Spooky, Scary Skeletons

"Spooky, Scary Skeletons" is a perennial viral Halloween song by Andrew Gold, first released on Halloween Howls in 1996.[1]

The song "Spooky, Scary Skeletons," has been an internet meme for years, with its origins in YouTube gamer culture. One example of an early viral video featuring the track is a remix video focusing on Minecraft characters breaking out pixelated dance moves to the beat of the song. Every year the song experiences a resurgence in popularity as Halloween approaches, and every year it gets added to Halloween party playlists across the globe. [2]

First released, as stated in his 1996 liner notes, to fill a void of availability of fun and scary Halloween original songs, Spooky, Scary Skeletons was one of nine original songs on "Halloween Howls."[3][4] Andrew produced, did the vocals, mixed, played all the instruments on the track.[5]

A perfect storm of events lead to its current viral status. Starting in 2006 when Disney included the song on their DVD, "Disney Sing Along Songs: Happy Haunting." They paired the song with the vintage animation The Skeleton Dance, a Disney iconic classic created by the famed inventor of Mickey Mouse, Ub Iwerks.[6]

In 2010, TJ Ski put a similar pairing of Andrew's version of the song with The Skeleton Dance. When Gold plays the xylophone, the vintage whimsical skeletons play their ribs in a similar fashion. Garnishing over 30M views, the YouTube viral annual trend began.[6]

In 2013, remix artists began to put their versions on videos exploding with over 90M views. The song then became a meme - with the skeletons from the Ub Iwerks animation to a man with a pumpkin head dancing to it on YouTube awkwardly.[6] "Spooky Scary Skeletons" became an anthem of the spooky internet subculture.[7]

In 2021, the song has become a Gen Z anthem, amassing upwards of four billion views across different incarnations on YouTube, with seven million-plus individual video clips uploaded on TikTok. The single reached No. 1 on the Billboard Children’s chart in 2020, as well as No. 2 on TikTok’s Weekly Top Tracks chart. The TikTok trend started in 2019 when a user, Boomer (@Minecrafter2011,) posted a #dancechallenge clocking 7.5 billion views. Will Smith did the dance.[8][1]

Craft Recording in 2021 released a first-ever vinyl version of the album, "Halloween Howls" with the addition of the most popular remix version of "Spooky, Scary Skeletons." New artwork was created by acclaimed artist, Jess Rotter. Craft created a dedicated web page to the song.[9]

Examples of press coverage include Forbes listing "Spooky Scary Skeletons" fourth in their top 20 list of Halloween songs in 2018,[10] The Washington Post Opinion writer, Alexandra Petri, in 2021 choosing the song as her #2 pick in her piece on the best Halloween songs of all time,[11] Rolling Stone reporting that is the Halloween theme of Gen Z[12] and NPR's, Elizabeth Blair, recommending the vinyl release for kids.[8]