In this ongoing
feature on Psychobabble, I’ve been taking a close look at albums of the
classic, underrated, and flawed variety, and assessing them Track by Track.
Like most American families, mine spent Christmas with the
usual choir of vinyl carolers: Johnny Mathis and Nat King Cole, and since my
dad loved Rock & Roll as much as I do, Phil Spector’s stable of stars. Most
American homes, however, had no annual carols for my favorite holiday. Mine did
though. As soon as my mom had affixed the final cardboard jack-o-lantern to the
living room windows, I was begging my dad to take his yearly trip down to the
basement and brush the cobwebs off an old record called Spook Along with Zacherley.
This was the late seventies, so I only knew Zacherley from
this record and what my dad told me about him. I wouldn’t quite call my dad an
original monster kid (as far as I know, he never touched an issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland or an Aurora
model kit), but he did have a lot of affection for Dracula and The Wolf Man and
King Kong. He was an original viewer of “Shock! Theatre”, the show on which a
stage actor named John Zacherle donned a dusty frock coat and frosty makeup to
host a package of classic monster movies, crack wise about the undead, and
occasionally appear superimposed in the movies to “personally interact” with
Dracula and the Wolf Man.
John Zacherle started his career as the most famous male
horror host of his era (Vampira and Elvira remain the biggest household names
for obvious reasons) in his hometown of Philadelphia. There he
hosted “Shock! Theatre” on WCAU-TV in the guise of Roland. Appearing as a guest
on “American Bandstand” in 1958, Dick Clark supposedly dubbed him “The Cool
Ghoul”. A gaggle of teenagers seemed quick to agree, and his massive appeal
with kids who liked watching vampires suck as much as they dug hearing Little
Richard screech led him to cut his own record under his own name for Cameo
Parkway Records. With rocking backing from the label’s house band The
Applejacks— not to be confused with the British group that later had a minor
hit with Lennon and McCartney’s “Like Dreamers Do”— “Dinner with Drac” by John
Zacherle “The Cool Ghoul” became a surprise national hit. Like all overnight
pop sensations, an LP was not far in the future.
That same year, CBS bought up WCAU and John Zacherle fled to
fry bigger fish in NYC. When he landed at ABC-TV, he was not allowed to use the
Roland character he created at his old station. Big whoop. After all, Roland
didn’t have a hit song…John Zacherle did. So he adopted his real name (with an
extra “y” mistakenly added by ABC) and continued terrorizing TV as Zacherley on
“Shock! Theatre” (and briefly “Zacherley at Large”) in 1959.
In October Zacherley jumped ghost ships once again to WOR-TV.
Although the station’s production values were chintzier than those of WCAU or
WABC, his popularity continued to soar. Naturally, a run for the presidency was
not far behind, nor was that long-awaited LP finally released in the summer of
’60 not on mom-and-pop Cameo but on Elektra Records, then a successful label
specializing in folk. Burying Mitch Miller, the record was titled Spook Along with Zacherley, and spilled
over with lurid odes to monstrous parent/teacher associations, outrageous
orangutans, Frank, Drac, and Zach’s own bid to snatch votes from Nixon and JFK.
Co-producing was Stan Rhodes, who’d co-written the standard
“A Sunday Kind of Love” (covered by everyone from Etta James to Jan and Dean),
and Gerald Alters, who’d later take an infinitely less cool position as Barry
Manilow’s arranger. Lee Pockriss, most famous for composing “Itsy Bitsy Teeny
Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”, “My Little Corner of the World”, and “Johnny
Angel”, supplied the songs. These writers, arrangers, and producers offered
most of the necessary elements: MOR schmaltz and teen novelty appeal. Zacherley
delivered the essential horrificness and the lowest bass this side of Will
“Dub” Jones.
The results are not a great album, but they are a great
snapshot of that nether-period between the original Rock & Roller’s reign
of the late fifties and the coming British Invasion, an age of novelty records,
when late-night horror movies had to fill the delinquency gap Little Richard
and Jerry Lee Lewis left vacant and well-scrubbed chumps like Frankie Avalon
and Fabian couldn’t hope to fill. So dim the lights, my little ghoulies.
Snuggle up to your spider baby and set the picture on Black & White. It’s
time to sing along with the Cool Ghoul…
Spook Along with Zacherley by Zacherley
Originally released
Summer of 1960
Produced by Stan
Rhodes and Gerald Alters
All songs by Lee
Pockriss
Track 1: Coolest
Little Monster
Track 2: A Wicked
Thought
Zacherley sounds more at home on the second track, which has
no pretentions of rocking or rolling. Rather, “A Wicked Thought” is a
legitimately funny spoof of the Vera Lynn standard “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, and
those wailing female vocals that introduce the track and punctuate the chorus
are actually quite chilling. Gerald Alters’s arrangement of guitar, celesta,
and percussion is subtly eerie and Lee Pockriss’s message of unpositive
thinking sounds like a Goth self-help text. Plus Zach sings what may be the
record’s best track really well. That guy may have made his bread trashing
classic monster flicks, but he had some pipes!
Track 3: Ghoul View
Commercial
Six years before Ray Davies spearheaded the Music Hall
revival, Zacherley tossed on a straw boater to do a soft shoe with banjo
backing called “Ghoul View Commercial”. It’s a real estate advert for corpses
looking to “relocate, relocate, relocate” to a roomy new crypt. There’s a touch
of suburban ribbing in this number, though nothing as upfront as “Little Boxes”
or “Pleasant Valley Sunday”. “Ghoul View” is the first track on Spook Along to be overly comedic in
lyric and tune, and it’s as cheesy as a wheel of Gouda. Swap “Maxwell’s
Silver Hammer” off Abbey Road and
swap in “Ghoul View Commercial”. You’ll never know the difference!
Track 4: Sure Sign of
Spring
“Sure Sign of Spring” is a way weirder track than “Ghoul
View Commercial”. First of all, who associates springtime with cemeteries,
witches, zombies, and spooks? Apparently, Zach does, because he informs us that
this is the time wolfmen shed their fur and vampires gussy up their fangs and
capes. Pockriss cribs the tune from Wizard
of Oz’s “If I Only Had a Heart/a Brain/the Noive”, though only after a
creepy introduction that gives no hint of the show tune jauntiness to come.
Track 5: Transylvania
P.T.A.
You’ve got to hand it to Lee Pockriss… he rarely settles for
the usual monster mashing on Spook Along
with Zacherley. “Transylvania P.T.A.” sports another wacko topic, the title
being total truth in advertising. Monster teachers, moms, and dads gather at a
meeting that increasingly gets out of hand… or claw, as the case may be. The
tune see-saws between a variation on “The Hearse Song” (“The worms crawl in,
the worms crawl out”…) with an arrangement based on the “Alfred Hitchcock
Presents” version of “Funeral March of a Marionette” and a big
sing-along-with-Mitch chorus complete with cheese-doodle organ (“A good time
was had by all…YES!...a good time was had by all!”). With “Ghoul View Commercial”
and “Transylvania P.T.A.”, Lee and Zach showed they sure knew their suburban
kid audience’s concerns… even if they didn’t really get the kind of music kids
actually liked to listen to.
Track 6: Frank and
Drac Are Back
Another sinister introduction misleads us into a very
un-sinister song. Frank and Drac are exactly who you think they are, but
instead of pulling off arms and sinking their teeth into jugulars, they’re
doing an old-fashioned two-man comedy act. They even take breaks to tell
monstrous versions of “My first book of jokes” jokes (“Say Drac, do you know
why ghouls always cross the cemetery? Because they dig the attractive
plantings!”). If it weren’t for the lines about the guys’ illegal nocturnal
activities, “Frank and Drac are Back” could be a fitting duet for Fozzi Bear
and Kermit the Frog. I fully applaud Pockriss for understanding that Frank is
the doctor and not the monster. That there is an attention to detail, cool ghouls.
When I was a kid, this was my favorite track on Spook Along because… well… it had Frank and it had Drac, the twin kings
of the monsters. After all these years they’re still the dynamic duo of
demonism.
Track 7: Come with Me
to Transylvania
The intro sounds like incidental music from Disneyland’s
Haunted Mansion ride, but the waltzing melody and ice-rink organ that follow will
make you want to strap on your skates and wrap a scarf around your neck. Better
make it a lead scarf since this valentine is sung from one vamp to another. Zacherley
really belts out this corn! Good thing he has his vampire union card because I’m
considering going on strike.
Track 8: Spiderman
Lullaby
If you haven’t already sussed as much already, Spook Along with Zacherley is lousy with
creepy teasers that blossom into sunny melodies. “Spiderman Lullaby” is a real
exception. This tune is creepy through and through, right from the harmonica
quote of “Rock-a-bye Baby” that starts it through the father’s promise to his
baby that “the spiderman will make your dreams come true.” He ain’t talking
about Peter Parker. The twist is that dad’s not torturing his kiddie with
terror tales before bedtime… in the end we learn the babe’s a beast too with
the legitimately great line, “Close both eyes, that’s it son, now just close
the other one.” Actually, “Spiderman Lullaby” is weirdly touching. And is it
just a coincidence that Robert Smith wrote his own song about a spiderman
called “Lullaby”, or was The Cure’s dour lead singer drawing inspiration from a
really unlikely source?
Track 9: Ring-A-Ding
Orangutan
We’re back in Bobby Rydell country with the only other Spook Along track to pay lip service to
Rock & Roll. An ape goes ape at the hop, which is something any
Transylvanian kid can relate to. That “ring-a-ding” business, however,
belongs on one of dad’s Frank Sinatra records: strictly nowheresville. The Spook Along crew really couldn’t be
bothered with Rock & Roll. “Ring-a-Ding Orangutan” is the shortest thing on
the record, not even reaching two minutes. Plus, can we all finally acknowledge
that despite Murders in the Rue Morgue,
The Monster and the Girl, and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, apes
are not monsters? They’re apes. The scariest thing they do is fling their
poop around.
Track 10: Baying at
the Moon
This rather sweeping “Bali Ha’i”-esque tango is one of the
best pieces on Spook Along. Pockriss
finally goes for an obvious analogy—falling madly in love is like turning into
a werewolf—and it works. A real, live, howling werewolf supplies the horror
sound effects strangely missing from the rest of the record. It is pop’s
greatest tragedy that Roy Orbison never covered this song.
Track 11: Zacherley
for President
Everyone was caught up in election fever in 1960. Would
voters select young, vivacious, liberal, horny John Fitzgerald Kennedy or sweaty
man-troll Richard Milhouse Nixon? Monster kids knew there was a third option,
and he was bent on giving spirits the right to vote, repealing inheritance tax since
it’s “taxation without representation,” and “expanding the federal reserve system
to include all blood banks,” as he announces on the epic, mostly spoken,
slightly orchestrated campaign song that climaxes Spook Along with Zacherley. Alas, JFK would rob the presidency from
Zacherley, but Zach ran a good, clean campaign aided and abetted by the Ted
Bates, Inc., ad firm, the mad men responsible for informing us that M&Ms
“melt in your mouth, not in your hands.” The agency’s “Zacherley for President”
campaign became a merchandising bonanza that included a book, a poster, and a lapel
badge, all of which ended up wasting literally tens of campaign contribution
dollars. Spook Along with Zacherley,
however, remains priceless.
