SPOOKYSONGS

Dinner With Drac – John Zacherle

Arguably the song that kicked off the “Halloween” music craze, “Dinner With Drac” deserves its rightful place on the Mount Rushmore of spookysongs. “Monster Mash” may be the go-to Halloween hit, but if we just go back a few short years, we get something weirder, more terrifying, and dare I say disturbing? Dare I do.

John Zacherle was one of the biggest Horror Hosts of the 50s and 60s, covering the New York and Philadelphia areas. His gimmick was to superimpose himself over famous horror scenes, and of course, that dastardly laugh! He played a character named Roland, who had a dead wife he lovingly talked to as “My Dear”.

Zacherle had the luck of being friends with Dick Clark, whose nationally syndicated “American Bandstand” was the quickest way to rock n’ roll fame. He and John had the idea of recording a song about Dinner With Drac. The original version was too gory for TV, so a less gruesome version was recorded, and after being played on AB, it shot into to the Top 10. This led to a lengthy recording career of silly songs mixed with skits and “scary” sound effects.

The song which features a great little guitar riff mixed with some swingin’ sax may seem a bit tame by today’s standards, but certainly sparked ideas in folks like the Misfits and Rob Zombie, who featured Zacherle heavily on his Halloween compilation Halloween Hootenanny.

It’s about a guy going to dinner with the titular Drac, only to find out he’s the main course! He meets Drac’s dauther, and then eats the veins of a mummy, which he says tasted like spaghetti… yeah, that’s what got Clark to have him change the lyrics. Gross.

We end with a rousing “Goodnight, whatever you are!” as the simple guitar riff and horns dance us out into the night.

There’s a ton of great Zacherle spookysongs, like “Happy Halloween”, “The Coolest Little Monster”, and his cover of John Fogerty’s “Sinister Purpose”. Zacherle lived to be 98(!) and died in 2016… still haunting around somewhere, I’m sure!