the initial single. That label was later
Speaker 1: bought by PolyGram, so pick It explained. The lawyers told
Speaker 1: us that PolyGram International held the rights, so we went
Speaker 1: to them, but they told us we don't own that song.
Speaker 1: So we went ahead and released it on Rhino Records,
Speaker 1: and PolyGram's lawyers call us and say, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: We own that record. It's been kind of that thing
Speaker 1: all along. A single that sells four million copies still
Speaker 1: gets lost in the paperwork. Two years later, a guy
Speaker 1: by the name of Stuart Kirsch, who was the son
Speaker 1: of Marshall King, the resident hypnotist on the Howard Stern Show,
Speaker 1: began managing Picket and learned that he did not own
Speaker 1: the master recording of the original song, so they recut
Speaker 1: a note perfect recreation of the song, which they began
Speaker 1: marketing for licensing opportunities via a direct website www dot
Speaker 1: The Monster mash dot com, which is still live to
Speaker 1: this day, and it features the promise we monstrously undercut
Speaker 1: Universal and Rheino for the other two people you would
Speaker 1: have to go through to license it. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: is still up and it contains Hirsh's personal phone number
Speaker 1: and his email address, which is simply the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: at a o L dot com. Incredible as think it
Speaker 1: was telling journalist jan Alan Henderson that I've worked more
Speaker 1: in the last five years than i have in fifteen
Speaker 1: or twenty, including a theme park called Spooky World. I
Speaker 1: guess there were two of them. This was like an
Speaker 1: international thing and now I yeah, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I was one in New Hampshire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Around this time, another thing came, another thing rose from
Speaker 1: the dead in Bobby Pickett's life. Uh. He had written
Speaker 1: a musical called I'm Sorry the Bridge is out You'll
Speaker 1: have to spend the night with a guy named Shelton Allman,
Speaker 1: who is a television writer who also wrote the lyrics
Speaker 1: to the George of the Jungle theme song. And they
Speaker 1: teamed up on this um and I guess it was
Speaker 1: picked up by some local theaters. At some point it
Speaker 1: came to the attention of the guys who co wrote
Speaker 1: toy Story, Joel Cohen not the one you're thinking of,
Speaker 1: and Alex Sokolow. They produced a movie called Monster Mash.
Speaker 1: The movie of this which starts not only Bobby Pickett
Speaker 1: and Dr Demento, but John Waters, bit player, mink Stole,
Speaker 1: Fullhouse is Candice Camberon and the host of the View
Speaker 1: and Dancing with the Stars, Judge Carry and in Naba.
Speaker 1: Not the Joel Cohen you're thinking of, but you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the first person to make that mistake. Bill Murray
Speaker 1: famously only signed on to do the Garfield movie because
Speaker 1: he saw Joel Cohen's name on the script and thought
Speaker 1: it was the good one. As I mentioned earlier, Bobby
Speaker 1: Boris pickets autobiography is currently going for hundreds of dollars
Speaker 1: on E Day, so I was not able to get
Speaker 1: a lot of details about his personal life, but from
Speaker 1: what I was it seemed kind of sad. He and
Speaker 1: Joan divorced, uh and at some point in seventies their
Speaker 1: son drowned in a swimming pool when he was three
Speaker 1: years old. Um, you know, you want to put like
Speaker 1: review lens on this, but it does seem like this
Speaker 1: guy's life had a lot of death in it. There
Speaker 1: was his agent who died two weeks after signing him.
Speaker 1: Is you know his son tragically drowned. And Lenny Capezi,
Speaker 1: who wrote the song with him died after battling heroin addiction.
Speaker 1: But there was an even bigger twist waiting in the
Speaker 1: wings for Pickett. His manager Stuart Harrish told Vice inteen
Speaker 1: that at one point pick And made an offhand comment
Speaker 1: to him that he might have a daughter somewhere out
Speaker 1: in the world, and the pair undertook a search and
Speaker 1: found the likely candidate, but a DNA test proved negative.
Speaker 1: Soon after, a completely different woman contacted them, claiming to
Speaker 1: be Pickett's daughter. Incredibly, this happened a week before Halloween
Speaker 1: that year, of course, uh and Pikett's sister, Linda s Proctor,
Speaker 1: said she remembered the day of the call. She told
Speaker 1: a newspaper that when Bigot hung up the phone that day,
Speaker 1: he said he knew she was someone special, that minity
Speaker 1: heard her voice, and his manager, Stuart Hirst added, they
Speaker 1: met up at the airport and they looked so similar
Speaker 1: that they didn't even have to do a DNA test,
Speaker 1: and pick It, he said, went from this loader to
Speaker 1: a family guy, and he loved it. And he spent
Speaker 1: the holidays with his newfound daughter and grandkids, and it
Speaker 1: was beautiful. And the woman whose name was Nancy, who's
Speaker 1: h u U s she'd obviously heard the song Monster
Speaker 1: Match before. She told Billboard. When I found him, he
Speaker 1: was out of his mind, thrilled since he thought he
Speaker 1: was going to grow old alone. I still remember the
Speaker 1: night I told my kids that Grandpa is the Monster
Speaker 1: Match singer. Not every child gets to hear their dad
Speaker 1: on the radio every year. I feel blessed that story.
Speaker 1: Man just comes out of nowhere and it just gets me.
Speaker 1: I just I love that our for him. Um. Bobby
Speaker 1: Pickett died in April of two thousand seven of leukemia.
Speaker 1: He kept performing live until November two thousand six. That's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Hersch has this tremendous anecdote. He said that he he
Speaker 1: told Vice that he would call Picket at the hospital
Speaker 1: to check up on him after his regular blood transfusions,
Speaker 1: and Pickett would get on the phone and say, in
Speaker 1: his dracular voice, STU, there's nothing like fresh blood. This
Speaker 1: guy commits to love it. Um. Nancy was at pickets
Speaker 1: side when he died, and true to form, Bobby Boris
Speaker 1: Pickett was able to get his name in the headlines
Speaker 1: one last time after he shuffled loose this mortal coil.
Speaker 1: She said in two thousand and seven, I saw a
Speaker 1: show about turning cremated remains into diamonds, and I immediately
Speaker 1: called my father and told him that I wanted to
Speaker 1: make a diamond from his cremated remains. He loved the idea.
Speaker 1: H This company called Life Jem complied, creating a point
Speaker 1: forty four carrot colorless diamond from Bobby's remains, and she
Speaker 1: wears in a white gold solitaire ring to this day.
Speaker 1: They sent out a press release with this news and
Speaker 1: that quote, and everyone and their mother gleefully aggregated it
Speaker 1: because you can't keep Bobby Boris pick it down. I
Speaker 1: love this story. I love this song. There is something
Speaker 1: so wonderfully American about the story of Bobby Pickett. Here
Speaker 1: was a guy, Here's a guy who wanted to be
Speaker 1: one thing, lucked into being another thing that he didn't
Speaker 1: love that much, which he stole in the first place,
Speaker 1: and then maintained an iron grip on that consolation prize
Speaker 1: for his entire life, choking every last bit of life
Speaker 1: out of it until the end of his own And
Speaker 1: now every year he rises from the grave with a
Speaker 1: gleeful laugh to help us celebrate Halloween. The most wonder
Speaker 1: fulle American of all holidays. The day we stopped shutting
Speaker 1: death away and it's sterile cloisters, march it out into
Speaker 1: our streets and windows to stare it full in the
Speaker 1: eye and threaten ut, telling it to give us candy
Speaker 1: or we'll tp its house. God, I love Halloween. I'm
Speaker 1: glad I did the song pick it set in the
Speaker 1: interview because some people never get to do anything that's
Speaker 1: really sweet. That's God love him. Say it with us, folks.
Speaker 1: I was working in the lab one night. I'm going
Speaker 1: horse with my enthusiasm for Bobby Boris Pickett. Jordan is
Speaker 1: staring into middle distance like a like a shell shocked,
Speaker 1: hollow version of himself. This has been too much information.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Keep listening for more of our
Speaker 1: October Fest two right, Jordan, we got we got two
Speaker 1: more weeks. This yea believe so yes to keep the
Speaker 1: SOPs occupied for a little while. Thanks for listening, folks.
Speaker 1: Has been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel and I'm
Speaker 1: Jordan Runt Talk. We'll catch you next time. Too Much
Speaker 1: Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's
Speaker 1: executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written
Speaker 1: and hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Heigel, with
Speaker 1: original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.
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