On Halloween eve, Shallow Nation pays tribute to Michael Jackson’s classic music video, “Thriller”….

a 14-minute music video for the song of the same name released on December 2, 1983 and directed by John Landis. It is often considered to be the best music video of all time, and redefined the concept of music videos; hence it is acclaimed in its genre. It was the most expensive video of its time, costing US$800,000 — the equivalent of 1.4 million in 2007 U.S. dollars, until Michael beat his own record with sister Janet for the US$7,000,000 video for “Scream“. It also held the record for the world’s longest music video, ceding that to Jackson’s 35 minute, long-form music video, “Ghosts“, in 1996.

“Thriller” was less a conventional video and more a full-fledged short subject or mini-film; a horror film spoof featuring choreographed zombies performing with Jackson. The music was re-edited to match the video, with the verses being sung one after the other followed by the ending rap, then the main dance sequence (filmed on Union Pacific Avenue, Los Angeles) to an instrumental loop, and finally the memorable finish: the choruses in a “big dance number” climactic scene. During the video, Jackson transforms into both a zombie and a werewolf (although makeup artist Rick Baker referred to it as a “cat monster” in the “Making of Thriller” documentary); familiar territory for Landis, who had directed An American Werewolf in London two years earlier. Co-starring with Jackson was former Playboy centerfold Ola Ray. The video was choreographed by Michael Peters (who had worked with the singer on his prior hit “Beat It“), with significant contributions by Jackson. The video also contains incidental music by film music composer Elmer Bernstein, who had previously also worked with Landis on An American Werewolf in London. The video (like the song) contains a spoken word performance by Vincent Price, horror film veteran. Rick Baker assisted in prosthetics and makeup for the production.

“Monster Mash” was the late Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s one and only hit song. It was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks before Halloween in 1962. From The New York Times:

Mr. Pickett’s multimillion-selling single — with the indelible chorus “He did the monster mash, it was a graveyard smash” — hit the charts three times: on its original release in 1962, when it reached No. 1, and in 1970 and 1973. Mr. Pickett’s Karloff impression was forged in Somerville, Mass., where as a 9-year-old he watched horror films in a theater managed by his father. He later made it part of his act when he began performing in Hollywood nightclubs in 1959.

Mr. Pickett also did the voice when performing with his band the Cordials. A bandmate, Lenny Capizzi, persuaded Mr. Pickett to do a song featuring the Karloff impression, and “Monster Mash” was born.

In the song, a mad scientist tells of seeing a monster he had created rise from a slab “late one night” to perform a new dance. Soon it becomes a craze when other monsters arrive and join in.

The song was backed by a band christened the Crypt-Kickers and a little-known piano player at the time named Leon Russell. Four major labels rejected the song before Gary Paxton, lead singer on the Hollywood Argyles’ hit “Alley Oop,” released “Monster Mash” on his own.

On Halloween Eve, Shallow Nation invites you to watch and listen to Bobby “Boris” Pickett in a live performance of “Monster Mash” which took place on October 28, 2006 at the Chiller Theatre Toy, Model and Film Expo in New Jersey. This was Pickett’s final live performance of the song. A trouper to the very end, Pickett wryly remarks, before engaging in an enthusiastic and energetic performance, that this was the song that Elvis Presley had once called the dumbest thing he ever heard.

It was just a few days ago that Robert Goulet, awaiting a lung transplant, uttered words of triumph and hope: “Hey, let,’s go, give me a new pair of lungs and I, I’ll hit the high notes till I’m 100.” He has died:

Robert Goulet, who marshaled his dark good looks and thundering baritone voice to play a dashing Lancelot in the original “Camelot” in 1960, then went on to a wide-ranging career as a singer and actor, winning a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy, died today. He was 73.

The singer died in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, a Goulet spokesman said in an e-mail, according to the Associated Press.

In September, Mr. Goulet received a diagnosis of interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, a rapidly progressive, potentially fatal condition, his wife, Vera, said in a statement released on Oct. 25 on Mr. Goulet’s website. On Oct. 13, he was transferred from a hospital in Las Vegas, where he lived, to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to await the transplant.

After the “Camelot” triumph, Mr. Goulet was called the next great matinee idol. Judy Garland described him as a living 8-by-10 glossy. He was swamped with offers to do movies, television shows and nightclub engagements. Few articles failed to mention his bedroom blue eyes, and many female fans tossed him room keys during performances. His hit song from the show, “If Ever I Would Leave You,” remains a romantic standard.

“Something in his voice evokes old times and romance,” Alex Witchel wrote in the New York Times Magazine in 1993. “He makes you remember corsages.”

Still, Mr. Goulet left a sense that he might have even been more than he was. For a suave musical theater performer, he arrived late, just after Elvis and just before the Beatles. In 1961, The New York Daily News Magazine called him “just the man to help stamp out rock ’n’ roll.” But it was an impossible assignment.

Moreover, the public had begun to lose its appetite for over-the-top entertainment deities. “We’re no longer something that’s on the dark side of the moon — unattainable,” Mr. Goulet told The Saturday Evening Post in 1963.

We pay tribute with a video: Robert Goulet and Barbara Cook’s “Salute to the 1962 Broadway Season. (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Camelot, No Strings & Milk and Honey)