The Munsters vs The Addams Family?

[Crimson]

There was someone somewhere that was watching remastering some of THE ADDAMS FAMILY in color.

POP COLORTURE on Youtube.

Honestly, it's not bad. The person has remarkable skills; I've seen professional colorizing jobs that weren't nearly that good. His/her use of color is subtle and 'natural', and understands maintaining the mood. 1960s color TV would never have been that moody or delicate though; it would have been the same overly lit, gaudy color used in every other sitcom of the era.

 

[ClassyCo]

POP COLORTURE on Youtube.

Honestly, it's not bad. The person has remarkable skills; I've seen professional colorizing jobs that weren't nearly that good. His/her use of color is subtle and 'natural', and understands maintaining the mood. 1960s color TV would never have been that moody or delicate though; it would have been the same overly lit, gaudy color used in every other sitcom of the era.

I'll give them a look sometime today. Just from the picture of the video I can see it looks like the coloring is way different that what the colorization of the show would've been had CBS actually pushed THE MUNSTERS as a color show. It would've been brighter, that's for sure.​

 

[Chris2]

Oh the guy who does Pop Coloture is a master. He colorized a brief scene of I Love Lucy and it looks 10 times better than the ones done for CBS.

 

[Crimson]

THE MUNSTERS pilot, filmed in color

The color isn't bad; it's muted and almost a sickly blue-ish tone that seems a bit creepy. But was this a stylistic choice, or just because a pilot is filmed on the cheap? I still prefer the B&W, and think that if the show had switched to color in a third season that it would have adopted the same eye-straining colors of every other mid-60s show.

Joan Marshall as "Phoebe" really makes one appreciate Yvonne De Carlo; there's a harshness to Marshall's tone that makes her bickering with Herman unpleasant rather than amusing. De Carlo may not have been as drolly macabre as Carolyn Jones, but she played Lilly with immense likeability.

 

[ClassyCo]

Joan Marshall and Happy Derman were wrong for their parts. Not only did Marshall's appearance bare too close a resemblance to Carolyn Jones as Morticia, she did seem quite harsh. The point of the show was that this was basically a "normal" family that just happened to be monsters. Phoebe was too brash and went against the stereotype of a good-natured motherly figure on the types of shows THE MUNSTERS intended to spin on their heads.

The same thing basically goes for Happy Derman as the Eddie of the pilot. Butch Patrick (who ended up getting Happy's job) once said "Happy Derman wasn't very happy." The one or two times he met him Patrick says Derman was "rotten" and not likable at all. Thank goodness that switched the Eddies, otherwise it wouldn't have worked. The young kids needed Eddie to identify with in order to make the humor "work" for the show. Eddie was the dark side of the Beaver.

It's odd that CBS filmed the 15-minute "presentation" in color but then switched to doing the actual series in more "cost-cautious" B&W. But apparently it cost an extra $10,000 an episode to do each episode in color for the show. The bailed on that idea because they were unsure whether THE MUNSTERS would be a success or not.​

 

[Chris2]

The color pilot presentation is odd, because while NBC had quite a bit of regular color programming in 1964 and ABC had a few, none of CBS’ weekly series were broadcast in color at that point. And wouldn’t be until 1965. CBS’s proposed color standard was rejected in favor of NBC’s in the late 1950s, and they responded by pretty much cutting off color until the mid 1960s, because they didn’t want to help NBC’s parent company, RCA, sell color TV sets.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Happy Derman was a truly creepy Eddie. Joan Marshall, under a pseudonym, played the HOMICIDAL (1961) girl in William Castle's homage to PSYCHO.

 

[ClassyCo]

Happy Derman was a truly creepy Eddie. Joan Marshall, under a pseudonym, played the HOMICIDAL (1961) girl in William Castle's homage to PSYCHO.

Wow... I didn't know that.​

 

[Crimson]

I see there's a new version of THE MUNSTERS in the works, by Rob Zombie of all people. I guess I won't judge it until there's something to judge, but I feel confident in predicting it will have more in common with the failed reboot, the dark and twisted MOCKINGBIRD LANE, than the original.

It seems recent takes on both ADDAMS and MUNSTERS are making the same mistake: conflating the two. Despite their superficial similarities, the two shows were inherently different. The Munsters, despite being monstrous on the surface, were a genial, all-American clan. The Addams were 'normal' humans (ok, mostly) who were macabre and eccentric. The recent animated ADDAMS FAMILY seemed to make them monstrous, and these recent attempts at THE MUNSTERS focuses on perverseness that was antithetical to the series.

 

[ClassyCo]

I see there's a new version of THE MUNSTERS in the works, by Rob Zombie of all people. I guess I won't judge it until there's something to judge, but I feel confident in predicting it will have more in common with the failed reboot, the dark and twisted MOCKINGBIRD LANE, than the original.

It seems recent takes on both ADDAMS and MUNSTERS are making the same mistake: conflating the two. Despite their superficial similarities, the two shows were inherently different. The Munsters, despite being monstrous on the surface, were a genial, all-American clan. The Addams were 'normal' humans (ok, mostly) who were macabre and eccentric. The recent animated ADDAMS FAMILY seemed to make them monstrous, and these recent attempts at THE MUNSTERS focuses on perverseness that was antithetical to the series.

Yeah, they're blurring the two into one. They're using the shows interchangeably, but the originals were quite distinct.

 

[Seaviewer]

they're blurring the two into one. They're using the shows interchangeably, but the originals were quite distinct.

IIRC the writer of the Addams Halloween reunion show ad previously written for the Munsters not the Addamses, which may partly explain why it doesn't quite gel.

 

[TheDeadBobby]

Munsters all the way. Their kind of goofy humor made a connection with me. I never really got into the Addams Family for some reason.

 

[ClassyCo]

Munsters all the way. Their kind of goofy humor made a connection with me. I never really got into the Addams Family for some reason.

I enjoy both shows, but I always lean towards THE ADDAMS FAMILY. The darker humor just cracks me up, especially when Lurch utters he deadpan "You rang?" or Thing pops out of his box. I do enjoy THE MUNSTERS and I think the actors do well in their parts, but the show is basically a regular family comedy of the period with monsters instead of Donna Reed.​

 

[AndyB2008]

Seems they're having another crack at a Munster reboot.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/nbc-munsters-reboot-1028604
But they've forgotten the eighties version The Munsters Today starring John Schuck and Lee Meriwether. It was not all that bad as I remember it.

To add, The Munsters Today was from the Arthur Company, the vanity card of Arthur L Annecharico, who was also the guy behind the infamous 4th season of Airwolf.

That season is infamous because the original cast (Jan Michael Vincent, Ernest Borgnine, Alex Cord etc) was dropped in favour of Barry Van Dyke and the budget reduced significantly. Production was moved to Vancouver too from LA, and they couldn't use the original helicopter. According to Michelle Scarabelli too, the scripts had been written already in advance so neither she, Barry and Geraint Wyn Davies could develop their characters much.

Airwolf fans tend to forget that season.

 

[AndyB2008]

The disappointing 1977 reunion move Halloween with the New Addams Family was shot in colour (on videotape sadly) so that gives some idea as well.

There was a couple of recasts there.

Blossom Rock for one as she was very ill, and died a year after this aired.

Was Carolyn Jones showing signs of illness by this point?

 

[darkshadows38]

Addams Family all the way i love both of them but i love The Addams Family even more

 

[Chris2]

If you were watching crappy first-run syndicated show in the 80s, it was likely that Arthur L Annecharico was behind it. He was also responsible for the cheap revivals of Adam 12 and Dragnet in the late 80s.

 

[Crimson]

The first look at the new MUNSTERS. Not exact recreations of the characters, but honestly not bad ...

 

[Toni]

The first look at the new MUNSTERS. Not exact recreations of the characters, but honestly not bad ...

View attachment 31340

Oh, is Priscilla Presley acting again...?

 

[Crimson]

@Caproni posted this in the BKR thread, but since it's Addams specific I'm putting my thoughts on here.

As is usually the case with BKR, I enjoyed the video; some of the analysis I agreed with, some I didn't. But there was one key point that makes me wonder if the Addams Family has a place in 2021.

The Addams are a macabrely satirical inversion of the Norman Rockwell-esque 'ideal' American family of the early 20th century. Does that even exist anymore? The staid rigidity of even the early 60s, when the sitcom version could less macabrely but more kookily subvert the norms, has fallen. People are free to embrace and even flaunt their eccentricities and hardly anyone outside the most conservative of circles is going to clutch their pearls. Maybe the message of the Addams Family was heeded, but what's left for them to subvert?

And maybe that's why they're slowly morphing into The Munsters.