October 20, 1962: "The Monster Mash" Is a Halloween Season Smash

October 20, 1962: "Monster Mash" hits Number 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100. It is a novelty song, in honor of the next holiday coming up, Halloween, on October 31. It remains Number 1 for 2 weeks, until the edition of November 3, replaced by "He's a Rebel" by the Crystals.

The performers on "Monster Mash" are billed as "Bobby 'Boris' Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers." Pickett, a comedian from the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, then 24 years old, did the song as spoken-word over a musical track, imitating Boris Karloff, the British actor who had played the titular creature in the 1931 film Frankenstein.

It took me a long time to realize three important things about this song:

1. Karloff was a TV star with an easily imitatable voice long after he played the Frankenstein Monster and the Mummy in the early 1930s. What's more, just as he had played the Monster 3 times, he had gone on to play Dr. Frankenstein himself 3 times. And he had hosted a horror-film anthology series, which is how the kids who danced to "Monster Mash" knew him.

2. Just as the Monster is usually incorrectly called just "Frankenstein," Karloff began playing mad scientists, so when people imitated Dr. Frankenstein, they were imitating Karloff, not the original, Colin Clive. Though I still don't know where "Antipasto" (or "Antipatho"), the word so frequently used to imitate Karloff, came from.

3. When Dracula asks in the song, "Vhatever happened to my Transylvania Tvist?" and Bobby responds, "It's now the Monster Mash," it's a reference to the Mashed Potato, which became a hit earlier in the year for Dee Dee Sharp, becoming the next big dance craze, succeeding the Twist, followed in 1963 by the Monkey, and in 1964 by the Swim and the Jerk (which was almost a copy of the Monkey).

Bobby Pickett died in 2007, at age 69. Because "Monster Mash" is endlessly played in the days leading up to Halloween, he may have made more money with this one song than Chubby Checker did with "The Twist."

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October 20, 1962 was a Saturday. In college football, Florida State University beat the University of Georgia, 18-0 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, which has a hedge ring surrounding the field, and it is said that, there, football is played "Between the Hedges."

Dean Coyle Moore, a professor at Florida State and a member of the school's athletic board, had told the Seminoles, "Bring back some sod from Between the Hedges at Georgia." The victory complete, team captain Gene McDowell pulled a small piece of grass out, and showed it to Moore at the next football practice. Coach Bill Peterson took the grass to the practice facility, Harkins Field, and planted it. A plaque was made, and the Sod Cemetery was born.

Ever since, every time the Seminoles win an away game in which they are the underdog, or at the University of Florida, or at bowl games, or, since the Atlantic Coast Conference established a championship game, said game, the team captains cut out a small piece of the playing surface, and have it planted inside the gates of Harkins Field. This was when the tradition started, and I have a separate entry for it.

The other college football games played that day included:

Baseball season had ended 4 days earlier, with the New York Yankees beating the San Francisco Giants in Game 7 of the World Series. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 149-116 at the Boston Garden. No Celtic scored more than Sam Jones' 25, but 7 Celtics scored in double figures.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 108-102 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate University Medical Arena) in Syracuse, New York. Elgin Baylor led all scorerers on the night, with 42 points. This would be the Nationals' last season in Syracuse: For 1963-64, they moved to become the Philadelphia 76ers.

* The Chicago Zephyrs beat the Cincinnati Royals, 113-109 at the Chicago Coliseum. The Zephyrs became the Baltimore Bullets in 1963, the Capital Bullets in 1973, the Washington Bullets in 1974, and the Washington Wizards in 1997. The Royals became the Kansas City-Omaha Kings in 1972, the Kansas City Kings in 1975, and the Sacramento Kings in 1985. Don't worry, there's no test for all of this to be on.

* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons, 120-111 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 7-3 at the Montreal Forum. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.