The nephew of a librarian must go collect a 200 year old book, "The Book of Ulthar." Many of the films characters are parodies of other sources, including; Dexter Ward from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Byron Orlock from Targets, Van Helsing from Dracula, and the mock advertisement scene's Lovely Rita. "[32] Cadena, meanwhile, remarked that "If I didn't know any better ['Monster Mash'] could have been written for the Misfits. Facebook. He first called Sam Amato, the lead guitar player of the first Syracuse rock and roll band to ever get regular airplay, a group called Sam and the Twisters. And Sam and the Twisters, who had been just hanging out making small talk, quickly put out their cigarettes, grabbed their respective instruments, and assumed their position near the back of the studio. The song is narrated by a mad scientist whose monster, late one evening, rises from his lab to perform a new dance, with a name implying it is inspired by the Mashed Potato, a popular dance of the early 1960s. Listen to his energy and his echoed, demonic laugh. They decide to stay in it for the ... See full summary ». He said he could only pay them a few hundred bucks, but that it wouldn’t really be a long gig, in that they were only going to record two songs, one of which was an instrumental and would serve as a throwaway B side. [30][31] However, due to complications over distribution rights, the DVD was not released and the VHS version was discontinued. As soon as Riposo hit the record button and counted down his thrown-together group of musicians, something almost magical came over everyone in the room. They told him don’t worry about it. I think it belongs up there with other horror parodies like "Repossessed," "Silence of the Hams" and "Dracula-Dead and Loving It." Bang! Top 20 Most Danceable Halloween Songs. Sandy Bigtree, The "Monster Mash" single was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on October 20–27 of that year, just before Halloween. Riposo and H. Larrison”. The audience loved it, and fellow band member Lenny Capizzi encouraged Pickett to do more with the Karloff imitation.[2]. Looking to finally escape the Baron persona, Price and the station originally announced that the Baron had died in the fire, and would no longer be a part of the WNYS broadcasting family. ", and character actor Peter Lorre as Igor (a role Lorre never played, though he did play numerous deformed eccentrics). Price in a recent interview said, au contraire, he was never in full costume and did indeed take the elevator for the session. Sign Up. All three Bigtree Sisters eventually moved to New York to try their hands at musical theater. Princess Evie of Jzafir is deposed by an evil sorcerer and his dangerous ally. When he finally returned a few moments later, Price had a fire in his eyes, and the unmistakable look, feel and carriage of the Baron. Riposo for years had owned and operated a tremendously successful recording studio on the 10th floor of the old Onondaga Hotel in downtown Syracuse, and for almost as many years wrote and/or recorded countless jingles that shops large and small throughout Syracuse used to promote themselves on local radio and TV. But at the end of the day, the Transylvania Twist had something the Monster Mash never had, and never would have. Related … Sam and the Twisters’ re-imagined version of Fooba Wooba John, which was recorded by Riposo in the winter of 1962, was a huge hit in its twist-crazy hometown of Syracuse and was still being played on both WNDR and its rival, WOLF, even as Riposo spoke to Amato. While doing the inventory for a lingerie outlet in a high rise office building, five attractive women are terrorised by a series of bizarre killings. And they saw themselves, not so much as a Syracuse version of the Crystals or the Ronettes, but as a latter-day version of the Andrews Sisters. . The 1970 reissue on the Parrot label (Parrot 348) was certified as a Gold record (for sales of over one million copies) on August 28, 1973. The problem is solved when he teaches the monster to rap. Much like their psychobilly siblings The Cramps, whom The Fleshtones shared a rehearsal space with in the 70s, they were more interested in getting booties moving than looking cool. Marinas, who was suffering from a cataleptic seizure and was not dead, tells Marissa that she must stay in the castle to ensure that the monster never returns; Helsing, who is now a vampire, also stays. The record has not charted on the Hot 100 since then. - All Movie.com, The Road To Hansberg/Van Helsing Before Dinner, Marissa Points The Way/Dexter Finds The Book, This page was last edited on 27 May 2020, at 01:31. So when WNYS hired him to read promos and some ads live and on-air, as well as to host a daily morning, trivia-based movie show, he dove in head-first and would, indeed, do just about anything the station asked of him. And to see some excellent vintage footage of the band, check out the hour-long documentary about them currently streaming on Prime: Pardon Us for Living, But the Graveyard is Full. Victor Van Helsing (Ace Mask),[7] a professional vampire hunter, accompanies Marissa and Dexter to the castle as the executor of her father's estate. As a result, the series — complete with its cheesy drive-in titles littered with giant bugs, killer crustaceans and glowing spaceships — was not just campy and carefree, it was downright fun. Fire at the Shoppingtown studio in 1967 destroyed the Baron's set and wardrobe, and the show was discontinued. Instead, Leonard had one of his other DJ’s (Price’s classmates at Valley High), Yours truly worked once a week for nearly five years with Mike Riposo in his studio on Washington Street, after they tore down the old Hotel Onondaga. It’s as though, if Monster Mash were some product of, say, Phil Spector or Quincy Jones and a team of All Star sidemen, the Transylvania Twist, even to this day, seems like an unvarnished and entirely raw garage-band song, dreamed up and played by a bunch of kids trying not to drown in a bubbling cauldron of teenage angst, musical expression and arcing chromosomes.