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Monster Mondays: All-American Fiendish Families

Has TV brought any great “monster families” to our homes since the ’60s-era Addams Family and Munsters? Anyone? I myself will have to think about that one and get back to you. Or maybe I should be working on a TV pilot script! What kind of “monster family” would you want to see on 21st Century Television? Not too long ago, we at The Crow’s Nest completed The Addams Family DVD collection, and this week, moved on to collecting The Munsters. Busier than hell [and hell's working overtime these days], we don’t have much time for TV anymore, so TV series DVDs tend to be “drool in front of the telly” material for us… usually at 3 or 4am. And of course with Corvo, the monster, the merrier!

It’s been wicked-fun watching both shows again as if for the first time, caught up in many “aha” moments that were most certainly missed through childhood eyes. Of course, with the Addams’, it’s all about sex. It’s amazing how coming of kinky-kooky-spooky age puts a whole new spin on a gleeful reference to “the rack” between a darkly amorous husband and wife. With The Munsters, the “aha” moments arise out of being a total horror nerd now, which I couldn’t have been at a young age, because my parents were a bit overprotective. To be fair, they were cool enough to let me watch Creature From the Black Lagoon in 3D, but that was about it for childhood horror… my horror geekdom really didn’t start until junior high, when I was able to sneak away to slumber parties that involved lots of snacks, lots of ’80s crap slasher films, and rampaging in grave yards in night gowns [that's a whole other blog entry]. Ah yes, the good ol’ days when Clive Barker’s hellraising seduced me and Wes Craven’s nightmares made me fear our friendly neighborhood Elm Street. But I digress. Now that I’m all “horror growed up,” I watch The Munsters and think, so many Universal Monsters, so little time! Hey, why didn’t I ever appreciate the raven clock [voiced by Mel Blanc aka Bugs Bunny]?! And lots of Hollywood pop culture references in general that I wouldn’t have quite understood at the time, including the rights to use a Beatles song ["I Wanna Hold Your Hand"] in season one, when a rock band uses the haunted homestead as a party crash pad, and then it turns into “open mic night” with the town beatniks.

As an adult viewer, I feel a sort of… irony of the eras when I watch The Addams Family and The Munsters. That the very things that tend to frighten conservative people now, were actually disarming during “The Pleasantville Era.” The families’ strangeness, fashion sense included, was disarming and charming, rather than alarming to mainstream, prim-and-proper audiences. I often wonder what some people must have felt at a deeper level while laughing at the fiendish families’ reckless abandon, gleeful irreverence, open sexuality and acceptance of “fringe” people, like beatniks, Bohemians and rock stars… hell, The Addams’ invited Russians into their home! This was during the Cold War! *gasp* Did some people wish that they could be so bold and brave, and so effortlessly? I have a feeling I would have.

While reveling in the strange, macabre, yet innocent world-view of the families and feeling both shocked and disarmed, did some “Ward and June” types feel a little wistful? On the inside, did they kind of wish that mom had more of a “say” in the family, and that kids could be treated like little adults, and that uncles could light up a room with their mouths, and that “honey, let’s build a ‘honeymoon torture chamber’ to spice up the bedroom” could be freely suggested? Did they understand just how much The Munsters and Addams Family poked fun of their “vanilla” lives, or was it just another sitcom? In a sense, looking at it now with an analytical view and as one that works in art and in television, it feels like these shows were “crossroads shows” that depicted a shift in some people that were brave enough to go against a conservative tide and start pursuing a path that wasn’t quite up to “Ward and June” standards. [Fuck The Cleavers, right]?

I’d always considered myself more of an Addams Family enthusiast than a Munster-maniac, but I’ve gotta say, I really underestimated the intelligence of The Munsters. Make no bones about it, The Munsters will always be the more slapstick-y of the two, but at the black heart of the show, there’s some pretty clever stuff in there, if you look for it. What I enjoy most about The Munsters now is that they shot the show on The Universal lot, and being a Universal show, they [of course] were able to cash in on the Universal Monsters franchise, from sets to characters, which I wouldn’t have recognized as a kid. So from time to time, you’ll see a couple of members of “the family” stop by, like The Creature From the Black Lagoon and The Wolfman. It was also interesting to watch the pilot episode of The Munsters. The original Lilly Munster looked a hella lot like Morticia Addams [pretty smokin' hot], and the show was actually more mean-spirited in its original concept, with Eddie acting more like Cujo, and Herman and Lilly relating to each other like Fred and Ethel rather than Lucy and Ricky. It would have grown annoying really fast, and the powers that be were smart to play it fun, lighthearted and naive… but again, if you look for it, there’s more sharp writing in there than you’d think, most often tailor-made for the ever-biting delivery of the brilliant Al Lewis as Grandpaw.

It seems to me that both shows accomplished what great macabre art, horror and comedy always tend to accomplish: find the pulse of a new social heartbeat and bring it home in sarcastic, sardonic, satirical layers…even today, The Addams Family and The Munsters are a breath of fresh air to watch, and with each viewing as an adult, I have so much fun being a monster-loving kid again.