TRACK #429:

Monster Rock by Mark Keefner

Now, you might look at Frankenstein The College Years and think “Yeah, ok. So they just made Encino Man but changed him to a Frankenstein? Cool, I guess. Whatever,” and you really couldn’t be blamed for thinking such a thing.

But then, you might notice that this movie debuted almost 7 months before Encino Man hit theaters. Interestingly for us, it aired on October 28th, 1991 as part of Fox’s Halloween Bash, which I fully have memories of watching, as I was already a loyal Simpsons fan by that point, eagerly awaiting the new Treehouse of Horror.

I can’t say I watched Frankenstein the College Years when it aired. I most certainly saw a promo for it, but I have no recollection of seeing this at the time. It’s possible my mind blocked that memory to protect itself, but this sort nonsense is the kind of thing I might have enjoyed at that age, so I think that rules out any subconscious memory suppression.

I wish I could very much consciously suppress the more recent memories I have of watching it, but that’s only due the movie’s failure to delivery on what is, at its core, a great concept. The idea of Frankenstein getting into some sex-fueled college hi-jinx has lots of comedic potential. Frankenstein The College Years, in practice however, lives up to almost none of that potential.

When 2 college students find a Frankenstein in the laboratory of their deceased professor, they decide to animate him, as ya do. What ensues is a lot of football and wardrobe changes, honestly. H.O.T.S.! this ain’t.

But, like any good movie from the early 90’s that hadn’t fully accepted the 80’s were over yet, Frankenstein The College Years features a sweet montage set to a song that’s practically begging to be on The Shindig. It’s a monster of an Inclusive Monster Song called Monster Rock.

Instead of showing us a bunch of Frank-out-of-water buffoonery around the campus though, the film quite literally spends the entire length of this song having him changes outfits. It’s pretty harmless, but it’s definitely a prime example of the movie squandering its promising premise.

This song comes to us courtesy of Mark Keeiner, who is probably best known for not being known at all. Outside of this particular song, I can’t seem to find any mentions of him at all whatsoever. So there’s that.

However, I forgot his name, so I looked at the credits the last time I watch it (yeah, I’ve seen this more than once) and the fuzzy quality of the rips left me with a bit of a mystery. See, IMDb is really the only place I see the performer’s name listed as “Mark Keeiner,” and so of course, all the YouTube videos of this song follow suit. However, I believe this is just an error. The on screen text is blurry but, to me at least, the “I” in Keeiner looks like an “f.” I know last names can be strange, but let’s be real here, how the hell would one even pronounce “Keeiner.” Surely it’s Keefner, right?

Here’s a screenshot, just to prove I’m an absolute loser who isn’t making any of this shit up. This is what I really do, in my spare time, as a fuckin adult no less – triple verify the performer of some goofy monster song featured in an completely memory-holed 90’s made-for-TV monster comedy. What in the quantifiable fuck.

C’mon! Is that an “i” or an “f”? Well, honestly it’s kind of unclear, and this was the cleanest copy I could find. Looks like and “f” to me, but I can see how this got input into IMDb as “Keenier” for sure.

On a whim, I gave the “f” a go, and as luck might have it, Mark Keefner got a hit! He’s a composer and performer no less, who wrote the song Where’s the Fire for 1989’s She’s Out of Control and performed the song Feels Like Home for the 1993 Swayze comedy vehicle Father Hood. Now, is this the same guy? Seems like a pretty odd coincidence that changing one letter (and into the exact letter I figured it looked like, mind you) produced a fellow performer and songwriter from the exact same era, no? I’m not finding shit else for a Mark Keeiner, with his weird ass last name.

After arguing with Google’s AI search for what felt like 3 hours, trying to find the song Feels Like Home and investigate Mark Keeiner vs Mark Keefner, believe I finally found proof that the performer in question is indeed Mark Keefner.

AI is dumb, especially when searching for basic information online. It confidently comes to conclusions that can’t be verified while tripping all over itself to confirm your bias. When you call it out on this (which I did, several times, and I have the logs) it simply admits to hallucinating details and apologizes. Ok. Thanks?

However, one thing it did provide, in the midst of all its back tracking and being wrong, was the web address for the United States Copyright Office. There, you’ll find a searchable database for any copyrights filed by (in our case) songwriters for music that’s been made commercially available. Of course, while what it was claiming it found on said database was completely false, I was able to search it myself and find some information.

Now, a search of copyrights filed on commercially available songs doesn’t necessarily help us when it comes to one-off, commissioned tracks for films that never got released publicly. But, as luck would have it again, Mark had written a second tune for Frankenstein The College Years that was later made available on a compilation CD of television love songs. I’ll give the AI search for being at least partially correct in digging up that little nugget of info. It was of course wrong about the title and performer, but that’s water under the bridge.

That track was titled Can’t Stop (Dreaming About You) as performed by David Burns for the film. A copyright was filled by a one Mark Keefner on the 8th of May, 1990 for that very song.

So, I can confidently say (with a verifiable, traceable source, unlike the overly confident Google AI) that Mark Keefner is indeed the performer of Monster Rock and as such Mark Keefner can proudly and officially enter the pantheon of Halloween Horror Music that we call The Shindig.

Here’s Monster Rock.

Thank you Mark Keefner. Sorry everyone’s calling you Keeiner, but maybe you’d rather not be associated with this song, so for that I apologize too.