TV Quote of the Day (‘The Munsters,’ on a Gallic Blond Bombshell Back in the Day)

Lily Munster [played by Yvonne De Carlo]: “Herman's practicing to be a child.”

Grandpa [played by Al Lewis]: “Practicing? That's like Brigitte Bardot practicing to be a girl.”— The Munsters, Season 2, Episode 27, “Eddie's Brother,” original air date Mar. 24, 1966, teleplay by Dick Conway, Allan Burns, and Chris Hayward, directed by Ezra Stone

As a tween, I often watched the two seasons of The Munsters, and after all of that how many lines do you think I can recall? Only this set.

Part of the reason, I surmised while researching this blog post, was that this episode was the one with lines used for commercials promoting the horror sitcom in syndicated reruns in the early Seventies. Never underestimate the power of repetition on impressionable young minds!

And never underestimate the impression made by a pretty female face and figure on males of any age.

When The Munsters first aired this episode, French actress Brigitte Bardot, who died this weekend at age 91, had already been an international star for a decade, ever since her appearance in …And God Created Woman. That film’s popularity was assured as soon as it was banned in several states and condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency for its depiction of a free-spirited, “liberated” woman.

Only two years before Grandpa drew his extremely unlikely comparison of his big, awkward, ugly son-in-law Herman to the modestly sized, mambo-dancing, comely actress, Bardot had herself become the subject of a movie: Dear Brigitte, with James Stewart sputtering in frustration as his math prodigy son develops a crush on the blond bombshell.

Time Magazine called her “the countess of come hither,” but the phrase that seems to have first come into heavy use—specifically about her—was “sex kitten.” The quality evoked by that phrase—innocence and sensuality—came into play most often in frothy comedies like Viva Maria! (1965), made with fellow French icon Jeanne Moreau.

That’s the only one of her movies I ever sat through. More than 50 years later, I don’t recall being particularly bowled over by it.

Bardot’s private life (four husbands, four suicide attempts) was as tumultuous as her public one (support for the far-right group National Front, noisy opposition to the #MeToo Movement). Her post-retirement activism on behalf of animal rights was, in the end, more heartfelt and passionate than her pouty screen siren image. 

I’m glad she lived as long as she did, without suffering the premature, youthful death of another alluring blonde who sprang to fame in the Fifties: Marilyn Monroe.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Munsters,’ As Herman and His Father-in-Law Tangle Once Again)

[Grandpa, having taken on avian form again, has discovered that his son-in-law is moonlighting as a professional wrestler, to earn money to put aside for Eddie’s education.]

Herman Munster [played by Fred Gwynne]: “Grandpa, don't you know curiosity killed the bat?”

Grandpa [played by Al Lewis]: “But satisfaction brought him back!”—The Munsters, Season 1, Episode 8, “Herman the Great,” original air date Nov. 12, 1964, teleplay by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, directed by Earl Bellamy

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Munsters,’ With Grandpa Interrupted on a Crucial Project)

Herman Munster [played by Fred Gwynne]: [shouting] “Grandpa, chow time!”

Grandpa [played by Al Lewis]: [shouts back over the noise of his machinery] “Just start without me. I'm inventing a machine that's going to achieve world peace!”

Lily Munster [played by Yvonne De Carlo]: “We're having broiled shark and tossed centipede salad.”

Grandpa [to himself]: “Well, the world waited this long, it can wait a bit longer." —The Munsters, Season 2, Episode 17, “Just Another Pretty Face,” original air date Jan. 13, 1966, teleplay by Richard Baer, directed by Gene Reynolds

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Munsters,’ As Grandpa Explains Why Herman Blundered Around in His Dungeon)

“Schnooks rush in where angels fear to tread.”— Grandpa [played by Al Lewis], to daughter Lily, on how son-in-law Herman sneaked into around the lab in his dungeon, setting off a lightning bolt that “disfigured” him (i.e., made him look like a human being), in The Munsters, Season 2, Episode 17, “Just Another Pretty Face,” original air date Jan. 13, 1966, teleplay by Richard Baer, directed by Gene Reynolds

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Munsters,’ As Herman Becomes a Beat Poet for the Night)

[A gang of hipsters, lured by a rock ‘n’ roll band, has descended on 1313 Mockingbird Lane. The Munsters come home and, against their initial instincts, find themselves drawn to the youngsters—with Herman even corralled to address the small gathering.]

Lily Munster [played by Yvonne De Carlo]: “Oh dear, I think he's going to recite!”

Herman Munster [played by Fred Gwynne]:

“Ibbedy bibbedy, sibbedy sab,

Ibbediy bibbedy canal boat.

“Dictionary down the ferry,

Mary, Mary quite contrary.

[nervously]: Ehm...

“Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,

Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his hair.

“Scooba doo and scooba die,

That's chicken's not too young to fry.

“Life is real, life is earnest.

If you're cold, turn up the furnace.”

[Uncertainly, grasping the moment for a quick exit] “Eh, I, I thank you.”

[Riotous applause]

Man with the Beard [played by Zalman King]: “Man, that guy is deep!”— The Munsters, Season 1, Episode 26, “Far Out Munsters,” original air date Mar. 18, 1965, teleplay by Dick Conway, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, directed by Joseph Pevney

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Sopranos,’ in Which Tony Displays His Familiarity With Mysticism)

[Mobster Tony Soprano has returned to his sessions with psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi, who has brought the discussion around to existentialism and the meaning of “dread.”]

Dr. Jennifer Melfi [played by Lorraine Bracco]: "Carlos Castaneda said, “‘Live every moment as if it were your last dance on earth.’"

Tony Soprano [played by James Gandolfini] "Who the **** listens to prizefighters? Ali, maybe—he had a little wisdom."—The Sopranos, Season 2, Episode 6, “The Happy Wanderer,” teleplay by Frank Renzulli, directed by John Patterson

I had only seen about a half dozen or so episodes of The Sopranos during its original run, and for a long time after it left the air in 2007 I had no interest in revisiting it.

But with the recent upsurge of attention for the 20^th anniversary of the groundbreaking HBO series—and especially with my brothers’ increased interest in the show—I became curious about what I had missed.

My memories of the show stemmed largely from its heavy violence and its focus on family dysfunction. When I started watching the second season on DVD, those impressions not only remained but intensified.

But what I hadn’t grasped the first time around was the show’s offbeat—sometimes laugh-out-lough—sense of humor. Much of that came from Miami Steve Van Zandt’s Silvio Dante, with his impersonations of Michael Corleone and his sputtering over cleaning up after cheese droppings on the floor while he’s in the midst of a high-stakes card game. Some of it came from Tony’s nephew Christopher and his preposterous desire to become a screenwriter.

Some of it came from Tony Soprano himself, and this particular exchange made me guffaw. In his aggressive befuddlement over popular culture, I hadn’t seen anything like it since the heyday of Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker on All in the Family in the Seventies.

But much of the show’s humor stems from its overarching sense of the absurd, something I associate with a genre originating in a couple of Sixties sitcoms I watched as a kid: The Munsters and The Addams Family. In these shows, a figure who inspires fear tries to live like a regular guy in a neighborhood, only to see his interactions with “normal people” who enter his sphere producing only chaos and damage. It’s an inversion of the Nuclear Family so in vogue at the time.

You’d soon regret getting close to a paterfamilias on one of these shows. A backslap from Herman Munster guffawing at a joke could send you flying across the room or break your ribs. Guests are alarmed not only by Gomez Addams’ favorite hobby (blowing up toy trains) but by his pet (a lion named Kitty Cat).

As for Tony Soprano: Sure, he might agree to let you in on a friendly card game, but you’d have to be prepared to have him beat you to a pulp when you ended up thousands of dollars in debt and unable to pay up. 

Even then, you’d count yourself lucky to come out alive.

The Sopranos proved, as surely as those other shows did, that monsters could indeed live among us.

Flashback, Fall 1964: Creepy, Kooky Comedies Spook Networks

Every once in a while, several programs in a similar vein will clog the airwaves. Fifty years ago this autumn, the word “vein”—as in the body part that certain dark creatures desire—would have been used advisedly, as a trio of supernatural comedies premiered on the networks: Bewitched, The Addams Family and The Munsters. (Within a year, they would be joined by yet another fun fantasy of this ilk, I Dream of Jeannie.)

These three sitcoms aired on different networks, with different showrunners. But, lest you think that their simultaneous appearance (all within a week of each other, in September) was entirely coincidental, remember that on TV, little occurs by chance.

What better time to write about this group than the week preceding Halloween? Oddly enough, only a month into their runs 50 years ago, only one of the shows thought fit to have a Halloween episode: The Addams Family. 

You wonder if a young John Hughes absorbed its plot of a pair of robbers who invade a home (the one owned by the Addamses, in the midst of a Halloween party), only to be undone by a most unlikely source (in this case, not young Kevin of Home Alone, but, of all things, Thing).

Dominated by shows such as Ozzie and Harriet, Make Room for Daddy, and Leave It to Beaver, the 1950s were anything but a party. 

“It was a time when a woman's highest ambition was to be a good housewife, a time when men were judged primarily on their ability to provide financial support and domestic authority, a time when happily ever after was preferable to a real life with all its delights, a time when my own dream of glory was to be a conventional suburban teenager with a tacky nickname,” Susan Cheever recalled in an essay on perhaps the most influential of these patriarchal-themed sitcoms, Robert Young’s Father Knows Best, in Prime Times: Writers on Their Favorite TV Shows (2004). “The world seemed limited by the walls of the family ranch house. No one ever told the truth, even on television.”

By 1964, though, the rock ‘n’ roll era had opened up a chasm between youth and the adult world, with old values being questioned. 

Moreover, just the year before America was exposed to the likes of Samantha Stevens, Morticia Addams and Lily Munster, Betty Friedan had demonstrated in The Feminist Mystique that far more was happening behind the closed doors of the stay-at-home, suburban American housewife than anyone could ever imagine. 

The civil-rights movement was also about to effect a revolution not just at the ballot box, but also in communities and workplaces.

The result was that TV’s vision of suburbia—presided over by a paterfamilias with a rather indistinct occupation, with a stay-at-home mom, with nary a hint of sex between the two, and with blacks nowhere to be found except as domestics—was ready for subversion. And nothing undercuts the old order like comedy.

The nuclear family, of the Father Knows Best variety, was mercilessly parodied in this trio of horror comedies. In these sitcoms, Dad was depicted as strange (Gomez in The Addams Family), stupid (Darrin Stevens of Bewitched) or strange and stupid (Hermann Munster of The Munsters). 

It doesn’t matter if Dad is a lawyer (Gomez, supposedly), an ad man (Darrin) or a funeral-parlor employee (Hermann). Above all, he’s a bumbler.

Watching the Broadway revival of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s Depression-era You Can’t Take It With You last month, I tried to think of what its scenario—a gallery of eccentrics presided over by an elderly male, a daffy mother, a father who blunders about a great deal, an ingénue daughter markedly different from everyone else by virtue of her normality, and a basement with all kinds of experimentation—reminded me of. Then it hit me: The Munsters.

Only the sitcom sent up the family in a way that Kaufman and Hart never dreamed of. 

In one episode, for instance, the Munsters were accidentally selected by a national magazine to appear on its front cover as the "Average American Family." Two magazine reporters arrive for an interview, unaware of what they’ll encounter at Mockingbird Lane!

But even from its opening credits in that first season, The Munsters was intent on laughing the Fifties American family out of existence. 

As the show’s musical theme played in the background, loving mom Lily Munster handed out lunch boxes to each family member leaving the house. The scene parodied a popular sitcom still going strong on rival network ABC: The Donna Reed Show.

Most of these sitcoms’ family members try to fit into the everyday world, but in straitlaced postwar America, they can’t help reverting to habit. “I don't mean to be disrespectful,” a clueless Darrin tells his mother-in-law on Bewitched, “but we wanna live normal lives.”

Endora will have none of it: “What is normal to you, young man, is to us [i.e., the world of witches and warlocks] asinine.”

The writers for Bewitched must have really loved Endora, for they gave her so many of the show’s best lines, including this gem: “Just because you married a human, Samantha, that's no reason to overdo this grubby little household role.” 

A little parsing will show how subversive that line is: Leave out the first half of that sentence and there is nothing that the next wave of feminism (kick-started in a major way with the formation of the National Organization for Women in 1966) would have disagreed with.

Over the last seven seasons, critics have hailed Mad Men for the manner in which it ironically chronicles the undermining of American male confidence in the 1960s. But guess what? Bewitched got there first 50 years ago, in an infinitely more sly way. Consider:

*The Drapers of Mad Men live in Ossining, NY, home of the great WASP suburban writer John Cheever; the Stevens reside in Westport, CT, another WASP outpost;

*Don Draper works for an ad agency boss, Roger Sterling, who contributes less and less to the firm as time goes on; Darrin Stephens’ boss, Larry Tate, substitutes greed for Roger’s drunken lechery;

*Both Darrin and Don are the envy of other men for their beautiful blond wives. But neither Samantha Stevens nor Betty Draper can preserve that internal household harmony so prized in Sixties suburbia—Betty, because of free-floating anxiety, and Samantha because of a restless desire to help her husband.

 I’ve only begun to scratch the surface on these comparisons. You really ought to see all the parallels drawn out by Kathleen Keating on the blog Hypable—it truly is extraordinary.

Of the three sitcoms, Bewitched, going eight seasons, endured the longest, four times the run of The Munsters and The Addams Family. One reason for the longevity is obvious: Elizabeth Montgomery. (Or, in the words of a friend who met her once: “Mike, she could have wiggled her nose at me anytime she liked!”)

But another reason for the show’s popularity might be its endless sense of invention, the way in which it took down one notion of society while setting up another. It poked merciless fun, for instance, at Mrs. Kravitz, the archetype of the nosy neighbor, while creating an entirely different set of characters such as Uncle Arthur, Doctor Bombay and forgetful old Aunt Clara.

Significantly, Bewitched closed out its run in 1972. The show came to a halt just when, it might be said, the Sixties itself—with its dream of an alternate society, less comedic than the supernatural one in Bewitched, The Addams Family and The Munsters—came to an end.

Making a Mockery of ‘The Munsters’

I know the first question you have, Faithful Reader: How can you make a mockery of something that, in essence, is already a parody of every film, radio or TV derivation from Mary Shelley’s original 1818 Frankenstein novel?

Easy: When you decide that you’re going to revive the beloved Sixties sitcom The Munsters, with Jerry O’Connell playing patriarch Herman Munster—only it’s called Mockingbird Lane and billed as a “dramatic reimagining” of the original.

(I suppose I should tell the young ‘uns out there who might not have ever viewed the original—it was broadcast before they were born, and in black and white, for God’s sake!)—that “Mockingbird Lane” is the address of the Great Gang of Ghoul.)

The news article I came across on this refers to the new series as a “retool”—not a sequel, a prequel, a remake, or even a “reboot” (the latter a favorite form of the last few years in which a once-glorious franchise film series is revitalized by going back to square one with a new cast, new director, and a moderately new plot—see Star Trek, Batman, and the James Bond films). There’s another reason for this neologism, however: “reboot” has inevitable associations with Herman’s foot size.

Don’t bet the ranch that fans are unaware of this, or that they’re not wondering how this series could possibly measure up to the original. If the creators of this show have something darker and more sinister in mind, aren’t there already more than enough TV shows of this ilk around? Hello, True Blood? Anyone for American Horror Story?

Why was O’Connell cast? I wondered if this might be the prelude to a “two-fer”—i.e., two for the price of one—with wife Rebecca Romijn cast as Herman’s lovely vampire spouse, Lily Munster? (Physically, of course, Ms. Romijn is closer to Marilyn, the honey-blonde niece that the family charmingly regards as less physically blessed than themselves—except that—forgive me for writing this!—the onetime Sports Illustrated swimsuit model would have a bit of a hard time passing for a teen or twentysomething these days.)

But no, the producers didn’t reel in two stars with the couple. Instead, they chose Portia de Rossi, Ellen Degeneres' significant other, in the role. I have my own issue with that casting, too—but we’ll get to that in a moment.

But back to Mr. O’Connell. The most visible characteristic of Herman Munster, of course, is a terrifying strength in reserve—terrifying because of both sheer size and the chance that he could kill somebody entirely by accident. In other words, it’s as if Lenny from Of Mice and Men walked around with all kinds of ill-fitting parts in every part of his body, from head to toe, clunking every second he moved.

Fred Gwynne had that strength in abundance. You can sense it in another comedy, the laugh-out-loud My Cousin Vinny, where his Southern judge's scowl—whether sitting at the bench or, simply, standing up—leaves no doubt what he could do to Joe Pesci’s eponymous, fast-talking New York lawyer if the latter tries to pull one more legal rabbit out of a hat.

Blundering amiability rather than irascibility was Gwynne’s stock in trade on The Munsters. It’s an infinitely hard act to follow—a fact noted in one Internet exchange I came across, in which one individual noted that O’Connell had “big shoes to fill.”

“Yeah," another reader responded. “Size 18!”

At least one reader was disappointed that his favorite contender for Herman, Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond, didn’t get the role. Garrett certainly has the comic chops for the role, but I suspect that he’d play Herman not as amiable so much as mordant. You know—it can’t be easy for a guy with such large fingers to use a cellphone without accidentally breaking it. Wouldn’t that disgust you?

No, I’m afraid that we’ll have to look elsewhere for the ideal new Herman—to someone amiable and big enough for the role—so big, in fact, that he wouldn’t need the shoe implants that even the six-ft.-five-in. Gwynne reportedly used.

I want the producers of Mockingbird Lane to consult what should be primary research, the original scripts of The Munsters, and especially the episode called “Herman’s Lawsuit.” In that, his driver’s license lists his height as 7 ft. 3 inches and his weight as 380 pounds.

When you consider those numbers, is there really any better candidate than Shaquille O’Neal?

Did I say something about size? How about the 7 ft. 1 in., 325 pounds that Mr. O’Neal has? Will Hollywood really find something better?

Let’s consider those Herman characteristics once again:

*Strength: I’ve already got one scene in mind: In teaching little Eddie the basics of basketball, Herman accidentally shatters a backboard he’d bought for the backyard. Cut to Shaq lumbering into The Sports Authority to purchase a new one…

*Amiability: Sure—check out those Buick LaCrosse commercials that Shaq has made recently. It’s as if the car, more than anything, is a chance to make new friends for him. Now imagine him as Herman, out to greet his new neighbors…

*Terrifying strength in reserve: Nobody will ever forget Shaq’s death stares at former teammate Kobe “Let Me Shoot on Every Possession!” Bryant. I don’t think the current Laker fears anyone more than Shaq—except, maybe, his wife, who, with her phalanx of attorneys, has gotten Kobe to act so mature and responsible that she’s reconsidering her divorce. Now, think how Shaq, as Herman, would deal with someone who dared to mistreat Marilyn—let alone his darling Lily.

Okay, let’s turn to the other cast members, shall we? I understand that Mason Cook, in the role of Eddie, will take the young werewolf character in a rather less innocent direction than the original, Butch Patrick. In the new series, Eddie feels the call of the wild every time he sees a woman. In this, he merely confirms feminine prejudices about the male of the species from time immemorial.

Charity Wakefield, as Marilyn Munster? I guess those initials and even the first name were too subtle for the makers of the reboot, who want to amp up the oomph factor far more than Pat Priest ever did. The character’s wardrobe are said to recall the breathy sex symbol’s this time around. Yawn….

Eddie Izzard, as Grandpa Munster? Like Lord Byron—mad, bad, and dangerous to know.  Nothing like Al Lewis, who, with the cheesiest cape this side of Transylvania, looked like your average lovable Jewish granddad, though a bit (literally) long in the tooth. How about another Lewis in the role—Richard? Sure, he’d be a little neurotic, but he’d be more likely to leave the impression that Al did—i.e., more interested in biting a good cigar than a neck—than Izzard would.

I really can think of only one reason why the geniuses behind Mockingbird Lane thought that Portia de Rossi would do well as Lily Munster. It’s a variation on that two-fer idea I mentioned before—except that in this case, it’s a three-fer. (That’s why they’re geniuses, don’t you know?) I’m sure if the producers try hard, they can get Portia's comedienne spouse at a discount, maybe even for free as a favor to Ms. de Rossi, to appear on the show as a Special Guest Monster. With her on the show even for only a night, so many people would want to appear that it could make for the funniest TV clash since Archie Bunker squared off against his wife Edith’s cousin Maude.

But I’m sorry—the show’s producers have made a hash of things with de Rossi’s casting. Again, they need to look at the original show for some ideas.

In the two decades before her stint as Lily Munster, Yvonne DeCarlo carved out a niche as an exotic film vixen. When she turned 40, however, the offers began to dry up. That led to her role as Lily.

As it happens, an actress with a similar career arc is available now: Robin Givens. The height of her career might have been about 20-25 years ago, somewhere between Head of the Class and the Eddie Murphy film, Boomerang. Since then, she’s experienced some trouble with the IRS, so she could sure use the work.

Besides, as a blaze of tabloid publicity in the late 1980s made apparent, she knows an awful lot about monsters, having been married to one big one  then.