THE MUNSTERS TODAY
IT’S ONE OF FANTASY TV’S MOST MALIGNED REVIVALS… 35 YEARS ON, DOES THE MUNSTERS TODAY DESERVE A LITTLE MORE LOVE?
MONSTERS NEVER TRULY DIE, and neither do Munsters. The original ’60s TV show reworked Universal’s horror IP into a family-friendly sitcom starring loveable Frankenstein’s monster Herman, his undead wife Lily and her cranky Dracula-esque father Grandpa, lasting for two seasons of wholesome cobwebbed hijinks.
In 1981, the original cast reunited for a so-so TV movie, The Munsters’ Revenge, intended as a try-out for a new series. The special flopped, but as the ’80s ushered in a ’60s nostalgia boom, Universal’s TV arm MCA remained keen to scratch that Munsters itch.
In 1984, Universal spun off one of its other classic sitcoms, Leave It To Beaver, from a reunion special to a new weekly cable series, which eventually landed on Ted Turner’s cable network TBS. As part of the deal, Turner planned to colourise both the original black and white Beaver episodes along with The Munsters, and expressed interest in a new Munsters series too.
For a time, there were two proposals under consideration – The Munsters Rise Again and The New Munsters, developed by the Arthur
Company (named after its founder Arthur L Annecharico). “They specialised in cheap production values, fast turnarounds, and their product showed it,” says Alan Moskowitz, who wrote for the rival project after his Rise Again concept ran aground. “The Munsters Today looked tacky and cheaply made.”
Lloyd J Schwartz was the first Munsters Today showrunner, hired to develop the format. The son of The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island creator Sherwood Schwartz, he’d cut his teeth working on his father’s shows. “They called me up and asked would I like to do a revival of The Munsters, and I said no,” Schwartz recalls. “It was a classic and I couldn’t see what I would add to it.
“But there was an idea I’d always wanted to do, which was if people suddenly came back 20 years after they passed on… how would they react to society? I thought it would be interesting to do that through the Munsters, as they were characters that people liked. They wanted to call it The New Munsters. I said, ‘No, let’s call it The Munsters Today,’ which represented what I wanted to do.”
There had been a thought to try and tempt the original cast back, but Schwartz favoured a clean break. “They were too old and I didn’t want people who knew more about it than I did,” he says. However, he contacted the actors as a courtesy: “I wrote to them all, saying what we were going to be doing and how much I appreciated their performances. I only got one response – and it was really hostile. Grandpa [Al Lewis] was not happy.” Schwartz set about assembling a new troupe. Herman would be played by
