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Music

What If the Events Depicted in "Monster Mash" Never Even Happened?

Also, the song's website is absolutely hilarious.

After five decades of Halloween dominance, Bobby Pickett’s 1962 single “Monster Mash” remains the holiday’s de facto theme. How does a song that lampoons dance crazes of the early sixties maintain its relevance? Much of its staying power is due to its state-of-the-art official website, which manages to be informational, entertaining, and truly terrifying--all at the same time.

The “Mash” is available on the three major audio formats enjoyed by tech-savvy youth: iPod, ringtone, and MySpace:

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Most teens listen to “Monster Mash” all three ways simultaneously, which they call “Tri-Mashing.” Head to your local mall and you will see this in action.

If you’re the best you might as well own it, and that’s why the site proudly boasts that “Monster Mash” has been the holiday’s anthem “45 Halloweens and Counting.” (There have actually been 51 Halloweens since the debut of “Monster Mash,” but who’s counting?)

Monster Mash

Monster Mash’s cultural cache is second to none. Elvis thought it was “the stupidest thing he's ever heard” (stupid means cool) and Frank Sinatra reportedly said, “This mother is the Grandaddy of rap records, baby."

Monster Mash

(NOTE: That Sinatra quote couldn’t be corroborated elsewhere. However, we trust themonstermash.com’s fact-checkers while also agreeing wholeheartedly with the sentiment that “Monster Mash” is indeed the Grandaddy of rap records, baby.)

But it doesn’t take a slick website or Frank Sinatra to convince you that “Monster Mash” is cool. Everyone knows it’s the undisputed King of Halloween, and that’s where this story would normally end.

But not this Halloween.

What if I told you the events depicted in Monster Mash weren’t true?

What if the party Bobby “Boris” Pickett sang about never even happened?

After repeated listenings and some sleuthing, I’ve discovered that there wasn’t an actualy “Monster Mash” and, subsequently, it never became a graveyard smash.

The song famously begins with its narrator, a scientist, working late at night in his lab. Much to his surprise, the monster he’s performing experiments on begins to rise and do a dance that becomes a “graveyard smash” in “a flash.”

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Herein lies the first major fallacy of “Monster Mash.” Judging by his advanced re-animation techniques and technology, this scientist is at the top of his field. Surely he’d follow proper decontamination and safety procedures, yet this lab is located directly adjacent to a cemetery. Judging by the ease in which the zombies and Igor stroll in to join the party in verse two, they likely never had to remove jewelry, wash their hands, or take the other basic steps that any high school science lab, let alone groundbreaking research facility, would strictly enforce.

Also, are we to believe the scientist is doing all of this without a university or government grant? That’s just economically foolish.

Initially, the scientist is “surprised” by the monster’s dancing. But after a matter of seconds, this very scientist is hosting an entire party for vampires, werewolves, etc… For someone so aghast at a simple monster dance move, our scientist is oddly well-versed in the other monsters’ cliques and attitudes towards partying. He’s even familiar with coffin-banger backup band "The Crypt-Kicker Five” and their entire catalogue for crying out loud. We’re supposed to believe he’s never seen a monster dance before?

During the party, a frustrated Dracula laments the waning popularity of his own dance, “The Transylvania Twist.” Yet, after a single chorus of the “Monster Mash,” he’s “a part of the band.” Dracula is an immortal being who has been known to wait dozens of generations to exact revenge on his rivals. He’s not giving up on The Transylvania Twist that easy.

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Finally, the entire geography of the song is way, way off. The scientist’s lab is located in the “Castle East,” and we are to assume this is where the adjacent graveyard is as well. Now, if he’s working late at night and the party is going as well as he describes, then this is the kind of shindig that easily lasts past dawn. Being located on an eastern waypoint, the “Monster Mash” party would be subjected to an unobstructed sunrise. Obviously, this would immediately immolate Dracula, his son (a ridiculous feature of the song that I didn’t even feel the need to formally discredit), and all the other vampires and nocturnal beings assembled at the bash.

A slew of ashen, smoldering party-goers does not a dance craze make, yet to this day millions of people take Pickett’s words as fact.

In the age of fancy websites, ringtones, and “Tri-Mashing,” the truth may not be as cool or as hip as the “Monster Mash” itself. Hot young celebrities will still do The Mash at Hollywood parties and DJs will still spin the tune from their booths at Bushwick warehouse costume bashes.

We don’t expect you to be a wallflower this Halloween and when you get on the dance floor to take part in this half-century-old graveyard smash, feel free to lose yourself in the music.

Just don’t lose yourself in the lies.

Nick Greene is a re-animated monster. He's on Twitter@nickgreene