If you ask 100 people what their favorite Christmas song is, there's a good chance you'll get about 50 different answers. Heck, maybe close to a hundred different answers.

Right around the fourth of July, go ahead and ask a hundred people what their favorite patriotic song is, and you'll get just about the same number of different answers.

And then there's Halloween. Favorite Halloween song?

Well, there might be a few different song titles, but overwhelmingly the most legendary of them all would have to be 'Monster Mash'.

It's hard to believe this fun masterpiece has been around for well over a half century. And while for many the name Bobby Pickett may not ring a bell, you put 'Boris' in the middle of that name and suddenly it's famous.

Oh yeah. Bobby 'Boris' Pickett. And his band the Crypt-Kickers.

He co-wrote the now classic 'Monster Mash' and brought it around to just about every record label back there in 1962. I mean literally, just about every one.

And they all said 'Thanks, but no thanks'.

Finally Gary Paxton said oh, what the heck, and released it on his own Garpax records and...


The song hit the top of the music chart two weeks before Halloween and became a million seller. And, as they say, the rest is history.

Bobby 'Boris' Pickett wrote many other songs, including a lot of parodies, but nothing approached the status of 'Monster Mash'. And I'm thinkin' that come every October his family smiles because they know that, all these decades later, there's going to be a nice royalty check coming in the mail!

Bobby passed away in 2007 at the age of 69 from leukemia. But as for the 'Monster Mash'? Thankfully that will never die.

Wikipedia Contributed To This Article

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