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DVD The Munsters - The Complete First Season
It has its own stormy weather and fire-breathing housepet named Spot, but the mansion at 1313 Mockingbird Heights is otherwise like any other American sitcom home. This is the address of the Munsters, the family that for two seasons, 1964-66, found a permanent place in pop culture--if not "monster" success. Developed by Leave It to Beaver team Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the series was a standard sitcom (complete with the same awful canned laughter), except that the Ward Cleaver character was a reanimated corpse.
Dad Herman (Fred Gwynne) was a Frankenstein's monster, mom Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo) and Grandpa (Al Lewis) were vampires, and son Eddie (Butch Patrick) a little wolf-boy. Munster niece Marilyn was inexplicably normal, which prompted much worry from the other members of the family (she was played in early episodes by Beverly Owen, who left to get married, and then by Pat Priest). The plots revolve around typically tortured sitcom situations: Herman must lose weight to fit into his old Army uniform, Herman has insomnia, Herman takes dance lessons from a crooked instructor. (As that list would suggest, 6'5" Fred Gwynne's wonderfully agile slapstick and Borscht Belt comedy made him the center of the show.)
What distinguished The Munsters from Father Knows Best was the Universal horror-movie lineage and the ghoulish one-liners (the latter growing a bit tedious after a while). The three-disc DVD has all 38 first-season episodes in excellent transfers, a 15-minute pilot with different actors as Lily and Eddie, and no extras or commentaries. High points include "Hot Rod Herman," which features the tricked-out Munster Koach and Drag-u-la (boss wagons both), and "Eddie's Nickname," the one where Grandpa gives Eddie a potion that causes the boy's beard to grow (a weirdly memorable image, if you're a kid). The show was either pure kiddie farce or a radical comment on the absurdly unreal world of sitcoms. Either way, if you grew up with them as an alternate TV family, you can't help but have warm feelings for the Munsters, as clammy as they are. --Robert Horton
Review(s): DVD The Munsters - The Complete First Season
What a Ghoul
There's a ton of laughter in the mansion. It doesn't make sense, but it certainly is entertaining without worrying about the rating!
Always funny
Monsters is always a funny TV series for watching. Very good options for people rounding 40's that still wants to remember the good times.
Munster memories
I enjoyed this show as a kid, so I couldn't wait to purchase the DVD set when the prices dropped to an affordable level. Too bad I had to return and reorder this item three times from Amazon before I got a set that worked correctly. (I wish that Amazon and other sellers could review their items before unleashing them to the public. That way it would save conumers -- and sellers -- time and money. Actually, the manufacturers should watch and review every DVD before they go on sale. Maybe it would stop them from unleashing shoddy products out into the marketlace.)
Once I acquired a well-manufactured copy of "The Munsters" -- I was able to enjoy all the episodes in all their splendor. It's amazing what the TV stations edit compared to the unedited DVD sets. And I was pleased with Amazon and it's seller's cooperation in going through the return and replace process until I got a watchable copy.
Related DVD's The Munsters - The Complete First Season
As a child growing up in the 70's and 80's, I used to come home from school and watch The Munsters. I was absolutely fascinated with this series. The characters were hilarious, and the scripts were excellent! Now, the complete second season, comes to DVD in a 3 disc set. It features all 32 episodes from The Munsters second and final season. Don't forget about the 4 A&E Bios as bonus features! The 4 A&E Bios will be about, The Munsters, "America's First Family of Fright", Fred Gwynne, "More Than a Munster", Yvonne DeCarlo, "Gilded Lily", and Al Lewis, "Forever Grandpa". All packaged, in a Herman Munster head.
I would not miss the chance to own the second season of this fantastic family show!
Now, if you've only seen Season 2 episodes from TVLand, then you don't... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Fred Gwynne DVD Release Date: Released the 25 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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My stars! The first, and perhaps most magical, season of Bewitched still casts an enchanting spell. For escapist fantasy, this series, no doubt inspired by the play Bell, Book and Candle, broke significant television ground. The Stephens were sitcoms' first mixed marriage. Advertising executive Darrin Stephens (Dick York) was mortal, and wife Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) was a witch. According to a retrospective segment included on this four-disc set, the Stephenses were also the first couple to sleep in one bed! And Samantha's mother, Endora (the venerable Agnes Morehead), and father, Maurice (Maurice Evans, most popularly known as Dr. Zaius in the original Planet of the Apes, were TV's first separated couple. Surely, Darrin did for advertising what Dick Van... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Elizabeth Montgomery DVD Release Date: Released the 21 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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If The Munsters was a traditional family sitcom as reimagined by Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, The Addams Family is a macabre twist on Father Knows Best. The Munster and Addams clans made their TV debuts in 1964 and lasted two seasons before the networks buried them. The Addamses are now gloriously resurrected in this three-disc set that digs up the series' first 22 episodes (oddly, 12 shy of the complete first season). Inspired by Charles Addams's New Yorker cartoons, The Addams Family is fiendishly funny, with a dead-on cast that indelibly embodies Addams's characters. John Astin brings a demented glee to eccentric, frighteningly wealthy Gomez Addams. Carolyn Jones is bewitching as his pre-goth wife, Morticia, whom the Beatles might... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Sidney Salkow - Nat Perrin - Arthur Lubin - Jerry Hopper - Sidney Miller DVD Release Date: Released the 24 October 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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