|
Monster Mash
"Monster Mash" is a 1962 novelty song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. The song was released as a single on Gary S. Paxton's Garpax Records label in August 1962 along with a full-length LP called ''The Original Monster Mash'', which contained several other monster-themed tunes. The "Monster Mash" single was number one on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart on October 20–27 of that year, just before Halloween. It has been a perennial Halloween favorite ever since. In 2021, nearly 60 years after its release, "Monster Mash" re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 37. Background Pickett was an aspiring actor who sang with a band called the Cordials at night while going to auditions during the day. One night, while performing with his band, Pickett did a monologue in imitation of horror movie actor Boris Karloff while performing the Diamonds' "Little Darlin'". The audience loved it, and fellow band member Lenny Capizzi encouraged Pickett to do more with the Karloff imitation. Pick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bobby Pickett
Robert George Pickett (February 11, 1938 – April 25, 2007), known also by the name Bobby "Boris" Pickett, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, and comedian known for co-writing and performing the 1962 hit novelty song "Monster Mash". Born in Somerville, Massachusetts, Pickett watched many horror films as a result of his father's position as a local movie theater manager. He started improvising impressions of Hollywood film stars at a young age. At a turning point in his career, Pickett was a vocalist for local swing band Darren Bailes and the Wolf Eaters. He would later serve from 1956–1959 in the United States Army, stationed in Korea for a period of time. He co-wrote his signature song, "Monster Mash", with Leonard Capizzi in May 1962 as a spoof of popular contemporary dance crazes. Pickett's performances include impersonations of Boris Karloff (''The Mummy'' (1932)) and Bela Lugosi (''Dracula'' (1931)), and although major labels declined to distribute the song, Gar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. , the print circulation was 75,052. According to the organization's website, "the Monitor's global approach is reflected in how Mary Baker Eddy described its object as 'To injure no man, but to bless all mankind.' The aim is to embrace the human family, shedding light with the conviction that understanding the world's problems and possibilities moves us towards solutions." ''The Christian Science Monitor'' has won seven Pulitzer Prizes and more than a dozen Overseas Press Club awards. Reporting Despite its name, the ''Monitor'' is not a religious-themed paper, and does not promote the doctrine of its patron, the Church of Christ, Scientist. However, at its founder Edd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Count Alucard (character)
''Son of Dracula'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Robert Siodmak with a screenplay based on an original story by his brother Curt Siodmak. The film stars Lon Chaney, Jr., Louise Allbritton, Robert Paige, Evelyn Ankers, and Frank Craven. The film is set in the United States, where Count Alucard (Chaney Jr.) has just taken up residence. Katherine Caldwell (Allbritton), a student of the occult, becomes fascinated by Alucard and eventually marries him. Katherine begins to look and act strangely, leading her former romantic partner Frank Stanley (Paige) to suspect that something has happened to her. He gets help from Dr. Brewster (Craven) and psychologist Laszlo (J. Edward Bromberg) who come to the conclusion that Alucard is a vampire. The film is the third in Universal's ''Dracula'' film series following ''Dracula's Daughter'' (1936). The film was made under different circumstances than the previous two entries in the series with a new Chairman of the Board working at Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Count Dracula
Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian Prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant. One of Dracula's most iconic powers is his ability to turn others into vampires by biting them and infecting them with the vampiric disease. Other character aspects have been added or altered in subsequent popular fictional works. The character has appeared frequently in popular culture, from films to animated media to breakfast cereals. Stoker's creation Bram Stoker's novel takes the form of an epistolary tale, in which Count Dracula's characteristics, powers, abilities, and weaknesses are narrated by multiple narrators, from different perspectives. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor (character)
Igor, or sometimes Ygor, is a stock character, a sometimes hunch-backed laboratory assistant to many types of Gothic villains or as a fiendish character who assists only himself, the latter most prominently portrayed by Bela Lugosi in ''Son of Frankenstein'' (1939) and ''The Ghost of Frankenstein'' (1942). He is familiar from many horror films and horror film parodies. He is traditionally associated with mad scientists, particularly Victor Frankenstein, although Frankenstein has neither a lab assistant nor any association with a character named Igor in the original Mary Shelley novel. The Igor of popular parlance is a composite character, based on characters created for the Universal Studios film franchise. In the first ''Frankenstein'' film (1931), Fritz served the role; in subsequent sequels, a different physically deformed character, Ygor, is featured, though Ygor is not an assistant in those films. Origins Dwight Frye's hunchbacked lab assistant in the first film of the '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wolf Man (1941 Film)
''The Wolf Man'' is a 1941 American horror film written by Curt Siodmak and produced and directed by George Waggner. The film stars Lon Chaney Jr. in the title role. Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Bela Lugosi, Evelyn Ankers, and Maria Ouspenskaya star in supporting roles. The title character has had a great deal of influence on Hollywood's depictions of the legend of the werewolf. The film is the second Universal Pictures werewolf film, preceded six years earlier by the less commercially successful '' Werewolf of London'' (1935). This film is part of the Universal Monsters movies and is of great cinematic acclaim for its production. After this movie's success, Lon Chaney Jr. would reprise his role as "The Wolf Man" in four sequels, beginning with ''Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man'' in 1943. Plot Larry Talbot returns to his ancestral home in Llanwelly, Wales to bury his recently deceased brother and reconcile with his estranged father, Sir John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billboard (magazine)
''Billboard'' (stylized as ''billboard'') is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style related to the music industry. Its music charts include the Hot 100, the 200, and the Global 200, tracking the most popular albums and songs in different genres of music. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows. ''Billboard'' was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegan's interest in 1900 for $500. In the early years of the 20th century, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs, and burlesque shows, and also created a mail service for travelling entertainers. ''Billboard'' began focusing more on the music industry as the jukebox, phonograph, and radio became commonplace. Many topics it covered were spun-off ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mad Scientist
The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly ambitious, taboo or hubristic nature of their experiments. As a motif in fiction, the mad scientist may be villainous (evil genius) or antagonistic, benign, or neutral; may be insane, eccentric, or clumsy; and often works with fictional technology or fails to recognise or value common human objections to attempting to play God. Some may have benevolent intentions, even if their actions are dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental antagonists. History Prototypes The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel ''Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus'' by Mary Shelley. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Effect
A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditionally, in the twentieth century, they were created with foley. In motion picture and television production, a sound effect is a sound recorded and presented to make a specific storytelling or creative point ''without'' the use of dialogue or music. The term often refers to a process applied to a recording, without necessarily referring to the recording itself. In professional motion picture and television production, dialogue, music, and sound effects recordings are treated as separate elements. Dialogue and music recordings are never referred to as sound effects, even though the processes applied to such as reverberation or flanging effects, often are called "sound effects". This area and sound design have been slowly merged since the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frankenstein's Monster
Frankenstein's monster or Frankenstein's creature, often referred to as simply "Frankenstein", is a fictional character who first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. Shelley's title thus compares the monster's creator, Victor Frankenstein, to the mythological character Prometheus, who fashioned humans out of clay and gave them fire. In Shelley's Gothic story, Victor Frankenstein builds the creature in his laboratory through an ambiguous method based on a scientific principle he discovered. Shelley describes the monster as tall and emotional. The monster attempts to fit into human society but is shunned, which leads him to seek revenge against Frankenstein. According to the scholar Joseph Carroll, the monster occupies "a border territory between the characteristics that typically define protagonists and antagonists". Frankenstein's monster became iconic in popular culture, and has been featured in various forms of media, inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mashed Potato (dance)
The Mashed Potato is a dance move which was a popular dance craze of 1962. The dance move and mashed potato song were first made famous by James Brown in 1959 and used in his concerts regularly. It was also a dance done to songs such as Dee Dee Sharp's " Mashed Potato Time". The move vaguely resembles that of the twist, by Sharp's fellow Philadelphian Chubby Checker. The dance was first popularized internationally after being named in the lyrics of Motown's first mega-hit in the song "Do You Love Me" written by Berry Gordy Jr. and performed by The Contours in 1962. Dance movement The dance move begins by stepping backward with one foot with that heel tilted inward. The foot is positioned slightly behind the other (stationary) foot. With the weight on the ball of the starting foot, the heel is then swiveled outward. The same process is repeated with the other foot: step back and behind with heel inward, pivot heel out, and so on. The pattern is continued for as many repetitions as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alley Oop (song)
"Alley Oop" is a song written and composed by Dallas Frazier in 1957. The song was inspired by the V. T. Hamlin-created comic strip of the same name. The Hollywood Argyles The Hollywood Argyles, a short-lived studio band, recorded the song in 1960, and it reached #1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and #3 on the US R&B chart. It also went to #24 on the UK chart. It was produced by Gary Paxton, who also sang lead vocals. At the time, Paxton was under contract to Brent Records, where he recorded as Flip of Skip & Flip. According to Paxton: Other versions Also in 1960, Dante & the Evergreens released a version that went to #15 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, while The Dyna-Sores released a version that went to #59 on the same chart. Both Dante & The Evergreens' and The Hollywood Argyles' versions were credited as number ones in ''Cash Box'' magazine's singles chart. The Pre-Historics released a version called "Alley Oop Cha-Cha-Cha" in 1960, with Gary Paxton (who had performed lea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
