Monster Movie Ball

TRACK #337:

Monster Movie Ball by Spike Jones

Now here’s a song that we’ve been putting off since jump.

Yep, this one’s been in the bullpen forever.

So long in fact, it was on pre-internet versions of the playlist that were played and distributed. But it’s high time to kick it on out, if only so I can stop thinking about it anymore.

I don’t imagine any playlist featuring as much novelty music as The Shindig would be complete if it didn’t feature at least one tune from The Godfather of Novelty songs himself, Mr. Spike Jones.

In the days before Rock ‘N Roll ruined everything, Spike and his City Slickers reigned supreme. He was the Weird Al of his era, though I’m not sure if that reference even holds much weight here in 2023. But he was a songsman and comedian in equal order, and having your popular tune get “spiked” was a sign you had made it big.

Though WW2 era songs about Hitler and All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth are all well and good, they’re certainly not Shindigable. However, like any novelty man worth his weight in buffalo nickels, Spike released a Horror record. 1959’s Spike Jones in Hi-Fi featured a ghastly cover with Spike as a Teenage Brain Surgeon surrounded by monsters. The album had lots of horror goings-one including a reference to Plan 9 featuring Vampira herself, Ms. Malia Nurmi. Even legendary singer and voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft, most notable for being Tony The Tiger and singing You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, makes an appearance.

But for our part, it is track 6 which concerns us, a monster of a referential monster party tune, and one of the older Monster Songs on the playlist.

Spike details the gathering of Monsters big and small at his Monster Movie Ball, and as we’ve said several times around here, a full 3 years before Boris Pickett and his Cryptkickers.

But Spike’s song isn’t simply a Monster Song, featuring generic avatars of the Big 5. Nay! Monster Movie Ball, as its name suggests, is a bonafide referential hitter. In addition to name dropping all the classics, Spike finds time to reference House of Wax and The Mole People and actual creep Peter Lorre.

But he even mentions real-world singing fiends like Vampira, Zacherlee, Dave Savile’s Witch Doctor, and makes Dracula do the Cha Cha Cha à la Bruno Martino. Not too shabby.

So Spike, my apologies. Though you’ve been with us for 20 years and have been passed over, time and time again for 10, today is your day. Welcome aboard, buddy!

Midnight Monsters Hop

TRACK #334:

Midnight Monster Hop by Jack and Jim

We said we’re diggin’ deep and clearing out the bullpen in 2023, so here’s a Halloween compilation staple that’s been kicking around for longer than I can remember.

I’m glad I waited though, since last year’s Halloween Ends turned this Referential Monster dinger into a full blown Inclusive jam.

And much like Pete Antell’s It’s Halloween, Jack and Jim’s classic Midnight Monsters Hop is the best thing going for Halloween Ends and it’s literally the first minute and a half of the film.

Seriously, you can stop watching after this song ends. In fact, you could just listen to this, which features the opening dialogue with the entire tune, and probably have a more satisfying time than wading through that fan-fic grade afterthought jerk-off session they tried to pass off as the ultimate bookend to a legendary 40-year-old Horror saga. Hell, H20 is a more satisfying conclusion to the whole affair than that turd.

But I digress, cause we got this song. A bonafide Halloween jammer from 1959. Yep, you read that right. 3 years before Boris Pickett unveiled his own swinging Monster Party, Jack and Jim were laying the groundwork for monster get-togethers everywhere.

However, Bert Convy still has ‘em all beat, and no doubt provided inspiration to both, with his 1958 cut simply titled The Monsters Hop.

Credit where it’s due though, cause I think Jack and Jim here are serving up probably the swingingest tune of the bunch. It’s used to great effect in Halloween Ends too, actually tricking you into thinking you’re about to watch something cool. No such luck.

We’ve led it in, of course, with hometown hero Willy the Kid on WURG The Urge… Haddonfield’s home for rock!

You gotta love it when a horror movie gives you some solid DJ action, and Willy gets it good to The Cramp’s I Was a Teenage Werewolf. At least, I guess he gets it good. As good as that turkey is giving anyway. Unfortunately, he’s a little underutilized in the story and his death scene feels like it’s ripped from some other movie. Some movie you might rather be watching.

At least compared to the one you’ve been watching. I’m not sure the movie on display at WURG is worth watching either, but at least Michael’s not getting slapped around in a cave by some dildo who been getting bullied by a bunch of high school band dorks. A shame really, what they did to Michael.

And not just in Halloween Ends either (though perhaps the most undignified) but the whole damn lot of it, all the way down the line. From making him Laurie’s brother, to bringing him back from complete incineration, to positing him as some sort of Druid-curse vessel, to making his mask CG, to letting Busta Rhymes karate kick him out a window on a reality show, to making him some generic bullying victim with a white trash stripper mom.

It’s unfortunate that Michael couldn’t have been left to just wander off into the Halloween night, never to be seen again. Now there’s a reconned remakequel I could get behind.

Oh well, at least we got the 1st minute or so of Halloween Ends, featuring this classic monster tune from a duo who, like I so wish I could say for Michael Myers, we never heard from again.

The Monsters Hop

TRACK #56:

The Monsters Hop by Bert Convy

Several years before he became the host of Super Password, Tattletales and Win, Lose or Draw, and 4 years before Boris Pickett would soar to #1 on the wings of The Monster Mash, Bert Convy recorded this tune about a bunch of monsters dancing around inside a spooky house.

Though lacking the character and humor that ultimately made The Monster Mash such a smash, I rather enjoy The Monsters Hop, maybe even a bit more than Pickett’s seminal Halloween hit. I think it’s catchier, certainly more up-tempo, and nowhere near as played out as The Monster Mash. Those are some pretty big checks in the plus column, you ask me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s a better song, not by any stretch of the imagination, but when listening to the Shindig leisurely (as is my wont) I will usually skip The Monster Mash, yet I always have 2 minutes to spare for The Monsters Hop.

Halloween Shindig

TRACK #13:

Halloween Shindig by Ed Twilley and the Creepers

13’s a pretty horrific number. You got 13 Ghosts, 13 floors, 13 turns in a hangman’s noose, that hockey masked guy, the Knights Templar and all sorts of Lunar and Witchcraft associations. It’s also a prime number and appears in Fibonacci’s Sequence. Hell, it even has it’s own phobia – Triskaidekaphobia.

So, it was a nice coincidence to see this song pull into the 13 spot after some sample/track merging (the playlist originally had separate tracks for all the lead-ins.)

From one of my favorites sketches from one of my favorite sketch comedy shows of all time, Mr. Show with Bob and David, comes the namesake of the entire playlist, Halloween Shindig.

It’s a spot-on spoof of paranormal phenomenon shows like Sightings entitled Probings, and it poses one of the greatest questions of our times..

Do Monster Parties really exists?