"Monsters' Holiday," Bobby "Boris" Pickett (Garpax)

The deep-voiced Boris Karloff impersonator is best known for "Monster Mash," a 1962 smash that also returned to the charts in 1970 and 1973, according to Rock On. But when you make your bones with a Halloween song, it's perfectly logical that the sequel hit would be a Christmas tune. And so it was, just two months later, with Santa foiling the monsters' plan to destroy Christmas simply by giving them gifts. Speaking of sequel hits, you don't often see artists do songs that are so obviously based on their previous hits anymore -- I think the series of "Roxanne" rap tunes in the late 80s was the last time it happened, and that involved several different artists. Bobby's songs made it to wax with the help of Gary Paxton, who was involved with such acts as the Hollywood Argyles and Skip and Flip. Bobby maintained a career as a character actor and even saw his big hit transformed into a movie back in 1995, and he sequeled again in 2005 with "Climate Mash," a cautionary tale of global warming. You have to look a bit, but this does turn up on compilations from time to time. Pickett repaired to the crypt for good on April 25, 2007.