Whoa, Gisele as Vampira!

[shimp scrampi]

Singing "Heartbreak Hotel" ... !

Here's the link

This surreal moment in your day courtesy of archive.org

[Maxwell]

"Your Hit Parade" really didn't know how to deal with the advent of rock 'n' roll!

[Yhtapmys]

"Your Hit Parade" really didn't know how to deal with the advent of rock 'n' roll!

Sure they did, Maxwell. They made fun of it. And that wasn't an unusual reaction.

Come to think of it, didn't Stan Freberg did his own ridiculous version of Heartbreak Hotel?

This is a fun little Addams-inspired bit, though it's a little disjointed. But Your Hit Parade itself was really the product of a byegone age by the time rock finally ascended. It'd be no different than trying to fit hip-hoppers into American Bandstand.

Yhtapmys

[shimp scrampi]

Aside from the rock 'n roll angle, it's also an interesting little bit of pop culture in that it is one of the earlier examples of the baby boomer "monster craze" breaking through into the mainstream of pop culture. Vampira's show had debuted in LA a year or two earlier, and she became a mini-phenomenon, Gisele's obviously doing a parody of her here. I can't get over the eyebrow bit!

The next year, the "Shock Theater" package of old Universal horror movies would be syndicated, with each local station often inventing its own "horror host", becoming very popular.

Though Vampira borrowed her look from the Addams cartoons, this is a full 8 years before the TV show would air.

This also reminds me a bit of the Addams/Munsters parody Jack would do on his first post-series 1965 TV special.