Sheldon Mashugana’s version of ‘Monster Mash’ is a great bit of comedy on one of the most iconic Halloween songs of all time. It’s a very simple reworking of Bobby Pickett’s 1962 classic, with the only real difference being that the chorus is now ‘Mashugana’. That’s the whole point really. It’s a very easy thing to do and it works perfectly. It takes the song that we all know and love and gives it a new identity. It’s not really a darker version of the song, it’s just a very funny version of it. It’s all about the fun, the nostalgia and the sheer ridiculousness of it. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect to come from a Halloween song. “Why go to the Halloween party and have another monster when you can have a Mashugana?” That’s the bit that really works and that’s the bit that makes the chorus the highlight of the song.
The story behind the performance is just as much about love for the original. Dean Morgan (the Dallas based entertainer who is Sheldon Mashugana) has always liked to hear ‘Monster Mash’ on the radio and wanted to do it as his character. Getting the timing right was the big hurdle at first, once you’d got the right way of doing it though it was pretty easy. That’s the key really, it’s a song that’s built on a very specific rhythm and a very specific character so timing is absolutely paramount. It was recorded at Justin Pierce Music in Dallas, Texas using a karaoke track as the backing rather than a live instrumental. Justin Pierce did the recording and mixing. It’s a very simple set up really, it’s all about the performance and the vocal interpretation. The end result is a cover that has a very clear raison d’etre, it’s a way of taking a classic Halloween song and making people think of it in association with Sheldon Mashugana.
At its core “Monster Mash” is a song about making people smile. Sheldon Mashugana is the character that Morgan has used to create his entire body of 18 YouTube slapstick comedy films and this track is no different in that respect. It’s clearly a seasonal track but the real point is to provide a little bit of levity in people’s lives. Morgan says it himself: “In today’s world there is a lot of depression and problems, Sheldon Mashugana makes things a lot nicer and happy feeling.” That’s the ethos of the song and it gives it a real warmth beyond its Halloween veneer. It’s a song that’s been around for ages, with a very personal chorus and a very deliberately silly approach and it’s aimed at people who want their Halloween soundtrack to be fun rather than frightening. “The world has enough scares already, sometimes the best thing a song can do is give you a reason to laugh.”**That’s the whole point of it with Sheldon Mashugana at the helm.
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