This Is Your Death! “Spike Jones In Stereo: A Spooktacular in Screaming Sound” Returns From Omnivore
Dracula, Vampira, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll walk into a room…
When the late, great Spike Jones (1911-1965) set his sights on Halloween, a cult classic album was born. The fiendishly funny musical satirist had been unleashing insanity on unsuspecting record buyers since the early 1940s, turning car horns, belches, sneezes, gurgles, and gunshots into high art. In 1959, both rock-and-roll and the horror movie craze were in full swing, and the fiendishly funny, endlessly inventive purveyor of “musical depreciation” couldn’t let them pass by unnoticed. With a troupe of legendary voice actors, Jones concocted an album that would spoof monster movies and rock-and-roll, while taking full advantage of the advent of stereo sound. The result was Spike Jones In Stereo: A Spooktacular In Screaming Sound!, his lone album for the Warner Bros. label. It’s returning to CD and “slime green” vinyl – its first appearance in the vinyl format in almost 50 years – on September 26 from Omnivore Recordings.
Jones, longtime arranger Carl Brandt, and songwriting collaborator Eddie Brandt conceived the album as both a full-length comedy program incorporating music and spoken word, and as a virtual demonstration record for stereophonic sound. Spike had already spoofed the hi-fi revolution with 1957’s mono Verve release Dinner Music for People Who Aren’t Very Hungry: Spike Jones Demonstrates Your Hi-Fi and would utilize the added dimension of stereo (just beginning to appear in households nationwide) to bring his most outlandish sketches and musical deconstructions to vivid life-or, in this ghoulishly enjoyable case, death?
He enlisted a company of legendary voice talents (and Disney legends) to bring a colorful cast of characters to life. Chief among them was Paul Frees, a.k.a. the voice of Rocky and Bullwinkle’s Boris Badenov and, later, Professor Ludwig Von Drake and the Ghost Host of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. The versatile Frees was joined by the booming voice of Thurl Ravenscroft, a.k.a. Tony the Tiger and future singer of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” from 1966’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (Ravenscroft, too, can still be heard in the Haunted Mansion.) Trumpeter George Rock lent his little-kid voice to Jones’ chart-topping Christmas favorite “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” while Loulie Jean Norman, a veteran of Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1955), later provided the immortal wordless vocals on the theme to Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek.
Frees’ Count Dracula and Norman’s Vampira anchored the mayhem on the Spooktacular, with Frees also spoofing the likes of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein (and reprising an earlier hit with Jones, a most unusual version of the Sinatra standard “Everything Happens to Me”), Alfred Hitchcock, and Edward R. Murrow (the crusading journalist most recently portrayed by George Clooney in the Broadway smash Good Night and Good Luck). Spike the satirist was at his sharpest, taking aim at every aspect of the era’s pop culture. (He was prescient, too, as those figures are still familiar today.) Thurl Ravenscroft portrayed The Mad Doctor, and Ken Stevens came on board as the “Fiend-ager.”
Spike Jones in Stereo became a favorite of horror movie connoisseurs, appearing in advertisements in horror-themed magazines such as Eerie through the mid-1970s, earning more fans with each passing year. Some of those fans included Barry Hansen, a.k.a. Dr. Demento, and the young “Weird Al” Yankovic, who continues to cite Jones as a major influence.
Omnivore’s reissue has been mastered in truly spooktacular stereo – wait until you hear the many sound effects bouncing from speaker to speaker! – from the original tapes by Michael Graves. TSD’s Joe Marchese has penned the new liner notes based on interviews with Spike’s children Leslie Ann Jones, Spike Jones, Jr., Linda Lee Jones, and Gina Jones.
No tricks – this is one Halloween album that’s quite the treat. Spike Jones in Stereo: A Spooktacular in Screaming Sound! returns on CD and slime green vinyl on September 26 from Omnivore Recordings. You’ll find pre-order links below; the Amazon CD link should be active any day now. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Spike Jones in Stereo: A Spooktacular in Screaming Sound! (Warner Bros. WS 1332, 1959 – reissued Omnivore Recordings, 2025)
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Omnivore Recordings
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Omnivore Recordings
- I Only Have Eyes For You [Vocal by Dracula and Vampira]
- Poisen To Poisen [Interview with a Famous Poisenality]
- Teenage Brain Surgeon [Vocal by The Mad Doctor]
- (All Of A Sudden) My Heart Sings [Vocal by Dracula and Vampira]
- Everything Happens To Me [Lament by Frankenstein]
- Monster Movie Ball [Vocal by The Fiend-ager]
- Tammy [Vocal Duet by Dracula and Vampira]
- My Old Flame [Vocal by I.M. Arson]
- This Is Your Death [Featuring Dr. Jekyll and Other Ghouls] / b. Two Heads Are Better Than One [Beatnick Duet]
- Spooktacular Finale [Vocal by The Entire Ghastly Cast]
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Gabe Dell, one of the original East Side Kids/Bowery Boys voiced an LP, issued with branding by Famous Monsters of Filmland, titled, if I remember correctly, “Famous Monsters Speak” featuring one side of Count Dracula and “the Monster” on the reverse. While listenable on YouTube, a CD reissue would be welcome…