Dick Clark Productions
Forget about alternative investments and get in the studio. All you need to do is create something like “Monster Mash,” which still rakes in a steady revenue stream, decades after its 1962 release.
“I have been paying the rent for 36 years with this one song,” co-writer and performer Bobby “Boris” Pickett—aka the Mariah Carey of Halloween—told the Memphis Commercial Appeal in 1998 (Pickett died in 2007). To think something so lucrative was written in just a few hours: Between streams, commercials, licensing, and film usage, “Monster Mash” could be making $1 million in annual revenue, Billboard estimated in 2023.
It’s been the oldest track atop the Halloween streaming charts in recent years, just behind “Thriller” (1982) but ahead of “Ghostbusters” (1984) and “Spooky, Scary, Skeletons” (1996), per Billboard.
Since Pickett and co-writer Leonard Capizzi have both died, their royalties have gone to their family members, who get more than just a big check with every Halloween season: “Every single year my entire life, I get to hear my grandfather’s voice for a month,” Pickett’s grandson told Billboard.—ML