THE MUNSTERS
MUNSTER MASH!
PRODUCTION HELL, SHOCK RECASTING AND HOTLY CONTESTED AUTHORSHIP. AS THE MUNSTERS CELEBRATE THEIR 60TH ANNIVERSARY, WE UNCOVER HOW THE SPOOKY SITCOM WAS ALMOST DEAD ON ARRIVAL
WORDS: STUART MANNING WITH ZACH SMOTHERS
The gang in the “Munster Koach” at the premiere.
PICTURES © UNIVERSAL, CBS/GETTY, ZACH SMOTHERS COLLECTION
THE ’60S WAS A DECADE OF THE monsters, as US TV stations hoovered up Universal’s old horror films to pad out their schedules. On first release, the movies had skirted controversy and censorship, but now Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula were familiar childhood figures, lending their sinister faces to everything from Aurora model kits to the pun-laden pages of Famous Monsters Of Filmland.
Far from frightening, they were now friendly. Between the army of young monster devotees and the burgeoning trend for high-concept TV sitcoms – everything from talking horses to wisecracking Martians – a spoof horror show was pretty much inevitable.
Enter Allan Burns and Chris Hayward, jobbing writers for kids’ cartoon The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle. In early 1963, they developed an idea that Burns recalled as a “family of weird, offbeat characters” called Meet The Munsters – the name derived from “fun monsters”. The one-gag premise – albeit an entertaining one – was that the family was oblivious to its terrifying appearance, leading to culture clashes with their picture-perfect suburban neighbourhood.
Burns and Hayward first envisaged their Munsters idea as an animated series and pitched it to literary agent Les Colodny at the Ashley-Famous Agency, who specialised in packaging TV formats. After a few promising meetings, they stopped hearing back. Colodny, meanwhile, had scored a new job as an exec at Revue, Universal Studios’ television division, tasked with developing new shows. He wanted to make Meet The Munsters into a live-action sitcom, and set Burns and Hayward to work.
The writers submitted a treatment in mid-April, with early versions of the characters: cadaverous head of the household Edgar, wife Lucretia, malevolent father-in-law Zoltan, son Thor and plain – ie. normal – niece Lorrie. By mid-June, a revised document had most of the format nailed down; Herman, Grandpa, Eddie and Marilyn’s names were all in place, with the wife now called Phoebe. But Burns and Hayward’s names were nowhere to be seen – Meet The Munsters was now the creation of prolific sitcom writers Norm Liebmann and Ed Haas, working under contract at Universal Studios.
Ed Haas and Norm Liebmann, with Fred Gywnne.
PICTURES © UNIVERSAL, CBS/GETTY, ZACH SMOTHERS COLLECTION
Liebmann had started out as a nightclub musician and Haas as a commercial artist. Their treatment came complete with a Haas cartoon, depicting a lumbering Frankenstein’s monster father, a wraithlike wife with a puckered mouth, a bald goblin-like child brandishing a noose, and a devilish grandpa not unlike lugubrious Universal horror actor John Carradine.