‘The Munsters’: Why the Classic Monster Sitcom Still Lives On 60 Years Later
What To Know
- The Munsters debuted in 1964 and stood out for its slapstick humor and affectionate parody of classic Universal monsters.
- Although it only ran for two seasons, the show became a cult favorite.
In the fall of 1964, television went crazy for goofy ghouls, wacky witches and other things that went “spoof” in the night, sending up the traditional domestic family sitcom like never before. The shows were so delightfully silly that it was almost scary.
Bewitched, starring the ethereal Elizabeth Montgomery as nose-twitching Samantha Stephens, settled in for the longest run, lasting into the early ’70s. But those with a taste for the merrily macabre had two even more outrageously frightful families to choose from: The Addams Family and The Munsters, which each ran for only two seasons. While The Addams Family found its humor in the strange and deadpan, The Munsters went bigger and broader, mixing slapstick and playful monster gags with a loving homage to the classic creatures of Universal Studios fame.
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There was nothing subtle about this supernatural family that lived in a dark, dreary, and dilapidated Victorian Gothic-style house at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, where an unseen fire-breathing pet dragon named Spot lurked beneath the stairs. The most reliable running gag, among too many to count, was that the Munsters saw themselves as perfectly normal and could never understand why fellow citizens would flee in terror at the sight of them.
And what a sight they were! Herman Munster, played by gangly Car 54, Where Are You? star Fred Gwynne, was an undead ringer for Boris Karloff‘s iconic Frankenstein monster, down to the neck plugs, albeit infused with a robust, childlike guilelessness. Former movie siren Yvonne De Carlo was his doting wife, Lily, a sleek and unflappable ancient vampire known to coo to her husband: “They just don’t make men like you anymore.”
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Rounding out the family: Lily’s wisecracking vampire father, Grandpa, played by Al Lewis with Borscht Belt bravado; earnest werewolf son Eddie (Butch Patrick), who promised his mom, “I brushed my fangs and washed behind my points”; and black-sheep niece Marilyn (Beverley Owen, replaced by Pat Priest), pitied by her mutant relatives because of her conventional Sandra Dee-looks. “Oh, Marilyn, the circles under your eyes,” Lily once gushed. “How lovely you look today.”
The Munsters was cult TV before TV cults were cool. (When it went off the air in 1966, Dark Shadows arrived to pick up the slack.) Fans reveled in The Munsters‘ jolly embrace of its cornball cheesiness, but the show’s fate was sadly sealed by the arrival of Adam West‘s Batman. Even more attuned to the tastes of the target hip young audience, the caped crusader helped send The Munsters into the ratings cellar.
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Still, you can’t keep good grotesques like these down forever, which explains why new generations continue to groove to Herman, Lily and the gang. They’re immortal.
Where You Can Watch The Munsters
The Munsters airs Weekdays on FeTV and Weekends on Cozi TV. It is currently streaming on Peacock, and it has recently been announced that all 70 episodes will be released as The Munsters: The Complete Series, a 14-disc limited edition that brings all episodes of the classic sitcom to Blu-ray, along with Munster, Go Home, and two Munsters TV movies. It will be released in November 2026, and you can preorder it here.
This article originally appeared in the October 2022 The Munsters issue of ReMIND Magazine and is currently sold out.
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