One look at that Gothic horror mansion you knew that the Munsters were one special family. Though the show only lasted two seasons it left some last memories and a feature film. Even the Addams family never got a feature film, the original Addamses that is.Meet Herman and Lily Munster Fred Gwynne and Yvonne DeCarlo. Herman was a creation of some scientist and he's modeled on the famous Frankenstein creation of Boris Karloff. He's also big and clumsy and stammers a lot. He makes a living at a mortuary the only place he won't frighten the clientele. Yvonne DeCarlo is a proper wife and dutiful daughter of a vampire Al Lewis. Both Gwynne and Lewis were in Car 54 Where Are You. Lewis with that New York Jewish speech pattern wasn't exactly Bela Lugosi. Gwynne and DeCarlo had a werewolf son Eddie played by Butch Patrick. He had some socialization issues as you can imagine.Two actresses played Marilyn Munster, Lily's nice Beverly Owen and Pat Priest. She was the 'ugly duckling' of the family. The Munsters had alternative standards as far as physical beauty. That gag kind of wore thin as Marilyn got so much attention from the male of he species.The Munsters were cute and kind of sweet. They clearly did not socialize much with their neighbors, but had their own kind of fun which they shared for two seasons with their viewers.

I thought I'd give it a try as an adult. Now that I've seen it again I'm sorry to report that this show is really poorly written. I enjoy a lot of old shows and more specifically old radio shows. So I'm not just someone comparing older shows to what's done recently. That being said I found myself wondering "have these writers ever even heard a joke before? Much less written one." If it weren't for the insane amount of canned laughter I might not have even realized that these things that were said were supposed to be jokes. The episode where the father goes to town to purchase a car for his daughter is particularly confounding. One has to wonder if a script was even written or if they were thinking "we'll just speed up the camera and have someone fall down a lot". I watch it gawking at the screen trying to comprehend how the people that were involved in a delightful show "leave it to beaver" spawned this misguided "comedy".

I was more familiar with the Munsters than with the Addams family. I thought the Munsters were more friendly and less threatening and less spooky. The show had a first rate cast that featured Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster, the lovable Frankenstein father figure, Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Munster, the vampire's daughter, and Grandpa played by Al Lewis. Lewis and Gwynne were also in Car 54 together so they worked quite well on this show. I thought the relationships between these characters were more authentic and less serious at times. While they scared their neighbors or would be visitors, the laughter was on the audience because we fell in love with this odd-looking family. Who cares if the grandfather is a vampire who can turn himself into a bat? Or that the father works as a gravedigger? Or that lovely Lily Munster looks like a vampire herself? or that little Eddie Munster looks like a future wolfman? As long as the family was functional, that they loved each other despite society's disapproving views and looks upon them. The show is still being shown to a new audience and maybe today's audiences will amuse themselves inside the Munster estate at 1313 Mockingbird lane.

I'll say that "The Addams Family" was actually cleverer, but still, "The Munsters" definitely had its merits. Basically the story of a household in which the father, Herman (Fred Gwynne), is Frankenstein's monster, the mother, Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo), is a vampire, the son, Eddie (Butch Patrick), is a werewolf, the grandfather (Al Lewis) is Count Dracula, and the niece, Marilyn (played by two different people), is the ugly (make that "pretty") duckling in the family. While the Munsters' everyday routine is the same as everyone else's, everything that's normal to them (e.g., a house that looks like a Halloween party should be held there) is weird to the rest of the world, and vice versa. Every human who sees them freaks out, and yet the Munsters can never figure out why everyone finds them strange.It's completely silly, with a string of gruesome, sardonic jokes, but it's always really funny. Truly one show that you gotta admire.