Like a bunch of other shows from the 1960s, The Munsters hardly gets the attention it deserves today. Even back when it was new, the show was mostly overshadowed by its always more successful rival; The Addams Family. I'll give credit where it's due. Addams Family is still a good show, but it's not on the same level of hilarity The Munsters is. To be honest, I hardly laugh at the Addams Family, but this show has a lot of moments that are hysterically funny. While being similar in style to its biggest competitor, The Munsters focuses on a family of 5 monsters who view themselves the same way as any american family, and are thus confused whenever people run away in fear from them. The family consists of Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne), his wife Lily (Yvonne de Carlo), son Eddie (Butch Patrick), Lily's father, Grandpa (Al Lewis) and Marilyn (Pat Priest), Herman's niece. The majority of funny moments the show has are derived from the fact that the main characters are not human beings, with Herman being Frankenstein's monster, Lily and Grandpa being vampires, and Eddie being a werewolf. Funnily enough, Marilyn is the only member of the family that is a normal human, leading to her relatives labeling her the "ugly duckling." Originally planned to be a color show, The Munsters was changed to black and white at the last minute because the producers wanted it to resemble old Universal horror films such as Dracula and Frankenstein, which I think was an overall prudent choice. Because the show's main characters are either undead or some other type of monster, you might get the wrong idea that The Munsters is just a horror show that only focuses on trying to creep out its intended audience, but no. It actually has a great amount of variety when it comes to its storylines. There's too many funny episodes to get into here, and you'll need to watch them yourself to see why they're hilarious anyway, but believe me when I tell you that no two episodes are alike. One of the best the show has to offer is the one where Herman and Grandpa build Eddie a go-kart for his birthday, and Herman wants to give it a test drive before the day arrives to see if it works. The ensuing footage remains one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. The family also owns a cuckoo clock with a raven inside, which pops out occasionally to say "nevermore", an obvious reference to Edgar Allen Poe. One thing I never realized is how this raven is voiced by Mel Blanc. While I think The Munsters is a great show full of funny moments that retain their hilarity for decades, the show isn't an exception to somewhat bad writing. For one thing, I never was able to understand why Grandpa is called Grandpa by everyone in the show. Not only does this imply he doesn't have an actual name, but the only character he's a grandfather to is Eddie. Another thing I didn't really like is how the intro of the show eventually changes. The first intro is actually a parody of the Donna Reed show, in which Reed makes loving gestures towards all the members of the cast and kisses them as they walk past her. Lily does the same thing in the first opening sequence. I would have liked to see The Munsters keep that intro, but it didn't. On top of all the positives I've listed, The Munsters also has a (much) better theme song than The Addams Family, and it really goes with the show's macabre style, while also sounding like surf music. Overall, The Munsters is one of the 1960's best shows, and features great acting from Gwynne, de Carlo (who was the only truly famous actor there), and the others. It's just sad it's always been shoved to the side in favor of an arguably less funny show. It's also unfortunate how Batman ultimately took down The Munsters, as the show was still well rated in 1966, but it couldn't keep up with how much of a phenomenon Batman was, and was thus cancelled.
Review of The Munsters
