Monster Mash: Half Dead in Hollywood

by Bobby Pickett

Like so many millions of other misguided people, I am a conditioned result of a celebrity-worshipping culture, systematically taught that fame and fortune are admirable goals and that celebrities are somehow superior beings, like gods, if you will. It has taken many years to expunge oneself from this false frivolity. Although many Halloweens have come and gone, I am finally cured of what today is labeled Celebrity Worship Syndrome. I believe that I'm not alone and I feel better. The following is not just another Hollywood Who's Who or Kiss and Tell book (with a couple of exceptions.) It is, however, peppered in part with an ample supply of sometimes meaningless and petty gossip; Now, my grandchildren and I can commiserate over whom Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan are dating. As is the propensity for certain current and former star-struck fools, like myself, to spew forth tales of meetings with famous people, just so, I have chosen to believe that these writings simply screamed out for ubiquitously shameless namedropping, thus, I giggled and gave in, while fully realizing than no one under forty will recognize half of the names mentioned (other than the two aforementioned). Anyway, Viva Hollywood! This memoir might be viewed as a personal record of one man's almost (in the Buddhist sense of not fully awakened) human encounter with the banal and the divine.

236 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2005

About the author

American songwriter and Korean war veteran.

Bobby Pickett is mostly known as the bandleader of "Boris Pickett and the cryptkickers" which scored a hit with the song "The monster mash" which was a hit in the U.S charts in 1962, 1970 and 1973.

In 1967 Pickett co-wrote the musical "I'm Sorry the Bridge Is Out, You'll Have to Spend the Night" which was later made in the movie "Monster Mash the Movie" In 2005 Pickett released his memoirs called "Monster Mash: Half Dead in Hollywood"

Reviews

[Shawn Inmon · Rating 2 out of 5]

So sad to have to give a negative review of this book. I was predisposed to like it, but just couldn't manage it. I read it because I love music, one hit wonders, and stories about what happens after fame leaves someone. Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash: Half Dead in Hollywood" had all those elements, but it is not a cohesive, good read.

In the intro, he says it's not a Hollywood tell-all or kiss and tell, but I have to disagree. That's kind of exactly what it is, it's just that he left a lot of the interesting details out. My primary problem with the book is that it is really just a story of connected notes with nothing that brings context and so invites the reader into the story.

After the unlikely, lightning-in-a-bottle success of "Monster Mash" in the early sixties, Bobby Pickett drifted around the fringes of Hollywood - occasionally picking up a small-time acting gig here or there. That part of the story could have been fascinated, but Pickett barely breaks the surface of anything. One example: his young son tragically drowns. He covers this incident from beginning to end, in one page. Meanwhile, he spends page after page talking about partying with Jack Nicholson and Harry Dean Stanton.

There are brief flashes of interest - I found the story of how he and a writing partner wrote Monster Mash interesting - but the total lack of perspective and depth made this a pretty painful read.