The Munsters


The Munsters is an American sitcom about the home life of a family of benign monsters that aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBS. The series stars Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster, Yvonne De Carlo as his vampire wife Lily, Al Lewis as Grandpa, Beverley Owen as their niece Marilyn, and Butch Patrick as their werewolf-like son Eddie. A family pet named "Spot" was a fire-breathing dragon.
Produced by the creators of Leave It to Beaver, the series was a satire of American suburban life, the wholesome television family fare of the era and traditional monster movies. It achieved higher Nielsen ratings than did the similarly macabre-themed The Addams Family, which aired concurrently on ABC.
In 1965, The Munsters was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series but lost to The Rogues. In the 21st century, it received several TV Land Award nominations, including one for Most Uninsurable Driver.
The series originally aired on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. from September 24, 1964 to May 12, 1966. Seventy episodes were produced. The show was canceled after ratings had dropped to a series low in the face of competition from ABC's Batman. Patrick said, "I think Batman was to blame. Batman just came along and took our ratings away." However, The Munsters found a large audience in syndication. A spinoff series ensued, as well as several films, including one with a theatrical release and several more recent attempts to reboot it.

Premise

The Munsters are a Transylvanian-American family living at 1313 Mockingbird Lane in the fictional city of Mockingbird Heights. The series' running gag is that the odd-looking family with strange tastes considers itself to be an average American family. Herman is the family's sole wage-earner, although Lily and Grandpa make short-lived attempts to earn money from time to time. While Herman is the head of the household, Lily also makes many decisions. According to episode 44, they were married in 1865.
Other than Marilyn, the characters' costumes and appearances were based on the classic monsters of Universal Studios films of the 1930s and 1940s, including the iconic version of Frankenstein's monster developed by Jack Pierce for the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein. As Universal jointly produced The Munsters, the show was able to employ the copyrighted designs. Makeup for the series was credited to Bud Westmore, who pioneered many other makeup effects and designs for the studio's monsters after Pierce.
The show satirized the typical family sitcom formula of the era: the well-meaning father, the nurturing mother, the eccentric live-in relative, the naïve teenager and the precocious child. The show also references several real sitcoms. In episode 45, "Operation Herman", Lily tells Herman to have a father-son talk with Eddie because "a thing like this is up to the father. Anyone who's watched Father Knows Best for nine years ought to know that," to which Herman replies, "All right. But Donna Reed always handles things on her show." In episode 47, "John Doe Munster", Grandpa describes My Three Sons as being about a "crazy, mixed-up family that's always having weird adventures."
Al Lewis explained, "We can do a lot of satirical pointed things on society that you couldn't do on an ordinary show." Lewis also said, "Philosophically, the format is that in spite of the way people look to you physically, underneath there is a heart of gold.
The Munsters reflected changes in social attitudes during the civil-rights era, and in 2020 a speech that Herman makes to Eddie in the 1965 episode "Eddie's Nickname" went viral: "The lesson I want you to learn is that it doesn't matter what you look like. You can be tall or short; or fat or thin; ugly or handsome—like your father—or you can be black, or yellow or white, it doesn't matter. What does matter is the size of your heart and the strength of your character."

Cast

Regulars

  • Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster
  • Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Munster
  • Al Lewis as Grandpa
  • Butch Patrick as Eddie Munster
  • Beverley Owen as Marilyn Munster
  • Pat Priest as Marilyn Munster
  • Mel Blanc – the voice of Charlie the Raven
  • Bob Hastings – the voice of Charlie the Raven

    Recurring characters

  • Paul Lynde as Dr. Edward H. Dudley
  • * Dom DeLuise as Dr. Edward H. Dudley
  • John Carradine as Mr. Gateman, Herman's boss at the funeral parlor
  • Chet Stratton as Clyde Thornton, Herman's coworker at the funeral parlor
  • Bryan O'Byrne as Uriah, Calvin and another coworker at the funeral parlor

    Episodes

Pitch episode

The first presentation was filmed in color and ran 16 minutes. It was used to pitch the series to CBS and its affiliates. It never aired, but the script was reused as the basis for Episode 2, "My Fair Munster". The cast in the title sequence included Joan Marshall as Phoebe, Beverley Owen as Marilyn, Nate "Happy" Derman as Eddie, Al Lewis as Grandpa and Fred Gwynne as Herman. Although the same house exterior was used, it was later changed to appear spookier for the series. This included adding the tower deck and Marilyn's deck, a new coat of paint and enlarging the living room. Although Grandpa had the same dungeon, Gwynne did not wear padding in the pitch episode, had a more protruding forehead, and was broad but thin. The most noticeable difference was his somber expression rather than his comic silliness during the series. Except for Marilyn, the family had a blue-green tint to their skin. The biggest character difference was that Eddie was portrayed by Derman as a nasty brat. Eddie, as played by Patrick, was mostly respectful.
The pilot title sequence had light, happy music borrowed from the Doris Day movie The Thrill of It All instead of the instrumental rock theme. It was also decided that Marshall too closely resembled Morticia Addams and that Derman was too nasty as Eddie, so both were replaced. On the basis of the first presentation, the new series, still not completely cast, was announced by CBS on February 18, 1964. A second black-and-white presentation was filmed with DeCarlo and Patrick. In this version, Eddie appeared with a more normal look, although his hairstyle was later altered to include a pronounced widow's peak.

''Marineland Carnival'' (1965 Easter special)

During the first season, the Munster family appeared in an Easter special when they visited Marineland of the Pacific in Palos Verdes, California, to get a new pet for Eddie. Shot on videotape, the episode aired just once on CBS on April 18, and was long thought lost until a copy was donated to the Paley Center in New York in 1997.

Episode list

Production

Development

The idea of a family of comical monsters was first suggested to Universal Studios by animator Bob Clampett, who developed the idea from 1943 to 1945 as a series of cartoons. The project did not make progress until mid-1963 when a similar idea was submitted by The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends writers Allan Burns and Chris Hayward. The proposal was later handed to writers Norm Liebman and Ed Haas, who wrote a pilot script, Love Thy Monster.
According to Burns, "We sort of stole the idea from Charles Addams and his New Yorker cartoons.... Because Universal owned the Frankenstein character and the Dracula character for movie rights, they decided to take their characters instead of the characters we had written."
While some executives believed that the series should be animated, others who argued for live action prevailed. In 1964, a live-action pilot titled "My Fair Munster" was filmed in color by MCA Television for CBS. Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis were the first to be cast early in February 1964. They had recently completed the series Car 54, Where Are You? and had good chemistry together. Beverly Owen was signed to play Marilyn, Joan Marshall was cast as Herman's wife Phoebe and "Happy" Nate Derman was cast as Eddie. A second pilot was ordered in April 1964 with Yvonne De Carlo replacing Marshall, and the character renamed Lily. For a third pilot, Derman was replaced by Butch Patrick. CBS liked both De Carlo and Patrick, but ordered a fourth pilot in which Eddie was less spoiled.
The show was produced by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, who were already known for creating the Leave It to Beaver television series. Prior to that, they had written many episodes of Amos 'n' Andy, a popular network radio program, during its half-hour comedy era.

Filming

Over the course of Season 1, the makeup for Herman, Lily and Grandpa was adjusted. Lily's hair originally had a large white streak, which was reduced in later episodes. Her necklace featured a bat instead of a star, and her eyebrows were angled more. Grandpa's makeup was exaggerated, including heavier eyebrows, and Herman's face was widened for a dopier and less human appearance. Gwynne also added a stutter whenever Herman was angry or wanted to make a point, and he frequently left his mouth open, adding to the effect of a goofy, less frightening figure.

Sets

The Munsters' home was a decaying Second Empire Victorian Gothic-style mansion. At one point the address was supposed to be 43 Mockingbird Lane, Camelot, New Jersey, but was changed to 1313 Mockingbird Lane in the city of Mockingbird Heights when filming began. In later incarnations of the series the location is described as a small town outside Los Angeles.
The Munster home was on the Universal Studios back lot. It was originally constructed with two other houses on Stage 12, the studio's largest soundstage, for the 1946 film So Goes My Love. After that film was completed, the sets were put in storage until 1950, when they were reassembled on "River Road" along the north edge of the back lot. All three houses appeared in many television shows and films, including Leave It to Beaver.
In 1964, the house was redressed and distressed to portray the Munster home, and a stone wall was added around the property. After The Munsters ended its run, the house was restored. It was the home of the family in Shirley.
In 1981, all of the houses on River Road were moved from the north end of the lot to their present location. The former Munster house was used in Coach and, after another remodel, Desperate Housewives.
The interiors of the Munsters' mansion were filmed on Stages 30 and 32 at Universal Studios. The interior was riddled with dust, smoke and cobwebs. As a running gag, parts of the house would often be damaged, mostly by Herman's tantrums or clumsiness, but the damage would not last.