“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.