The Munsters

One of the greatest television shows of all time in My opinion is the Munsters! The show starred legendary actors Fred Gwynne, Yvonne De Carlo, Al Lewis, Beverley Owen, Pat Priest, Butch Patrick, and Mel Blanc! First I will want to commentate about the characters and the actors who played them and then I will talk about why I think this program is one of the best. I am just thrilled about how these actors are in this great series. Fred Gwynne was just incredible. Being a large fellow already was something but becoming Herman Munster he became huge! I was so surprised how agile he was. He had such a charming personality as well. Yvonne De Carlo was already a beautiful woman but I thought that she was so neat as Lily! Her character is one the most beautiful woman character that I haven seen on the screen! Al Lewis' Grandpa is such a hilarious charmer. He is arguably the most talented actor of all time. Beverley Owen and Pat Priest both gave the Marilyn character great personality. My favorite is Owen's Marilyn. Butch Patrick's Eddie was good a very good personality as well. Mel Blanc's raven was cute! The other animal characters such as Kitty and Spot were also cute. I loved the guest stars that appeared in the shows. The sets such as the Munsters' house and such all looked realistic. I loved the spookiness of the series and how it was like Halloween all the time! In My opinion each and every episode was great and funny. The theme music by Jack Marshall was also very good. I think that this series is just wonderful and that in My opinion its arguably the greatest one ever. If you can watch this show on TV strongly I recommend it and I also strongly recommend that you head over to Amazon.com and purchase the First Complete Season of The Munsters on DVD! I strongly recommend The Munsters!

Oh, I wish they made shows like The Munsters today. I have many happy memories of watching it. It was so innocent and so amusing. Somebody should release it onto DVD as soon as possible.

The Munsters were the perfect family. They may have been ugly, they may have been weird and they may have been totally eccentric but they loved each other and cared so much about each other.

The Munsters emphasized traits such as loyalty to your family and love (qualities not found in many shows today). But once you get past all that you had many highly amusing stories. One that springs to mind for me is when Herman and Grandpa Munster get locked in a bank vault one night just as a pair of robbers are about to steal the loot.

The one thing I enjoyed about The Munsters was it's total innocence. No bad language, no sex, no violence, just pure entertainment. Oh, it was brilliant. I cannot praise it enough.

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.

Although I liked the Addams Family quite a bit, the Munsters were it for me. Let's face it, grandpa make the show: without him a lot of the flavor would have been lost. I felt that he should have been on much more than he was. Marilyn, on the other hand, could have completely disappeared and I would never have noticed. Of course, the entire cast was great, the jokes were side splittingly corny, and the atmosphere of the house was nice and spooky.

Credit where credit is due: Fred Gwynne, Yvonne De Carlo and Al Lewis are what keep you coming back to the Munsters. Yes, the look of the show (Universal Horror all the way) is great, the writing often clever, the numerous sight gags usually entertaining. But if you didn't have good (very good) acting from the leads this show would have tanked.

Boiled down, the Munsters is a typical family sitcom in a bizarre setting. And while most of the episodes are fun, if feather-light, it didn't take long until the first clunker (#14: Grandpa Leaves Home). And that wasn't the last one but, thankfully, it's in the minority. The reason, again, is that Herman, Lily and Grandpa (along with the kids and numerous guest star appearances) are, frankly, endearing. You become so fond of them that some episodes actually become touching (Happy 100th Anniversary).

Only 70 episodes but that was about the limit of what you could crank out without it becoming painful. Too many sitcoms run on past their welcome. This one managed not to.