Spike Jones – In Stereo: A Spook (CD)
Product Details
Spike Jones spent the 1940s and '50s turning musical mayhem into a genuine art form, but the 1959 "Spooktacular" found him leaning into Hollywood's monster craze with a cast of voice actors whose collective résumé reads like a who's who of mid-century American pop culture. The stereo format was still a novelty then, and Jones and his City Slickers used every channel to weaponize the chaos.
The revolutionary 1959 stereo extravaganza returns! Features vocals by Paul Frees (Boris Badenov, The Haunted Mansion's unseen ghost, Pillsbury Doughboy), Thurl Ravenscroft (Tony The Tiger, "You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch"), George Rock ("All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth"), and Lulie Jean Norman (singer on the theme from Star Trek). Since the early 1940s, Spike Jones' endlessly inventive recordings had made an art out of honking car horns, gunshots, burps, sneezes, hiccups, and all other manner of musical insanity. But, in 1959, monsters were big Hollywood business. Spike Jones In Stereo: A Spooktacular In Screaming Sound! Appeared on Warner Bros. Records later that year. Spike's longtime arranger, Carl Brandt, commented "The Spooktacular was a complicated album. We finally broke it down and ended up scoring it like a movie, because it had to be done in bits and pieces." And, the results were astounding. Taking advantage of the new format of stereo (just beginning to take hold across the country), In Stereo pushed the audio separation to it's limits.
Tracklist
UPC: 810075115666
Label: Omnivore Recordings
Release Date: 9.26.25
Format: CD