I Miss the Munsters :(

[D'Snowth]

Eh, Snowth... I think I know why you like Munsters so much.

The show was created by one of the head writers of the Bullwinkle show. Chris Heyward. Also wrote for MY favorite sitcom, Get Smart.

Really? I thought it was created by the same people who created Leave it to Beaver (Joe Connelly & Bob Mosher). On an interesting note, apparently the Damon Wayans movie Major Payne was "based on an idea" by Connelly & Mosher... I'm TRYING so hard to picture Major Payne as a watered-down, weekly sitcoms on 1960s TV, but it's not working too well... plus, it would probably be too similar to Sergeant Carter from Gomer Pyle.

Have any of guys heard of this 1969 TV pilot that never came to be: Vernon's Volunteers? It was penned/created by veteran sitcom producer Si Rose (worked on Dukes of Hazzards, and most Sid & Marty Krofft shows), supposedly, Paul Winchell was the chief of a determined, yet incompetent volunteer fire department in a small town called Vernon. Even if it had become a series, it probably wouldn't have lasted but a season or two, because the Rural Purge was right around the corner, and this concept has "rural" written all over it. Besides, didn't Hooterville already have an imcompetent volunteer fire department?

 

[mupcollector1]

Car 54 actually is from the early 60s, but other than that, yes, it is a sitcom (and a very good one at that), featuring the above mentioned people. It's pretty much a show about the lives of two police officers.

Kind of like The Andy Griffith Show?

 

[mupcollector1]

Eh, Snowth... I think I know why you like Munsters so much.

The show was created by one of the head writers of the Bullwinkle show. Chris Heyward. Also wrote for MY favorite sitcom, Get Smart.

Really, Rocky and Bullwinkle writers help create Munsters? No wonder there's some cool cartoonish slapstick gags in it. lol I've heard of Get Smart, rarely seen it. Didn't Mel Brooks do something with it?

 

[D'Snowth]

Mel Brooks created it.

Matter of fact, I read up about Get Smart the other day, and read that there were a few things that the network wanted him to do with the show that he refused to do, such as giving Maxwell Smart a mother; Mel Brooks said he didn't like mothers on sitcoms, so he refused to add a mother for Max on the show.

 

[mupcollector1]

Mel Brooks created it.

Matter of fact, I read up about Get Smart the other day, and read that there were a few things that the network wanted him to do with the show that he refused to do, such as giving Maxwell Smart a mother; Mel Brooks said he didn't like mothers on sitcoms, so he refused to add a mother for Max on the show.

I love Mel's work. I've written him many fan letters and still haven't gotten a response just yet. lol So was Get Smart kind of slapsticky / satirical like his film work or was it more of a straight drama detective like show simular to Dagdret or whatever that show is called. Joe Monday, and that song "Duh duh duh duh, Duuuuh duh duh duh Daaaah." That's all I know of that show. lol And parodies of it. lol

Didn't Mel do a TV show before his movies? I remember seeing a clip of people inside a clock beating each other up. lol

Mel is great, I remember reading how he took a pay cut just so he could be director and have creative control over The Producers, his first movie and a great classic may I add.

 

[Teheheman]

I thought Mockingbird Lane wasn't BAD, I just don't see how they could pull off a weekly sitcom out of it. I thought the Munsters was great because it was kind of like the Addams Family in the fact that they thought that they were actually normal. Not 'they are monster living in a human world'. They thought they were just regular people and everybody else was weird. Also, Herman had a job at a morgue. That's just so fricken cool.

Daniel

 

[Drtooth]

The key word is "sitcom." I don't think it was meant to be one. More like a... well... whatever you'd call Pushing Daisies. Comedy drama action series... it could have worked, but it just was too expensive to produce. Plus, if they had a complicated story arc, it ran the risk of getting canceled before resolution. Just like Pushing Daisies.

 

[Hubert]

Kind of like The Andy Griffith Show?

Kind of...though it is a bit "different" in a way that I have a hard time explaining...maybe I'd say that it explores a more larger town/police force rather than the relatively small city of Mayberry?

 

[mupcollector1]

I've been renting a Addams Family DVD, the tv series. And there was a special feature where some one says that the weird thing is how Munsters and Addams were canceled after two seasons for no reason told to the producers or anyone why.

Also with Addams that the show ended up being more wacky and surreal because producers thought that the original Charles Addams were too dark and morbid for television. I read a bunch of those cartoons and I didn't think it was too morbid for TV. Then again, I have a very irreverent sense of humor and have seen many crazy things in the cartoon / puppet universe from Spike and Mike to National Lampoon comics, even Robert Crumb (one of my strongest influences) lol

You know one of the things I love about Addams and I've had this thought on my mind for years, I would just love in my future to live in a haunted house and have a wacky family telling bad jokes and have a bunch of goofy things coming out of the walls to freak out guests, etc. lol

But anyways, back to The Munsters. Wasn't one of the things with Herman was he would start to pout like a spoild brat and stomp his foot and shout "DARN DARN DARN" and the roof would fall apart or something like that. lol

 

[D'Snowth]

I've been renting a Addams Family DVD, the tv series. And there was a special feature where some one says that the weird thing is how Munsters and Addams were canceled after two seasons for no reason told to the producers or anyone why.

I don't know about The Addams Family, but the reason The Munsters was canceled was because of Batman. When Batman first came on, and with it being in color, The Munsters, being in black-and-white, was creamed in the ratings (which is why I've said if it was in color too, it probably would have had a decent run).

Also with Addams that the show ended up being more wacky and surreal because producers thought that the original Charles Addams were too dark and morbid for television. I read a bunch of those cartoons and I didn't think it was too morbid for TV.

Well, back in those days, people were a lot more choosey with what should and shouldn't be seen, or what's considered saddistic or morbid... I once heard that when Sid Krofft was doing his solo act (prior to his and Marty's career), he was dropped from a theater because of a skeleton marionette he had, and the theater management felt having a skeleton seen on stage was too morbid for audiences.

But anyways, back to The Munsters. Wasn't one of the things with Herman was he would start to pout like a spoild brat and stomp his foot and shout "DARN DARN DARN" and the roof would fall apart or something like that. lol

Yes. There was even one occasions where his stomping was so bad, he was starting to sink into the floor, so Grandpa went down into his basement so he could wait for Herman once he stomped his way down there.