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The Munsters (1964-1966)

This week I found a TV show. As you can see from my other posts, I have always been a fan of film and the movie theater. Some people would call me a cinephile, and this blog my own form of letterboxd. But this show caught my attention because it uses my most iconic visual representation from the Whale’s film and places me not as a monster, an animal, a discarded character. Rather the creature is the patriarch of a sitcom family. Running from 1964-1966 on CBS, The Munsters was more popular than The Addams Family with a cast of me, vampires, werewolves, dragons, and the invisible man. I am married to a vampire named Lily, and we have a werewolf son named Eddie. Our home also consists of Lily’s father, a Count Dracula look-alike, and our niece, on Lily’s side, named Marilyn. Unlike everyone else in the house that evokes a horror archetype, Marilyn looks like a human, the prototypical blonde. I note down a couple of my thoughts below as I continue to watch the episodes.

S1E1 Munster Masquerade: My looks are the butt of the joke. The top of my head is flat. I have bolts on my neck. I presume I am supposed to be green even though the show is in black and white. I am extremely tall with a blocky build. I am named Herman. Yet I have a wife. She does not look like me, not like a creation of Frankenstein. She is not human either, she is a vampire. Frankenstein may have feared what my offspring would have looked like and what they would mean for the world, but through TV logic, me plus a vampire would equal a little werewolf boy. In a way, perhaps my TV family’s looks are supposed to initially be the butt of the joke since the juxtaposition makes the situation funny, but we hold strong in our own conception of family. Despite the human characters dressing up like us for their Halloween party, we are not odd when we are together. I can’t help but think, I look happy. Like the other representations on my page, I know he is not necessarily me. I don’t have a wife. I don’t have a kid. I have a sense of emptiness and a fear of being rejected, but this crocheting and watching, documenting, wondering helps at least for a bit.

S1E2 My Fair Munster: The Munsters want to help Marilyn with her love life, but when the grandpa tries to help her by creating a love potion in his laboratory, Lily and Herman are at the receiving end of unexpected affections. In this episode, we learn that the neighbors consider the Munsters as ugly and horrid, an example as to how the neighborhood is falling apart. Ironically, these same neighbors then become head over heels for Herman and Lily because of the love potion. 

The thoughts of the neighbors from the first few minutes of the episode reminded me of the 60s when the Boston Redevelopment Authority attempted to tear down the houses near my neighborhood to build new places none of us in the area could afford. The city accomplished their goal in 1963 of completely demolishing Scollay Square, so I feared for the only place I have called home. It was clear to me that we were all deemed unsightly, creatures to be thrown away. But my neighbors fought back by forming the Puerto Rican Tenants Association, or the Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, to build their own housing projects, helping each other understand the laws and skills needed to counter the city’s plan of “redevelopment.” I learned from them that there is pride in keeping one’s own home despite the pressures from external forces. Even to this day, I reside in the South End. 

S1E3 A Walk on the Mild Side- Herman tells Eddie that there is no such thing as monsters. Herman is mixed up in a situation of mis-identification when he starts taking nightly walks in the park, at the same time that a thief is on the loose. Everyone that sees him out and about believes he is the bad man. The police describe me as 9 or 10 feet tall, green, with red eyes and long arms. 

Watching this episode I wonder what it would feel to go outside in all my glory, just like Herman. To just be, without the worry of other people’s looks directed at me rather than beholding me. I hesitate because it’s never good to follow the footsteps of a sitcom. They are protected by episodic parameters in which every situation will come to a resolution. But still, it’s nice to feel like a hero in this situation.

S1E4 Rock-a-Bye Monster- It is Herman’s birthday episode, and another misunderstanding ensues. He believes that Lilly is pregnant, but really, she bought him a car. There is a scene in which Herman believes his new offspring is waiting for him in the living room at the same time that Eddie’s new playmate brings over a Frankenstein’s monster toy. Herman sits down, full of joy to have a mini-me.

I know it is a silly sitcom, but my viewing has to stop now. Sometimes it is much easier to watch a representation of you that you completely disagree with instead of one that a part of you wishes you could be. With pain, I think of everything I wanted when I asked Frankenstein for a companion, how I peered in his window while he worked on another body. The same peering when I ached to be part of the De Lacey family. Maybe I will resume at a future date.