WEBVTT - "The Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett 0:00:00.000 --> 0:00:02.400 Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.399 Hello everyone, welcome to Too Much Information, the show that 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.520 gives you the secret histories and little known fascinating facts 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:19.160 and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.400 We are your two Bobby Boris pickets of Banality. I'm 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.000 Alex Hegel and I'm during Talk. And as you may 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.800 have surmised from that intro, we are forging ahead with 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.519 our special October Fest here at t M I with 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:38.320 an installment on that deathless slice of sixties novelty music Cheese. 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:43.440 It's the velveta of sixties novelty hits Monster Match by 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:51.560 the aforementioned Bobby Boris p bar Bar's. I would ask 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.480 you your personal history with it? Do you have one? No, Well, 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:59.080 you know what I do. You may not remember this, Uh, 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.800 this song actually played a crucial role in our friendship 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.640 and indirectly the creation to the show. Um, I don't 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:07.120 think you know that. Maybe I've never told you this. 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:09.440 For those of you who don't know, which I assume 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:11.280 is all of you, because why would you know this. 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.160 I met Higel on my first day working at People 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.040 Magazine in twenty sixteen, and I spent my first day, 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.920 decorating my desk with posters of Who and the Beatles 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.880 and asking loudly if there was any chance I could 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.800 interview Neil Young. And this was emphatically not the subject 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.720 matter that people covered. We were usually doing the ins 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:32.480 and outs of Justin Bieber's love life, and I'm pretty 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:34.200 sure the first interview I ever did there was either 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.679 Josh Groban or Harry Connick Jr. But my boss, the 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.560 wise and wonderful Sarah Ma Schaud, quickly sized up the 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.039 situation and said, Hey, there's someone who wants you to meet. 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.720 His name's Alex Heigel. And the unspoken subtext of this 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.200 was he doesn't belong here either, and if you're gonna 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.960 have any friends while you work here, you guys should connect. 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.280 And we did, and it was an immediate bond, and 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.080 you intimidated me greatly because you had tattoos and I 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:02.000 had none, and you didn't suffer fools gladly and I do. 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.280 And we got to know each other. We never really 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.040 worked together. I was an editor in the music section 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.720 and you were more of a generalist writer reporter, I 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.400 remember correctly, so our past didn't really cross on the 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.000 day to day, but then one day I was assigned 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.520 to edit one of your stories for the first time, 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:25.480 and it was this compelling, amazingly exhaustively researched history of 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:29.120 Monster Mash by Bobby bors Picket, And that was the 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.160 moment that we connected on this level, the t M 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.280 I level. I realized that you were just as much 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.280 of a freak as I was. So I actually will 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.880 always think of you when I hear this song. I 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.560 know that it was an amazing piece. It's still out 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:44.600 there on people right now, on people dot com, so 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.720 I got check it out. My parents got me. One 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:49.240 of the tapes that I had as a kid was 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:51.920 a compilation of sixties novelty songs. So it was like 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.360 this and like chev Wouli, Purple People Leader, And I 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:57.400 was trying to ask my dad this. He didn't remember. 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.720 Do you remember what that song was? That's like music 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.840 concrete like style, cut up collage. It's a fake news 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.839 bulletin about aliens coming to earth. But it's like cut 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.120 up from single lines of like dozens of other songs. 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:15.519 Oh man, it's not Joe Meek, is it? No? No sixties? 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.840 And yeah, I don't know anyway. That's so. Yeah, this 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:20.360 was one of my I used to play that tape 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.079 over and over again. It's one of my earliest musical memories. Yeah. So, 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:29.400 from the possibly legally insane and wildly prolific producer behind 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.560 this track, to the song's tenuous connection to James Brown 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:37.040 to Bobby Boris Pickets dogged attempts to continually update his 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.200 song with the times. Here is everything you didn't know 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:49.920 about the Monster Mash Pickett was born in summer Real, Massachusetts. 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.000 As he explained in one often aggregated interviews, he said, 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.240 you had two choices as a young man. You could 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:58.520 either be a gangster when you grew up, or an athlete. 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.520 Somerville was a tough place to live, but it was 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.400 a place where you could leave your door open and 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:08.200 no one would rob you. Well, maybe everyone knew everyone, 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.160 even though it was a city three miles long. And 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.560 if Somerville brings a crime related name for you, that's 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.080 because it's Winter Hill. Neighborhood where Bobby Boris Pickett grew up, 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:23.080 was the principal operating area of Whitey Bulger, famous criminal 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.359 head honcho famously fictionized by Jack Nicholson in The Departed. 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:30.839 Bulger was born nine years before Pickett and was already 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.000 a young man when the Winter Hill Gang was founded 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.520 by James Buddy McLean In and the Winter Hill Gang 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:39.960 fought a six year war with a group called the 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.640 McLoughlin Gang uh and what's now known as the Boston 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.760 Irish Gang War. And that started when one guy hit 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.200 on a rival gang member's girlfriend at Salisbury Beach. And 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.240 following said war, the Winter Hill Gang became the most 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.520 powerful Irish gang on the East Coast. This is all 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:01.240 operating in Bobby boris Pickets backyard. Well pick it. Fond 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:06.640 livercalls his childhood in Somerville not a place if I remember. 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:09.839 His father managed a movie theater, though, and he spent 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.200 a lot of time taking in the horror hits of 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.440 Universal Studios, watching Boris Karlov, Belle Legozi and Lawn Cheney Jr. 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.440 Stocked the screen in iconic films like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.640 and The Wolfman. At this point, the final Universal monster 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.599 that anyone actually remembers came out in fifty four, The 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.800 Creature of the Black Lagoon. But prior to that, you know, 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:34.840 this iconic period was kind of gone because they had 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.760 spent the intervening decade, introducing that entire roster of iconic 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.479 monsters to Abbott and Costello. I am not exaggerating that 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.520 was like their whole nineteen forties and come to think 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:49.159 that though that approach probably informed Pickett's entire life of 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:54.400 combining spooky stuff and cheesy humor. He did mention this 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.039 distribution company called Real Art, which actually cherry picked a 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.840 bunch of these old universal monster flack and reissued them 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.200 in the forties and fifties. And he also said that 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.839 he loved the William Castle road Show extravaganzas guy who 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.880 did Um House on hon Hill, where he had a 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.560 gimmick where a fake ghost on a wire would fly 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:14.440 from one end of the movie theater to the other, 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.520 and the buzzing seats in The Tingler, Friend of the 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.200 The Tingler making its third appearance on the t m 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.719 I podcast. Oh I didn't realize. I put it that 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.040 many times. Um Pickett did not actually have a musical childhood. 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.080 He didn't grow up singing. After a year and a 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:31.880 half in Korea with the Army as part of the 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.400 Signal Corps, he was actually on his way back that 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.680 he got his first experience with a singing group. He said, 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.680 on the ship we came back on, these guys were 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.080 putting together a show and there were three or four 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.440 of them who were singing doo wop and acapella stuff, 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.960 and they needed a bass baritone. So I became a 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.640 member of that group. But Boris wasn't exactly bitten by 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.240 the music bug when he got back to Massachusetts. Rather 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.760 than forming a band, he started performing stand up at 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.280 local places like the Irish American Club and Everett, performing 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.960 an act that he freely admits he stole. He said, 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:03.640 the first time I went on stage and Everett was 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.360 to do a five minute stand up comedy spoof of monsters, 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.080 which had kind of ripped off from a guy I 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:09.560 had seen do it on a boat when I was 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.120 returning from Korea in nineteen fifty eight. He did a 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.760 spoof of monsters. I just watched him and thought that's 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.000 a great act. He was doing Boris Karlof and Bella 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.560 Neegosti impressions. I said, you wrote that act, He said, no, 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.880 I stole it from Jack Carter. I saw it on TV. 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.160 I said, okay, then you won't mind if I use it, 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.960 and he said no, and pick it took that act 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.080 and started winning weekly talent contests with it, and uh, 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.000 I guess you get twenty five bucks a pop each 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.080 time he one, which, as he said, it was a 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.440 lot of money in those days for an unemployed x G. I. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.560 But pick it could not be kept in Summerville. No, 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.560 his ambitions were larger. He spent a year in Massachusetts 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.400 before moving out to Hollywood to try and make it 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.040 as an actor, during which time he apparently dated Chloris 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:57.560 Leachman and Diane Kennon, the eventual wife of Carry grant Um. 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.480 And this is just this is so funny. This is 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.120 that truth is stranger than fiction. Stuff. Man, he happened 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.480 to run into some other dudes from Somerville while he 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:10.400 was bumping around Hollywood, with the astoundingly perfect names of 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.840 Lenny and Billy Capezzi. They grew up in winter Hill 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.320 as well, and uh, he said that they had shown 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.000 up in Hollywood at this time with two other Italian boys, 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:25.680 Ronnie del Toro and Lou Toscano. Who's bat a thousand. 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.760 This is the smell of olive oil suddenly came into 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:33.880 my folks. I can say that, uh, and they were 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.400 going to start a singing group called the Cordials, and 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.400 they asked me if I wanted to join them. Um, we, 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.920 he continued, We'd sing in a place called Alvo Turnos 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.920 on Pico Boulevard on Friday nights. We sang in the 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.200 parking lot of Ben Frank's wherever we could get a 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.480 paying gig. Uh. Interestingly enough, Alo Turno's was owned by 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.040 Timmy Euro, who is a singer who counted Elvis among 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.960 her fans. He bought a private table for her Vegas shows, 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.520 and Morrissey, who announced her death on his website in 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.200 two thousand four. Um she do you know these songs? 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:06.800 It will never be over for me? And what's the 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.160 Matter Baby? What's the Matter Baby was covered by The 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.520 Small Faces. It's the B side of their debut single 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.480 in n There you have it, folks, we got to 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.840 one degree of separation between Morrissey and The Faces and 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.680 Monster Mash. That is the t M I guarantee. Jordan 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.240 tell us about Ben Frank's. Yeah, Ben Frank's the place 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:26.959 where I used to play in the parking lot. That 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:28.839 was a well known hippie hangout in l A and 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.400 the sixties. The advertisement that was soliciting actors to audition 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.400 for The Monkeys in nineteen sixty five specified Ben Frank types, 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:40.200 which basically euphanism for long hairs. That was a Mels 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.359 Diner on Sunset and they kept all the original architecture 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.600 and everything. It's really cool. One of the songs that 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:50.319 was in the Cordial set Bobby's early band was Little 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.720 Darlin recorded by the Diamonds, a do wop classic. I 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:57.400 love that song, uh, and I guess Pickett asked Lenny 0:09:57.440 --> 0:09:59.599 if he could do a Boris Karloff impression in the 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:05.000 middle of song, which apparently audiences immediately loved. I don't 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.240 know how they would shoehorn that in there, but pick 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.679 it's a monologue. There's like a monologue part in the beginning, 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:12.760 like the middle of the song, and it's sung by 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.520 the bass baritone. Pick It was like, Hey, but I 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.240 do this probably this Boris Carlof impression. God. As much 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.960 as I love most fifties Schmaltz, the whole phenomenon of 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.960 like the midsong breakdown, where you know, the just doing 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.480 this are you lonesome tonight? Yeah? I wanted to tell 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.640 you something. Yeah, I hate that. I just needed to 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.400 let you know. Yeah, I guess he would. I guess, well, 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:38.280 let's find let's find a little lyrics. Let's see if 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.959 you can do a little little t M I reenactment 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.680 of what this must have been like. What is the monologue? 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:45.880 Oh my god? You know the guy who wrote this song, 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.959 Dave Summerville. No way, Yeah, okay, So the monologue in 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.240 the beginning, in the middle, Uh, hang on, I was 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:59.240 working in the lab, my darling, I need you to 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.120 call my own own, never do wrong, to hold my 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.600 in mind, your little hand, something like that. It sounded 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:13.439 something like that, and lightning struck inexplicable way people loved it. Uh. 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.360 Bobby's accounts for the rest of this timeline has varied 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.160 over the years. In one telling, the very night he 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:21.800 did this bid on stage for the first time, his 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.120 bandmate Lenny said to him, you know, we should record 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.640 a novelty song like this, something like the Flying Purple 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:31.400 People Eater, which had become a big hit around this time. Uh, 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:40.920 doing that, just your cousin, Bobby Boris Pickett, you know 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:53.319 that news I was working in the lub. And another 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.080 version of this story, Bobby says that the group was 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.400 performing on a beach and after he did the Boris 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.120 karl Off it and a girl came up to them 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.680 and said, my old man produces records. He did the 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.200 song Ali Oop. He would love you guys, He'll get 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.120 your record contract. And that old man was Gary Paxton, 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.000 who had hits as part of Skip and Flip who 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.720 I don't know and the Hollywood Argyles who did the 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.200 song Ali Oop, which was the number one hit, And 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:23.920 that song was actually referenced by David Bowie on the 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.120 song Life on Mars. The lyric look at that Caveman 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.080 Go is a line from Ali. There's also Mark Bowland, 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:36.720 also referenced in a song called Truck on Tyke. Oh yeah, anyway, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:41.880 Gary Paxton, Gary s excuse me, Oh my god, this 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.680 guy's life is insane. I'm just gonna do the quick 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.480 bullet point rundown. Paxton grew up with an adopted family 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.360 on a Kansas farm with no electricity or running water. 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.760 He started in music, started playing in bands, and twelve 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.400 years old, I heard at one point backed Um Buck 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:02.200 Owens or wait or Merle Haggard, some guy in Bakersfield, 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.839 because he was part of the Bakersfield sound as well. 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.920 And he basically never stopped working in music. By the sixties, 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.200 he operated a bunch of different labels that basically just 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.720 existed to put out music that he made. I read 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.480 one account that he owned and operated or at least 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:21.840 operated five studios. Uh. He was involved with actual villain 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.200 of the l A music industry, Kim Fowley. Yes, Kim 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.800 Fowley worked with the Runaways and he put them together right. Yeah, 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:34.800 but Jackie Fox, the bassist, accused him of rape years later. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.640 Nobody has anything nice to say about Kim Fowley. But 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.400 Paxton was a genuine eccentric. I've heard many people referred 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.679 to him as just being dirty and long haired, even 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:49.560 by sixties standards. Also, this is in the early sixties. 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:54.000 This is pre like the hippie stereotype. He alienated musicians 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.080 with his in studio demeanor and refused to play ball 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.959 with other labeled executives when it came to getting his 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.720 stuff played. People just put up with him because he 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:07.880 crafted hits. Phil Spector was reportedly literally actually frightened by him. 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:12.400 I say good. Once after a radio station turned down 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.640 one of his songs, Paxton assembled a protest parade down 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.640 Hollywood Boulevard that started fifteen cheerleaders and a live elephant 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.960 pulling a Volkswagen convertible. This got him arrested when the 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.760 elephant pooped in the street. The song was called Elephant 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:31.680 Game Parentheses Part one by Renfrow and Jackson for context 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.480 less Do you think he just got an unsolicited elephant? Uh? 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.120 Paxston moved to Nashville the nineteen seventies and converted to 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.680 Christianity after wandering into a church while stoned because he 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.800 was in the middle of an existential crisis after his 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.560 musical partner died. Uh. This failed to put a dent 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.880 in his eccentricities. For nineteen seventy two Clone Affair, he 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.760 shaved his head and eyebrows and started wearing a cape. 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:02.080 When his nineteen seventy five solo album The Astonished Ing Outrageous, Amazing, incredible, 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:06.880 unbelievable Different World of Garry S. Paxton one a Grammy, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.560 he showed up to the ceremony wearing a sleeveless black 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.680 vest and leather pants. At this time, it's important to 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.520 note he had a large Mennonite beard and was going 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.800 around in a pseudo stovepipe hat. What the hell did 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:24.840 he win a Grammy for Best inspirational album In Night, 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.840 he was shot five times by men hired by a 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.560 country star he was producing, who was supposedly attempting to 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.000 get out of his contract or was simply mad about 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:34.920 the terms of his contract. I don't remember which one was. 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.040 This sidelined him for eight years, and he carried two 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.800 bullets from the shooting in his body for the rest 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:45.800 of his life. Nonetheless, he traveled to jail to forgive 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:50.720 the men personally. In The Washington Post reported that Tammy 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.000 Faye Baker had developed a crush on Paxton around the 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.600 same time that her husband Jim Baker has had the 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.960 big scandal with Jessica Han, the secretary at the evangelical 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:05.160 church the Bakers ran. Sadly, this basically ended Paxton's career 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.200 in the gospel Christian music world because he was at 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:12.000 the center of this Beeg infidelity scandal. In moved to Branson, Missouri, 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.640 friend of the Pod Branson, Missouri, and began performing in 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.760 a mask and cape as Grandpa Rock. He died in 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:25.360 He once estimated he had written two thousand songs. A 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.640 sampling of my favorite titles include Jesus is My Lawyer 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:35.280 in Heaven. If You're happy, notify your face and when 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.480 I die, just bury me at Walmart so my wife 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:43.600 will come visit me. Garius Paxton, everyone, I just want 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:45.560 to pause and say, for all those for a moment, 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:52.280 wow uh yeah. Everything that with no matter what I 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.080 could say after that really feels like a ton of 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:58.080 this letdown. But but Bobby Pickett around this time actually 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.880 quit the Cordials for a brief time his band, the Pursuit, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.480 work as an actor, explaining, at one point I got 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.359 an agent after many, many months, and after two weeks 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:08.320 of being with him, he died of a heart attack. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.639 So seeing that as some sort of a sign, he 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.720 returned to work with the Corridinals to revisit the whole 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.239 novelty song thing. Let's give you some context for the 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.440 monster craze. Well, let's just give you some context for 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.879 the monster mash period by two, the monster craze of 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:29.040 the nineteen fifties, which was aided by those reissues and 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.280 television because all this stuff started getting syndicated on TV 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:38.440 that had really blossomed. Three, a stymied actress named Malia 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:42.280 Nermi created the character of Vampira, which is she created 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.520 as a rip off of Mortitia Adams, and she launched 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.720 a successful show that started the template of these horror 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:53.680 host shows. Basically in costumes. She would introduce these classic 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.320 horror films and mock them. It was like a slash 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.440 comedy show. And it was all this stuff that affiliates 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.080 could get the rights to rebroadcast, either free or cheap, 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.760 and so they would just do these buttons with her 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:08.440 making fun of them and broadcast these and it was huge. 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.080 I mean even though only ran for a year. Soon 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.119 any regional television station that had the budget would have 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.760 one of these of their own. The one in Philadelphia 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.680 was hosted by a guy named John Zacherley, who was 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:25.000 a buddy with Dick Clark. Zachary actually cut a novelty 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:31.240 single called Dinner with drack Um that climate to number six, 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.439 as high as on Billboard in ninety eight, which is 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.480 the same year that this very influential fan magazine called 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.439 Famous Monsters of Film Land debuts. Adjacent to all of 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.000 this is the atomic age monster movies of the fifties. 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:47.080 You have nineteen fifty ones, the day they will sort 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.760 sill the War the World's nineteen fifty six is Invasion 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.360 of the Body Snatchers and then right around the turn 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.480 of the decade or becomes much more popular. We have 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.400 these proto slashers like Peeping Tom and psyche Go. Both 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:04.720 In the nineteen six Mario Bava directs Black Sunday, which 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.320 is banned. This movie it's a witchcraft theme movie. It 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.960 was banned for being I believe explicit or the occult themes. 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.160 And then Roger Corban puts out a series of these 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:19.320 Edgar Allan Poe adaptations Mask the Black Death, Hitting the Pendulum, um, 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:23.240 and those are all starring Vincent Price. It's amazing to 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:27.720 think about this stuff in context because until the exploitation era, 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.400 horror was like not disreputable. This was like cheesy popcorn entertainment. 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:35.400 They were like the Marvel movies of their day. That's 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.119 really interesting. What what change? Well, basically, I mean, this 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.119 is kind of an armchair theory of mine, but I 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:43.960 feel comfortable putting it out there. Um, you started to 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.159 get that wave of new Hollywood guys come out of 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:50.440 the USC around this time. John Carpenter particularly, and Wes 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.280 Craven is the other big one. And so in the seventies, well, 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.480 they had four Bears. There's a guy named Herschel Gordon 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.440 Lewis who was creating these violent exploitation movies. As early 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:06.040 the sixties he had Blood feast Um. His nickname is 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.920 the Godfather of Gore. But then through the mid seventies 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.359 the grindhouse circuit really kicks in, and that's when you 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.879 do see these movies start to get way more explicit. 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:15.639 And then the tail end of the seventies you have 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.200 basically the kind of shots across the Bow, Our Last 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:25.600 House on the Left, Texas, Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween. And 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:31.399 Halloween was the explicit inspiration for Sean Cunningham, who was 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:36.000 directing porn, to make Friday, and that is really what 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.200 jump starts the slasher craze the eighties. And and then 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.080 concurrently with that you have what's called the video Nasties 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.520 in the UK, which was a bunch of band titles. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.560 So basically late seventies through the mid eighties is when 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.639 it gets really gross. I mean also the practical effects 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.080 advanced to the point where people like Tom Saffini or 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.840 coming out of Vietnam and just going into Hollywood and 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.840 making horor effects that reminded him of his Vietnam. That 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.800 is explicitly his inspiration for the stuff on the Georgia Marrow. 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:08.720 He was like, Yeah, I was just doing all this 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.160 stuff I saw in nom Wow. Anyway, don't ever prompt 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:15.840 me about horror movies again, because you get a three 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:21.240 minute monologue. We're going to take a quick break, but 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:23.840 we'll be right back with more too much information in 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:37.760 just a moment. Well, all of us to say back 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.680 to the Monster Mash by the National Pump was primed 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.240 for a guy to do an extended Boris Karloff riff 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:48.280 in a novelty song and pickup remembers. The may or 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.560 Sometimes June accounts very two writing session that produced Monster Mash. 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:56.320 Thus Lee Lenny Capeezi said, yeah, come on over Saturday. 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:58.800 I go over at the designated time, and of course 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.840 he's asleep. To wake him up, and he continued the 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.840 account in his two thousand five autobiography, Lenny sat down 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.280 at the piano and began futson with various four chord progressions, 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:11.359 and I stood next to the piano like me. Lenny 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.160 was a major horror movie fan from childhood. He loved 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:17.120 Bella Legosia's Dracula. He knew I had a Boris carl 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:20.000 Off voice pretty nailed although in retrospect I feel that 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:22.399 what I actually had was a very cartoonish rendition of 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:27.119 that wonderful actor's voice. You say that Pickets two thousand 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.760 five autobiography, which is called Monster Mash Half Dead in Hollywood, 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:33.680 is extremely rare, and copies of it are selling for 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:38.440 upwards of three on Amazon. Yeah, dude, not available digitally either. 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:42.399 I would have read the whole thing. Lenny arrives at 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.120 the classic doo Wop one minor six, four or five 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:47.879 chord progression, and Pickett said it was his idea to 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.960 capitalize on the monster craze and the novelty dance craze. 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:54.760 He said, at the time, I thought the Twist was 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.720 the latest dance, but Lenny said, no, it's the mashed Potato. 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:00.159 So I said, that's even better. We can call up 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:03.639 the Monster Mashed Potato. We shortened it to Monster Mash 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:07.119 and the rest was history. In about three hours, they 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.400