Episode 37 - The Munsters

We scare up a hilarious cast of Universal Monsters in this classic '60s sitcom!

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
It's the Dearly Departed Podcast, featuringyour host, historian Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. All right, it'sanother episode of Dearly Departed podcast. I'm
Mike Dorsey, I'm Scott Michaels,and this is episode thirty seven, Episode

(00:29):
thirty seven. Well, welcome,it's almost Halloween for us, it is.
Yeah, this we're releasing this forHalloween, and in honor of that,
we're doing The Monsters. Yay,the beloved classic. We've already done
the Adams Family, which technically theAdams Family came out first by one week,
so we are doing them in chronologicalorder, technically in the order to

(00:52):
think well stnically, Yeah, Idid the the Monsters. I was looking
into this because that was like whatcame first, the chick, know the
egg. Technically, the Adams Familywas created by Adams Charles Adams in the
thirties, but the Monsters were indevelopment in sixty three, and it wasn't
until February sixty four that they wereworking on the Adams Family, although they

(01:12):
launched by a week different, rightI think, But the Lombunsters was in
development first, which I thought wasinteresting because they kind of morphed, you
know, at the same time,And I don't think it was something that
they were desperately trying to compete with, like they got a monster show,
we got to do it. Maybethere was a conversation, but that was
just really interesting to me how thatturned out. And before we get started,

(01:36):
since we're gonna be talking about avery tall, famous actor, I
want to give a shout out andarrest in peace to one. I'm Richard
Mole from Night Court Bowl just passedaway like an hour ago or it just
was released that he passed away,And so he's someone who could have played
Munster if he had He could haveHerman Munster if he had wanted to.

(01:57):
You know, how do you knowhow t was? Yah? Richard Mole
was six foot eight, so hewas actually two inches taller than Fred Gwynn
was. So yeah, he's avery tall guy. I know somebody that
flew him out to Australia for likea fishing show. He was an avid
outdoorsman and actually he was supposed tofly first class with something got mixed up

(02:20):
in the flight coach six foot eightflying coach to Australia. Yeah, I'm
only six two but I can feelhis pain. Absolutely. That is just
awful. You're just oh my god, that's like a twenty four hour flight.
I mean that's I mean, obviouslyyou have to stop. No,
actually, from here, it's notis it. It's only like twelve or
fourteen. It's like thirteen for it'slike thirteen hours to get to Auckland,

(02:40):
New Zealand. So it's around that. Yeah, awful, awful anyways,
Rest in Peace Bowl from Night CourtRichard Mole. So, yeah, as
we already said, the Adams Familytechnically premiered one week before The Monsters.
They were obviously very similar types ofshows. Adams Family is for ABC,
months was for CBS. Both kindof monster ish families living in real living

(03:07):
in the real world. I thoughtit was interesting comparison. I saw online
that that the the Adams Family werea normal looking family ish that behaved weirdly,
and the Monsters were strange looking peoplewho tried to act normal. They
were just Yeah, it was likethat. They made references during the show
to the Donna Reid Show, andit was right. It was just that
a family comedy and uh right,and yeah, it's just interesting that they

(03:30):
at that. Ivonda de Carlos,who played Lily Munster, the wife of
the family, the matriarch. Shesaid that her first direction on day one
was play her just like Donna Reid, So yeah, that's babe. It
was a send up of those fiftiesand sixties family sitcoms. Yeah, area

(03:50):
like, oh, it was similarto like The Monster I mean, I'm
sorry, the Honeymooners and the Flintstones. You know that was just an animated
version of the same show, right, so yeah, yeah, interesting.
Both only lasted two seasons, soit was a quick cultural thing, although
back then seasons were one season waslike three seasons of a show. Now,

(04:13):
I mean Season one of The Monsterswas thirty eight episodes and season two
was thirty two episodes. Seventy episodesfor a lot of shows today would be
four or five seasons worth of show. Yeah, so yeah, And I
don't think they did a house cleaningthing like they did with The Hillbillies,
you know, they it just theyjust figured it ran its course. But
I mean it went on, itwent into syndication almost immediately, and it's

(04:35):
still around. It it's just oddout of seventy you know episodes plus right,
there's still has never not been insyndication. Yeah. And what's interesting
is I grew up more into theMonsters in the Adams Family, just because
whatever syndication deal they had that forme growing up in the eighties, you
know, into the early nineties,that's what was on TV. I know

(04:57):
they had a deal with TV Landthrough the nineties for their syndication rights and
niked Knight and stuff, But Ido I probably have seen just about every
Monster's episode in reruns, even thoughI grew up, you know, twenty
years after they left the air.Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting that there
were so few. Well that's alot of episodes. But still, and

(05:18):
I was never I was a bigfan of the Adams Family growing up,
but the Monsters as an adult I'vegone to appreciate a lot more because I
think I think it was more cleverthan it was than the Adams Family was.
Although I love the Adams Family forwhat it, you know, exactly
what it was, and I thinkmaybe I liked it a lot because there
was a young boy like Pugsley wholooked like a normal kid, you know,

(05:41):
when monsters there was really no oneto identify with, So as a
kid, I probably liked the AdamsFamily more. But as an adult,
I definitely like the monsters more.You didn't, you didn't, You didn't
relate to beautiful Maryland monster. Thatisn't really my thing. They made they
made three pilots. You know,it took three pilots for them to get

(06:03):
it right, to get the castright. They kept mixing up someone who
was playing some of the characters,and you can still find at least one
of the unaired pilots online. Yeah, and it was filmed in color,
which I thought was interesting, weird. Yeah, well, the salad.
They did the thing in color,and it was really not good. You

(06:24):
know. They they had they hada different Lily, they had a different
uh Eddie, and it was itwas pretty painful to to sit through the
delivery. Well actually now knowing whatwe know and how the characters became so
you know, I hate that wordiconic because it gets thrown around so much,
but we know them and we're sofamiliar with them, and the other

(06:45):
ones were quite painful to uh tosit through, knowing that they had to
go through, you know, thesechanges. But I guess yeah, Lily,
Lily came in at the last minute, or it's just say Yvon de
Carlo came in kind of as alast minute because the first Eddie was awful.
You know, he was like heplayed this little he was literally a
werewolf, like scratching and like andgrowling at people, like you know,

(07:08):
it was it was kind of odd. And the other thing that was kind
of weird was that grandpa. Youknow, he's Lily's father, but he
wanted to bite her neck. Andthe TV series, you know, they
had her biting his arm, buthe was going to bite her neck.
It was kind of weird to biteyour daughter's neck. You know. I
just thought that was kind of odd. That is odd. It was the

(07:29):
sixties, you know, and wasa thing for people that are big on
Universal Studios and the houses there.This is a still I believe does it
still exist the house Universal? Does? I know? It was real?
It was reused later for the show'sCoach and Desperate Housewives famously. You know,
they would just remodel it slightly andyou know, take down the cobwebs

(07:54):
and you know, now it's apicturesque house on a street. Yeah,
they had it showed up on allthose you know, Leave It to Beaver
was shot on that lot. Dragnet, the Incredible Hulk. It showed up
on all those shows. And it'son a little curve and right around the
curve is the Ghost of Mister Chickenhouse, which still stands too, although

(08:15):
that looks nothing like it did backthen. But I just think that that
was kind of neat that those twohouses are so iconic and both have that
same feel, that same kind ofcool, quirky, you know, not
horror like scare you, slash youstuff, but just kind of fun,
fun, you know shows. Andyeah, and that color, that beautiful

(08:35):
sixties color, and that was ourghosts and Mister Chicken was last year's Halloween
show that we did, right,I think, yeah, yeah, so
there. Look they're on the samestreet. And you know what's interesting,
I found out when I was doingthe research, they released a movie after
just as the show got canceled,they started filming a reunion movie called Munster

(08:56):
Go Home. And it was solike right before it shot, they got
the news that the show was canceled. I'm kind of jumping ahead, but
that was when it was released.It was a double feature with the Monster
Go Home and the Ghost and MisterChicken. They were released as a double
feature, which is kind of cool. That is cool. Before we get
into the cast and the above theline folks, you know, the producers

(09:16):
and the directors, I want totalk about one thing that was not a
person that was still iconic. TheMunster Coach, the car that was designed
by George Barris's not George Barris himselfdidn't design it, but it was done
by his company. One of hismost famous creations, for sure, I
would say, And it was builtoff of a nineteen twenty six Ford Model

(09:37):
T that they stretched. I thinkit was something like twenty feet long or
eighteen feet long. Technically it wasbuilt by other people there at his company,
but it's accredited to George Barris,and it appeared in over twenty episodes,
and they also wrote it in theI think the Macy's Day Parade it
drove. Yeah, it's a goodstory about that too, about the Macy's
Parade. But I got to sitin the Monster's car once. Where's it?

(09:58):
I was trying to where it isnow because there's the commission a reading
creation of one in the eighties itwas official, so I don't know where
the real one is. Well,yeah, I don't know when bears shot
the doors to his shop last.It was about two years ago, I
think after he died. They theythey I don't know where anything went into
storage, but it was there onthe As far as I know, the
original one was in his shop becauseI compared it to when I was sitting

(10:24):
in it, to the shot.Did I tell you I was sitting in
it because I said, I gota picture to prove it. But I
compared it, and it's very similar. The only thing that looks different are
the lamps in the very front ofit, and but otherwise it looks really
pretty much the same. So I'mpretty sure it was the original one.
So I saw a pictures of itonline and it looked like it was on
display somewhere, and the pictures likeit was behind a like a rope or

(10:48):
something like it was on it is, so I wonder if I mean,
I know they made several dragulas,the casket one. Those are all over
the place, like the like thebatmobile is too, you know, write
a ton of those. But no, I don't know where it is now.
You said there was a funny therewas a good story behind the Macy's
parade. What was it for peoplewho don't know. Okay, so so

(11:09):
well the Macy's parade, No,what was hopefully people know what the Mason's
prede is, but no, what'sthe story. Well, Fred Quinn,
you know, very famously kind ofturned his back on the whole thing afterwards.
You know, it wasn't a happyexperience for him. It was kind
of miserable. The whole shoot wasa miserable shoot for him. And when
they were doing the Macy's parade,he and al Lewis were in the Munsters

(11:31):
coach and apparently he and Fred wasdrinking. He brought along a flask and
al Lewis, I guess, waspissed because Fred was getting more and more
drunk. And the story is,he says, al he know, I
got to give a shout out tomy buddy Steve. We used his information
before on the on the Gilligan's Islandpodcast in the Beverly Hillbillies. But Steve

(11:54):
wrote this book called The Demonastres ATrip down Mark. Yeah, Steve Cox,
and it's an awesome book and Iused they got a lot of information
from it. And I talked towhat was the title of the book.
It's called The Monsters. The Monsteris a trip down Mark, a trip
down Mockingbird Lane. Okay, greatand uh And the story in it says
he and now did the Macy's paradeand Fred got kind of hammered, and

(12:18):
so he started swearing. And sothe guy they were playing the Monster's theme
turned up the Monster's theme in thecar, so you wouldn't hear Fred Gwinn
swearing, and he said. AlLewis said, we turned the corner at
Macy's and there was a media boxwith Betty White and Lawn Green describing the
parade. And Fred looked up atthe camera and goes, fuck you.

(12:39):
Now, I don't want to jumpin too much, but you would have
thought al Lewis would have been alittle supportive of that, considering that al
Lewis was a big activist political activistin his personal life, especially a free
speech activist. He was constantly,you know, at bashing the CC and

(13:00):
other groups that were trying to controlwhat wasn't wasn't allowed on air, and
you know, later in his lateryears he was a regular fixture on Howard
Stern's show, and Stern did thisbig like free speech rally that they broadcast
live on over the radio and alal Lewis was there, and al Lewis
famously, this was in I don'tknow when this was, but al Lewis

(13:22):
famously started shouting fuck the FCC liveon air, over and over and over
again and it went out like itwent out like that before Howard Stern could
get the mic away from him andthey didn't get fined. Coincidentally, but
yeah, seeing grant'st going fuck theFCC, yeah he was hit at edge
to him most definitely. But Ithink he really I think he really respected

(13:46):
the characters. You know, hewas always you know, happy to talk
to kids in costume and stuff likethat. And and I think I think
Fred Gwimm is a little embarrassing,I think at that point. But it's
a funny story. Alan Burns.Alan Burns was the co creator of the
series with Chris Hayward, and shamelessly, you know, stole the idea,

(14:09):
even by his own admission, fromCharles Adams and the Adams family. He's
his quote was, we sort ofstole the idea from Charles Adams because Universal
owned the Frankenstein character and the Draculacharacter, and because of that they decided
to take to use those characters insteadof I guess Alan Burns and Hayward have
kind of created their own kind ofmonster characters and then universals like we'll wait

(14:30):
a minute, we have the universalClassics monsters which you and I have done
a whole show on here, let'sjust make it base them off of those
where Wolf, Frankenstein, Dracula,and we kind of dip into that ip
that we own. He and CharlesAdams was famously not supposedly not happy about

(14:50):
this. He clearly was, Hewas alive and clearly saw the this was
a ripoff to some extent of hisidea, and also was apparently not happy
that the monsters continuously outperformed the Adamsfamily in the ratings as well. Did
it? I didn't know that.That's exposedly supposedly yea. So Alan Burns
and Chris Hayward they started off inanimation working on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show

(15:16):
and Dudley I think they created orworked on Dudley do Right and George of
the Jungle, and also he createdthe cap'n Crunch character for the Cereal Box.
Not the first time we're going tomention somebody creating a serial character for
this for this episode. And thenhe also co created My Mother the Car
with Hayward, I think, andthen later on he partnered with James L.

(15:39):
Brooks and they created the Mary TylerMoore Show show together. Of course,
so Alan Burns passed away fairly recentlypassed away on January thirty, twenty
twenty one. He had from Parkinson'sand Louis body dimension, which we've talked
about a lot that Louis body dementiagoes with Parkinson's often. And he was
eighty five, so he still livea long life. And wow, what

(16:00):
a what a Hollywood story that guyhad, no kidding. And then and
then his his creating creative partner,Chris Hayward, who co created the series
with him. It was also onRocky Bulwick and every and everything, and
then after they parted ways, ChrisHayward was a writer and producer on Barney
Miller and Get Smart among other shows. Were these the guys that because there

(16:26):
were they were there were the guysthat created the monsters and the body and
and the sort of the story wastaken away from them and uh, and
they fought with the Writers Guild toget their names put on his creators.
Interesting, that's yeah, they know, they went the one that wrote it.
I know they brought writers in towrite the first episodes. Yeah,
because they Yeah, these guys hadtaken it, started it and started rolling

(16:49):
with it and then just fell out. And then they read one day that
The Monsters was in develop were indevelopment, and hang on, that's our
show, and so they yeah,I got it because that's a good part
of it. They because they endedup getting their their names only on it
as creators or something to that effect, and uh, and prefer my own

(17:10):
one. But they were like,we're happy with not being involved with the
show. It went in the directionwe didn't want it to go. And
oh, yeah, I didn't.I didn't have this. I figured it
was going to come up and Ididn't. I know, I know that.
Ultimately this script was handed off towrite the pilot to Ed Hass and
Norb Leibman and it was called Ibelieve that they wrote a pilot called Lovedye

(17:33):
Monster. And interestingly, Ed Hasswas also a writer on The Jerry Lewis
Show and other shows. I reallycouldn't find a whole bunch about him and
Norb Leibman, which is kind ofinteresting considering they obviously had big careers.
Yeah, there isn't a whole lotwritten about them, so I don't I
don't have a lot to share.I can go back real quick. Chris

(17:55):
Chris Hayward passed away on November twenty, two thousand and six from cancer,
and he was eighty one. Andthen going forward, the producers on the
show were Bob I want to say, Mosher Masher Mosher, Bob Mosher,
ms H e Er and Joe Conley. And Joe Conley wrote like twenty episodes

(18:17):
of the show, so he wrote, you know, a quarter of the
show pretty much. And he hadpreviously written for twelve years for the Amos
and Andy radio show, as hadBob as his writing partner. And this
is really interesting. So they wroteleave it to Beaver, which is interesting
because this show is basically a sendup of shows like that show in essence,
and Joe Conley had seven children,and so Beaver and his older brother

(18:41):
Wally were actually based on two ofJoe Conley's sons who were fourteen and eight
and suppose and the name Beaver wasthe nickname of one of Conley's shipmates when
he served in the merchant Marines,and he basically what he would do is
he would just follow his seven kidsaround the house with a notepad and just
write down funny things that they didand set. And that became the inspiration

(19:04):
for the episodes. Huh, that'sinteresting. Well, I mean it makes
sense right, well, you know, right, that's true. And he
was right ass the street. AndJoe Conley passed away in two thousand and
three, February thirteenth. He hada stroke and he also had Alzheimer's and
he was eighty five. These guysall lived a surprisingly long time for being

(19:25):
from the era they were from.A lot of these guys didn't live much
past sixty. From this ara,we find it's funny because the stuff that
they used, Like I was thinkingabout this, how toxic everything was around,
you know, around this set.I was trying to figure out how
they how they made those spider webs, and it was rubber cement and a
fan and they were that's where theywere sprayed the fighter of spider webs.

(19:48):
But then it would melt under thelights. They had to keep doing it.
It's like imagine just sitting there andbreathing that shit in all the time.
You know, and so many otherthings that they they you know,
that were that was around that itcould not have been a healthy environment.
I mean, this is back inan era when artificial snow was made out
of asbestos, like yeah, like, and everybody smoked and drank like,

(20:11):
you know, a ton, andso yeah, the people tended to just
not live a very long time backthen. There were a couple other people
I wanted to mention that were rioterson this Jerry Paris, who he directed
three episodes, so it wasn't ahuge part of it, you know,
three out of seventy. But hehad also been an actor and he was
a regular on The Untouchables and wasfamously Jerry helper on the Dick Van Dyke

(20:36):
Show that that was, you know, Dick Van Dyke's friend. And then
he started television directing on the DickVan Dyke Show. So he kind of
owes his directing career to Dick VanDyke and they said he just fell into
it, so naturally. Then heended up directing I think eighty four episodes
of that show. He ended updirecting two hundred and thirty seven episodes of
Happy Days nineteen. Episodes were manyepisodes of Happy Days. Oh my god,

(21:02):
it's like he must have directed allof them. And then if that
number is correct, and also hedirected two of the Police Academy movies two
and three, and then he didall that in a relatively short life.
He died at sixty in nineteen eightysix from a brain tumor. So yeah,
yeah, yeah, he's very abusy guy in the sixties and seventies,
in early eighties, and the PoliceAcademy three was in nineteen eighty six,

(21:27):
so he was still directing right upuntil, you know, the year
that he passed away. And thenI also wanted to mention a director named
Gene Reynolds, who directed two episodes. He started out as an extra in
the Our Gang comedies and he wenton to be the executive producer of Mash
and is a huge forcing the creationof the Mash TV show, and he

(21:48):
directed the pilot and he was supposedlylargely responsible for casting Alan Alda and McLean
Stevenson and Jamie Farr in their roles, and he ended up directing two twenty
four episodes of that show of Mash, and he did thirty four episodes of
Hogan's Heroes and he was also theexecutive producer of Blossom and lou Grant,

(22:08):
which was a spin off of theMary Tyler Moore Show, which is another
Alan Burns connection. And he wonlike six Primetime Emmys, and then he
was president of the DJA. Soit's amazing group of people who even only
had you know, I mean,he only did two episodes of the Monsters,
and yet you know it was kindof back then. That's just it

(22:29):
was these shows. If you stuckaround, you went on to do other
things, bigger things. An overachiever. I would say, I wonder how
many episodes of MASH there were,you know. I'll actually there were like
four hundred. It was lone forso long. I know, two hundred
and fifty one. That's it.There were more Happy Days than there were

(22:52):
Mash. I wouldn't have bet onthat Happy Days was. Google says there
were two hundred and fifty five episodesof Happy Days, So I think that
number I must have read was wrong. Of how many episodes that guy must
have directed, what did I sayhe did? I thought you said seven.
So yeah, wow, he directedalmost the entire series. I guess

(23:14):
that makes sense. He look atus trying to fact check ourselves live.
All right, Well, you knowwhat, before we move on to that,
I just wanted to say, there'sa house I noticed driving up on
Los Felis Boulevard, and if yougo out just on on a Vermont pass
over Les Felis Boulevard up to theGreek Theater on the left is the Monster's

(23:36):
House. I mean there's a house, a brick house that shaped looks exactly
like all proportioned like the Monster's house. And I know when they made Bewitched,
there's a real house in Santa Monicathat that is the Bewitched house.
I've never seen it written down oranything that this was the Monster's House.
And I don't know if that wasa template back then, sure houses,

(23:56):
but it was. It's a bigbrick house and it's got the written in
everything. It's really it looks exactlylike it like it's shap Yeah, it
might have been the inspiration. Younever know. No, All right,
well, let's get into the castand might as well start with fred Gwynn
Herman might as well Herman Munster.His mother was an artist named Dorothy Ficken

(24:19):
who she created the Sunny Gim characterwhich audiences today are probably not familiar with,
but it was a character created innineteen oh two to sell a wheat
flake cereal called Force Force cereal,which was still being made in the US
up until nineteen eighty three and wasstill popular in England until twenty thirteen.

(24:41):
But he was like the He waslike the capa and crunch for Force Cereal.
He was this what do you callit? Character? Force like as
in use the force force like,use the Force force. Never heard of
it, and I never heard ofthat Sunny He was Sunny Gem and the
whole marketing campaign was always around like, you know, this cereal will make
your life better. You'll be likeSunny Jim. Everything is great because you'll

(25:02):
have the energy from the wheat flakes. Never in a million years if I
heard that one and quinc interestingly,you know Bogart's Bogart's mother was also a
famous artist, illustrator type artist,graphic artist, yeah, graphic artists,
illustrator, that kind of stuff.Yeah, yeah, yeah. So during
World War Two he served on asubmarine chaser and then went on to graduate

(25:26):
from Harvard in nineteen fifty one,and his first film appearance was a pretty
big one. He was uncredited,but he was on the waterfront looking at
it. He put it. Hewas in some wild movies. I mean
I was like, really he wasin that. I don't remember, you
know, and he was six footsix. You're not going to miss him,
especially back then. Yeah, yeah, because I guess he played He

(25:49):
worked with Michael Douglass in Fatal Attraction. I'm like, really, I don't
remember him in Fatal Attraction at all. Yeah, he was in pet Cemetery,
the one what they came out likeeighty nine. I think he was
in the Secret of My Success toMichael J. Fox movie. I know
him because one of my favorite badmovies as a kid. I'm that's being
mean. But The Boy who CouldFly probably has an aged super well.

(26:10):
I think it was a Disney moviewith Fred Savage was in it. I
remember he was the uncle of likethe the Boy who Could Fly the boys
like living with It's like the suchisticBoy who Can Fly supposedly watch it.
I don't wanna spoil it. Uh. And then he was also the judge
and my cousin Vinnie. That wasa pretty prominent role. Yeah, that
was I think that was his lastrole, was my cousin Vinnie. I

(26:32):
think he decided to quit after that. Well, he, like so many
other actors we've talked about from thesitcoms of this era, they got type
cast, and he was type cast. He couldn't get he was he had
a hard time getting film and televisionroles after this show. Just two seasons
on this show, and he's he'she's, you know, Herman Munster for
the rest of his life. Heeven supposed the auditioned to play Henry on

(26:53):
Punky Brewster, you know, themale lead on that show, her her
you know, guardian on it.And and I guess during the audition the
director referred to him as Herman Munsterinsteaded by his real name, and he
like stormed off. So you know, just think about that twenty years later,
and that's happening. Well yeah,but I mean, you do something

(27:14):
that well, and we look atthe castaways, you know, it's like
he was really you know, Imean, even ultimately everyone came around.
He was the only one that didn't. And you know, and I know
that was an emotional thing for himbecause it was painful makeup and it was
two years, but he came backfor the sequels. There was another one
in eighty one and he came backfor those, right, But he did

(27:34):
say the quote I got was Iknew I was a leper after the series.
The only thing I could pick upafter that was a twilight Zone or
something like that. But at theend, you know, he said,
I love ol Herman Muster. Asmuch as I try not to, I
can't stop liking that fellow. So, you know, just confusing, and

(27:56):
yeah, I mean really, youknow, he was all over the place
with it, but he didn't giveinterviews very rarely. Even Steve tried to
reach out to him writing the book, The Defenditive Book on the Monster is
a very kind book, and hewas like, no, I'm not going
to talk about it. I'm cantalk about it. It's like God,
right Hill, Yeah, bad.So. He was six six, but

(28:17):
he wore five inch boots. Ithink they were asphalt laying boots as part
of his character, and heither woreforty to fifty pounds of padding plus of
course all the makeup and his facewas actually painted violet in color because that
would catch the light. The bestshooting in black and white shows. Yeah,
that shows up in that pilot.I watched it last night. The

(28:37):
Color Pilot, and yeah, it'sreally weird because it's not it is blue,
it is violet. That was interesting, really interesting. Yeah, before
this, he had right before thisshow, he had a starring roles patrolman
Francis Muldoon in Car fifty four WhereAre You? Another kind of iconic sixties
series that only ran for a coupleseasons from sixty one to sixty three.

(29:00):
So yeah, his television career wasbrief, but he had two major,
major iconic roles in four year Chemistry, yeah, the Chemistry without Lewis from
Car fifty four, and they broughthim back for the Monsters and theres was
a good, you know, comedyrelationship, right, very good. He
started making children's books, he starteddoing he was always illustrating on the set.

(29:22):
He would he was a good caricatureartist, and he started painting and
he had he had a show anopening in New York and Howard Stern,
you know, you know what he'slike. So he sends Stuttering John,
who is one of his I don'tknow what you'd say, colleague, one
of the people who does on theon the fly interviews with people are on

(29:42):
location. So this guy, hegot Stuttering John too want to go to
the art gallery opening and talk toFred and he says, he says,
do you sign your paintings Herman Munsteror Fred Gwynn. Oh gosh. And
he was very kind about it,you know, but it was clearly they're

(30:03):
trying to get, you know,a nasty reaction out of him. But
he but he's yeah, he says, where's Lily or something like that,
even toward Sturdy. Because as theywere playing back the tape, Howard Street
says, I'm on the floor rightnow. I can't even look because I'm
so it's so cringey. But hewas very he was very kind about it,

(30:25):
I guess because he knew it wasan audio recording too, so he
couldn't really tell the guy to goget bent. But yeah, and that
was the other thing he asked about. Did Vincent vanco Ever wear bolts in
his neck? Answer? It's somean, so mean, but so funny
and wow, it's it's it's worthlistening to. Fred Gwynn passed away on

(30:49):
July second, nineteen ninety three,from pancreatic cancer. He was only sixty
six, and he's supposedly buried inan unmarked grave. Yeah, I think
Mike Massachusetts, I think, orMaryland. One of the they were retired
to a place called I think itwas called Tiny Terrytown or Teeny Town and
they were raising beef cattle. Uhand uh yeah, so he just after

(31:11):
my cousin Vinnie, he just left. Uh. He he had only been
diagnosed like four months before he died, so it was a conscious you know,
it was before he started getting olderand more ill. Uh that that
they moved out that way, SoI think it just took him by surprise.
But he went quick. You know, it was after when he was

(31:33):
diagnosed. He he really went quickly. You think he's an an unmarked grave
because they're afraid someone will try todig him up and bring them back to
life. That's funny. I knewhe was in a mark grave, but
that's very funny. That's hilarious.You know. I imagine it's the thought
he had in his life. He'salive. And Lewis stayed in touch with

(31:59):
him too. He did stay intouch with him and talked to him a
couple of days before he died,So he and al Lewis maintained a friendship.
But everybody so far, all I'veheard is d al Lewis was mad
at him during the parade, andthen al Lewis of course was a regular
on Howard Stern and Howard Stern youknow, made fun of the Herman Munster
thing. So I just thought maybethere was some something going on behind the

(32:19):
back, behind the scenes there betweenthem. So I'm glad to hear that
they were friendly. Well, yeah, and it's funny because they were like
those two are against against the world, you know, as far as the
show goes, because they were bothyou know, although Eluis didn't have the
prosthetics like Herman Munster did, butthey had the relationship, and I guess
it was a real problem when Evonde Carla was brought in because they're like,

(32:40):
who's this, you know, allof a sudden, we have this,
we have this relationship, we havewe know how things are. All
of a Suddeny're bringing this big wig. So they were like they were objecting
to everything when she was first broughtin. They were not having it who
they were really, but they asa team, we're not We're not react
well to the change of you know, probably for the fear of being upstaged.

(33:04):
Yeah, it's going to become theYvonne de Carlo show. If she's
broading here a Hollywood legend. Right, Wow, that's interesting. But apparently
everyone chill. But theirs was avery That was a very show busy show,
you know what I mean as faras the relationships, show business relationships,
and how the industry works, howpeople get their nose bent out of
shape, how you know, peopledon't get along with other people. It's

(33:27):
like everything was encapsulated in this show. But ultimately, you know, they
it's a show. I think theyall came to embrace on some level.
Sure, Vaughn never didn't. Neverdidn't. She was ready for it to
be done, but she never cameout against it. Yeah, And look,
it also depends on how what theircareer did afterwards. And you know,

(33:49):
they might have been unhappy with herfor a while, but eventually they
realized that was kind of it.That was my last big, big thing.
I kind of have no choice butto come around and eventually embrace it
later, And her career never reallygot any bigger after that either. It
was on the downslide to begin with. While she went into television from because
back then, to go from filmto television was considered, you know,
a backwards move anyways, a downgrade. So you know that her career continued,

(34:13):
I think to go in that directionby that time as well. So
al Lewis famously Grandpa, a Draculalooking character, as you mentioned, was
also in the cast of car fiftyfour Where Are You? He had started
in vaudeville, and he was agame barker at Coney Island, But pretty
much everything else about his life youhave to question. Because one of these

(34:35):
guys who just told all these talltales, he said he had a PhD
from Columbia University. Columbia had neverheard of him, had no record of
him. He had he gave differentbirth years. His official birth year was
in nineteen twenty three, but hekept telling people he was born in nineteen
ten. And in two thousand andtwo he made a reference to being ninety
two years old, which is howold he would be if he was born
in nineteen ten. But his sonis adamant that no was nineteen twenty three.

(35:00):
And there's a census report from nineteenforty that makes a reference to someone
of his name being sixteen years old, which again would also line up with
you know, nineteen twenty three ishas being his thing, but for some
reason he wanted people to think hewas older. But what's interesting to me
is if he was born in twentythree, that means he was in his
barely into his forties. When he'splaying Grandpa Munster, he was one year

(35:21):
younger than Ivon de Carlo, right, who plays his Daughterantly that is nuts,
and that was shocking because he's oneof those people that always looked like
he was ninety and uh yeah,yeah, he was the Wilford Brimley of
the monsters. But he was avery likable guy and never ever ever,

(35:42):
you know, he went by Grandpa. He ate it up, he loved
it. Yeah. He he ran, you know, as I said earlier,
he was politically active. He ranfor governor of New York and he
tried to get on the ballot asGrandpa al Lewis, and he argued the
dunce how everybody knew him, andthey rejected that. He also ran for
the US Senate and two in theyear two thousand, always as the as

(36:04):
the Green Party candidate. He hadbit parts and lost in space and taxi,
you know, taxi being late muchlater and he had you know,
he was in films like Pretty BoyFloyd and they shoot horses, don't they.
But again, this was kind ofthe pinnacle of his career as a
as a famous person was Grandpa fromthe Munsters. It became what he was
known as. But as you mentioned, you know, he was type cast,

(36:25):
but he liked it. Unlike FredGwynn, he would show up dresses
the Grandpa character for various things.He would, you know, he was
kind of like Alan Hale Junior fromGalligan's Island that he opened the restaurants with
the name called Grandpa's Bellagent in NewYork City in the eighties. Yeah,
he leaned into it. He's like, eh, that's how I'm known,

(36:45):
That's how I'm known. Yeah,I know, he liked that. He
sounds like a well, he wasgood friends with Steve Cox, and you
know he again never ever didn't respondto an interview request, never ever didn't
stop and say hello to some bodyif they perched him. So so,
yeah, he was h And thefact that he called his restaurant Grandpa's I

(37:05):
thought that was great. Yeah.In Greenwich Village, which is where Fred
gwinliff for many many years after TheMonsters in Greenwich village, which is just
odd because they don't you know,it just seems there, I don't know,
it just seems younger than them,especially village. Yes, yeah,
yeah, so but he apparently hehad diabetes and he had they were they

(37:30):
were taking him away in pieces.I mean, you know, he took
away his leg, his foot,his toes. I mean it was he
got really really ill towards the end, but still on top of things from
what I understand, you know,still still very chatty and uh and and
he's still a lot of quotes I'veread from him. I don't think there
were quotes like my father said,dot dot Dodd. I mean I think

(37:50):
there were. They were genuinely lLewis remarks. So I think he was
was cognitant of what was going on. And yeah, and when he I
guess when he died, he wascremated and putting in his favorite cigar box.
Right. He died on February third, two thousand and six, from
natural causes. And he was eithereighty two or or yeah or ninety five,

(38:15):
depending on who you ask. AndI was like all those two.
I haven't been able to find it, but I recall that Butch Patrick was
at the funeral and drove the dragula. You know, I had like a
memorial service for him, and itwas like a three hour memorial service.
But I haven't been able to backit up, but I'm positive I remember

(38:36):
but Patrick in the in the somesort of procession. I don't know if
his ashes were there, but yeah, but I'm sure because they were close.
He and Butch were good friends.Yeah, but Patrick, who who
played Eddie Monster. He said thatthe cast all drifted apart afterwards, but
then it sounds like they kind ofbecame friends again later on when they did
the reunion shows, and he andmaybe it was harder for him to stay

(39:00):
friends initially because he was still akid when the show ended, and then
when they did their reunions, youknow, he was older, maybe it
was easier for him to stay friendswith these adults. But he did say
he reconnected with with al Lewis,and he reconnected with Evon de Carlow,
and she'd become a bit of arecluse by that point, was living north
of la up in the Solving areaby then, and he was I think
he was helping her out trying toGoch was Butch was a mess. I

(39:24):
mean, but Patrick went, youknow, I mean, honestly, there's
I was. I'll tell you aboutthe time in Chicago, in Chicago ninety
ninety, this is we'll get We'llget to Butcher. I'll tell you that
story. Okay, But but evenButcher was saying they they he was such,
he was in such bad state withsubstance abuse and just just hooked up

(39:45):
with the wrong people at every singlestage of his life almost but he and
Yvonne did a did a show together, one of those you know, I
think it was the Vicky Lawrence Showfor a Halloween reunion. It was he
in Yvonne, and Yvonne was clearlyinto it at all, like she was
just really fed up with Butch forwhatever reason behind behind the scenes at that

(40:06):
time. Wow. But but yeah, Butch had a real he spiraled big
time all right. Well. Speakingof Lily von de Carlo, one of
the big Hollywood icons of the fortiesand fifties, most famous role was a
Sephora and Cecil b de Mills TheTen Commandments in nineteen fifty six. She

(40:28):
was a Canadian descent and then movedout to Los Angeles and she started out
as a dancer at Florentine Gardens,as several other big stars did. Starlus
did from back in that era.In fact, I think I think we
mentioned her in our first documentary DoYou Live, part of Volume one,
because they say the they say shemay have The Florentine Gardens was a nightclub.

(40:49):
They had exotic dancers, not strippers. It wasn't like that. I
mean, it was like big floorshows. Of course they were wearing bikinis
and stuff like that, but itwasn't slutty. Yeah, it was.
It was like a perform rmans.Anyway, supposedly according to you know,
uh rumor. Anyway, she workedwith the Black Dhia Elizabeth Short at the
Florentine Gardens for a while. Ithink we touched on that in our documentary.

(41:09):
I think we did. Yeah,And was Marilyn Monroe also at the
Florentine Gardens at some point early inher she got married or her first wedding
reception was there when she was sixteen. Yeah, yeah, which is still
there and it's still a nightclub inHollywood, which is shocking. Yeah,
it's still active. It's still active. She was in debt apparently when she

(41:30):
signed on to do the Monsters,just a career had. You know,
it's interesting that she could have sucha huge peak just seven years earlier with
the Ten Commandments and CCB to Mill, cecil B to Mill and all that,
and then seven years later, justfor whatever reason, the career had
slid and she's in debt and she'shaving to do you know, the lowly

(41:51):
thing for film actors of going todo television now, yeah, yeah,
you know, and it was solelyfor money. But it is weird because
those guys probably like ten grand foryou know, the Ten Commandments and no
royalties, you know, no residuals, nothing like that. So so it
was a one off. But butyeah, I know, it's a real
shame that people do these roles thatbecome so iconic. There's that word again.

(42:15):
And she also was Solomme was whatput her on the map in nineteen
forty five. Ultimately, her biggestrole you said, was Ten Commandments in
films anyway, but she worked withyou know, supposedly she supposedly had romances
with Burt Lancaster and Howard Hughes andRobert Stack and I don't I don't think
she I don't think she had athing with Brando, I don't think,

(42:37):
but there was an incident on theset with Brando. I think Brando had
the hots for her in the lilycostume, and the cast made a joke
or tried to play a joke onMarlon Brando where he was supposed to do
a scene on a different sound stageand it was going to be in a
confessional booth and Brianda was on oneside of it, and the priest is
supposed to be on the other sideof bend. Eddie Vaughne in her makeup

(43:00):
whip open the curtain of the combassionbooth on Brando and it was there was
everyone. Everyone laughed uproarsally right.She also had a relationship with Billy Wilder,
the director. Yeah, she said, was not at all h her
type, except that he was sucha charming and funny person that she charmed.

(43:21):
He charmed her and then he lefther for another actress. But she
I think she tended to go forthe big, tough guy types. She
had relationships I think with at leasttwo stuntmen. One of them she married.
Yeh, she married a stuntman thatwas on The Ten Commandments. Actually,
when they were filming on she wentwhen they were filming on location in
Egypt, and I think she methim there and married him, and then

(43:45):
he was injured. I want tosay on the West was how the West
was one? I think he gotinjured badly on that shooting a scene where
he was you know, the stuntstand in for a stunt scene. So
anyways, yeah, well she hadshe had two sons with him, and
apparently one of the sons died innineteen ninety seven. Uh, and Yvonne,

(44:09):
you know, was was not deadyet obviously, but they had She
and her one son had to youknow, we're dealing with the grief of
that. And the one son straightout says that her he was murdered.
She thinks that they they're the officialcause that was released was natural causes.
But the other son who lived issaying, no, it was definitely murder.
He was it was somebody with himin rehab when he was like in

(44:31):
a halfway house and uh, andhe was They say he was murdered,
didn't say the method, but theson was was convinced that that he was
killed murdered by a drug dealer becausehe was recovering for alcoholism. I guess
that's why he was there. Jesusand she but she was really close with
her other son towards the other towardsthe end of her life, she was

(44:53):
living in the Motion Picture Country HomeHospital out in Woodland Hills and and her
son was out, you know,visiting her all the time, and they
were very close. And I guessthe year well butch Patrick had visited her
in Thanksgiving the year before she died. That was the last time he saw
her. And they you know,they they were a good relationship at the

(45:15):
end. And her son, whovisited her on New Year's Eve, said
something like, I hope you havea happy New Year, and she stopped
and said, I hope you have. No I hope you have a happy
New Year, which kind of lookedlike they made eye contact. And she's
like, I'm you know, she'sready to roll right, ready to be
gone. But but she did.She did die well. Her last words,

(45:42):
her son was with her and theywere holding hands and and she said
she he said, I want youto go to the light or something to
that effect. It's time for youto go, time for you to go.
And he said that her head startedgoing, you know, darting back
and forth and she said her lastwords were, what's happening to me?
And she kind of grabbed his handand died right then. So it's just

(46:07):
interesting to know. It would bevery interesting to know what was going on.
Yeah, she passed away on Januaryeight, two thousand and seven,
from heart failure. She was eightyfour. And I always have to mention
this whenever it pops up. Shewas in an episode of Murder, she
wrote in nineteen eighty five, whichalso the monsters have shows up in an
episode of Murder. I love it. But Yvonne also she had gang green

(46:30):
of the bowel and that doesn't soundfun. Archery, arterial collusion, arteriosclerosis,
chronic atrial fibrillate fibrillation. But yeah, gang green at the bowel is
listed on her death certificate, whichwas like, oh man, that got
to be something else. Yeah,that's not great. Peptobismal is not going

(46:52):
to help that one. That's notgreat. On that note, Rest in
peace, Avon de Carlo. Yeah, it'd be nice to know where that
where her ashes are. I knowthat her son has her ashes, but
it'd be nice for her to beput someplace where everyone could visit. Right,
butch Patrick, who we've mentioned afew times already. He was Eddie

(47:14):
Munster. He's still alive. Hestarted acting as a kid in commercials and
TV guest appearances before this show andthen afterwards. A few years later,
he starred as Mark in the sideMarty Croft ABC Saturday morning series Liddsville that
ran from nineteen seventy one to nineteenseventy three. He must have been a

(47:34):
teenager or a young adult by thatpoint. And then he had a guest
roles and I Dream of Jeanie andgun Smoke and the Monkeys and Daniel Boone
and Adam twelve. He had arecurring role of Gordon Deering on My Three
Sons and before he left acting eventuallyin nineteen seventy five, he did appear
as himself in The Simpsons at onepoint. Yeah, and my film Dicky

(48:00):
Roberts former child Star. He wasin that. Yeah, I have to
look that one up. That wasa good movie from what I remember.
The child Star. That's because theyhad a lot of child stars in that
movie. Right. They played pokeror something and that was pretty funny scene.
I think like Rodney Allen Rippy wasin there. But but yeah,
Lidsville was a wild show. Imean talk about people say that Sid Marty

(48:22):
Kroft. You know they denied beingyou know, it being drug related,
but you know, I mean toLidsville, for God's sake. You know,
they were talking hats and you know, and there was puffing stuff.
You know, that thing was psychedelicwith those guys. Yeah, with those
guys most definitely. But yeah,the originally the role of Eddie Munster was
offered to Billy Moomey from Lost inSpace, and his parents didn't because he

(48:45):
ended up being everything. Billy Moomeewas in everything you know there was.
There were so many you know,he was in Twilight, It was so
many sixty shows he showed up inand uh just you know, guest appearances,
Western and horror movies and stuff.He was in all of them.
And he was apparently in the movieThe Phantom Told Booth, which I didn't

(49:07):
didn't realize, but so in hehad. This has happened in nineteen ninety
and it was a Halloween event andmy friend Bonn and I and when I
lived in Chicago, we went toall those things. And this is before
there were like autograph shows and stufflike that. It was like a shot
in the dark or needle in thehaystack when anybody from was doing an appearance
quote unquote, And Butcher was doinga Halloween night in nineteen ninety in appearance

(49:30):
at this bar in Chicago. Sowe went and he was there, and
he would have been how old whodo you have been in nineteen ninety Probably
thirty, close to thirties. Probably, I thin because I think he was
born in like fifty three. No, not born in fifty three. Was
he born in fifty three? Iwant to say he was born in like
fifty three. Hold on, okay, so because he sent eighty three ninety

(49:52):
three, so he's close to fortyyears old and he was born in he's
seventy nine, Okay. He showedup at this event in Eddie Munster makeup
like like it was, and hisears were like falling off and they were
like you know, it was likeplay. It was like silly putty ears.
I got a picture and I'll sendit to you. You got to

(50:13):
see this picture. It looks it'slike whoa, you know, and then
it's like the real sort of bigspiraling at time of his But this is
the day after he did this thingthat we that we saw him at.
This isn't Chicago. He they puthim in in a van or in a
limo to take him to his hotel. And he and another guy and the

(50:36):
limo driver I guess they I guessthe fee was like one hundred and seventy
five dollars to do this one runand three in the morning. And they
gave the limo driver like one hundredand thirty dollars and said they'll give you
the rest when they get to thehouse. But it ended up he got
lost a couple of times, andthere was this physical altercation where they beat
him up and took his wallet awayfrom him, and the police recalled and

(50:58):
he was arrested in charged with theaggravate to sault. Then they ended up
convicting him. He was he hadto pay a two hundred dollars fine,
eight hundred and fifty dollars restitution,and one hundred hours of community service and
drug and alcohol treatment. After allthis, he did get married one more
twice, and one of them bothof them were to fans, you know,

(51:19):
he married fans. They had areally ugly breakup and she stole Eddie's
or Butcher's Eddie Monster costume and auctionedit off. Butcher didn't even you know,
he found out about it later on. Wow. And there was one
other thing where he made the tabloidsin two thousand and seven, because there
was when he would do all theseappearances. There was a one something called
a Monster Hall mobile home park thathe would show up in, and there

(51:44):
was the guy who owned the mobilehome park ended up being murdered and apparently
he wasn't involved, but it wasjust another thing, you know, he
just it just spiraled. Well,he's still alive, so I can't tell
you when he died. He diddo a little Caesar's commercial as a grown
up Eddie Munster, which I needto track that down. I think that

(52:05):
McDonald's was remember McDonald's was doing likea weird thing for a while. They
like reunited some Gilligan's Island people andthe Beverly Hill b Belife people, And
I wonder if it was Eddie andl Lewis for some reason that sounds kind
of familiar. Yeah, it wasin the nineties and they were on this
this nostalgic kind of you know tripwith that the Hill Belief remembers more specifically,
but interesting, Well, that wouldhave been kind of the peak for

(52:30):
its syndication, you know, airingback then too. All those shows were
just all over tv Land at thatera, just running like back to back
to back all day every day.You know, that was back when you
could. You know, they wouldthey would run like Monsters episodes for like
four hours, you know what Imean. Like that, nobody had an
easier programming job than the guy attv Land for our block of Gilligan's Island,

(52:54):
for block of My Dream of Genie. Yeah, come up with clever
commercials, right that. That's itthe end, all right. Beverly Owen,
who was the first Marilyn Monster,she was only in the first thirteen
episodes. She didn't even make it. I mean she barely made it a
third of the way through the firstseason, which is crazy to me.

(53:15):
And she left to get married toa writer producer named John Stone who was
a future writer producer on Sesame Street, and then you know they were I
think they were married for like adecade roughly before getting divorced. So it's
interesting that why would she sign onto do a show and then leave after
thirteen episodes to go marry somebody?Did she not like the show? Was

(53:36):
this just an era where you decidedto get married quickly to somebody that you
had barely dated. I would loveto know the whole, like the story
behind how that, the drama behindhow that had happened. I think it
was. I mean, as Iunderstand it, it was sort of like
Natalie Schaeffer and Gilligan's Island where shedid the pilot for a couple of bucks
and they offered her the role.Even Yeah, I think that might have

(53:59):
been it. But she she hadno negative recollection of the show. She
didn't want to be and she didn'twant to be in LA. She just
wanted to go back to New Yorkwith her with her husband. And apparently
the producers just kind of got sickof her crying all the time and going,
you know, she got me outof here, get me out here.
They're finally like, go just go. We're tired, we're tired of

(54:21):
you. And it wasn't nasty,it was it was amicable completely, and
she was lucky to get out ofher contract too. Yeah, and it's
like, oh no, we're inLA. Where will we find a beautiful
blonde actress? There are none.An she wore a blonde wig. Actually
there wasn't that she wore she hada U and I think, what was
it? I think? But Patrickhad very nice things to say about her

(54:42):
as well, that she was justhe loved. I think when she passed
away, he made a really nicenote about her, and he had a
crush on her when he was akid, and then she was the nicest
person on set, and all thisvery positive things to say about her.
And of course the running gag forher character is she's the one normal looking
person and in the family and she'sthis gorgeous blonde and they all treat her

(55:02):
like she's the ugly one. Infact, the first big joke in the
pilot episode, the one that actuallyaired, the first episode that ever aired,
was herman comes in because she's justfinishing up a date on the front
porch with the guy she's been dating. And herman comes up to to Lily
and says, this is the fourthdate she's had with that young man,
and Lily says, yes, It'samazing how some boys will overlook a girl's

(55:25):
appearance. That show was freaking cleveras hell, it really was. There
was the one I wrote down wasnever mind, never mind, Marilyn.
You must remember she's not as fortunateas the rest of us. And then
it literally goes, now you goup to bed, Eddie, and don't
forget to close the lid. Likethis stuff, the stuff that they would

(55:46):
say, herman come to bed,Grandpa turned off the storm and all is
quiet. Is all this quiet ismaking me nervous. That's great. But
that was one other one that's,you know, hurry up and have well
her up and eat before the cheesedip crawls out of the bowl. I
think was another one of them.It was just so funny. It was

(56:07):
so funny. So Beverly Owen wasinto history, and she earned her master's
degree in nineteen eighty nine, andthen I don't know much else about her
until she passed away in February twentyfirst, twenty nineteen from ovarian cancer and
she was eighty one. That is, yeah, she didn't have a whole

(56:28):
lot of a you know, careerafter leaving the shoulder that she did come
back I think in the seventies anddid one of the big soap operas.
For a time. She was recurringrole on a soaproper for for a few
years. I don't think she hadany regrets, but it's sort of odd
when somebody's in a show that's considereda quote hit to bail on it.

(56:50):
Yeah, and then again, theywere probably making they were probably making fifteen
hundred bucks an episode too. Imean, there was probably no money in
it. So yeah. In nineteenseventy two, she played doctor Paula McCree
on Another World for nine months,and that I think is kind of her
last role that she did, allright, And then the person who replaced
her as Marilynd Munster number two wasPat Priest, who then you know,

(57:15):
became the better I guess, probablythe better known of the Maryland Monsters for
the run of the show. Sheis still alive, and her mother was
the US Treasurer, that the Treasurerof the United States in the nineteen fifties
and then was the California Treasurer inthe sixties and seventies. And the fact

(57:35):
that she was the US treasure inthe fifties means that her mother's signature is
on all the paper currency that wasprinted at that time. Isn't that cool?
That's cool? Yeah, it is, that's pretty neat. Yeah,
So she and they used her connectionsshe got she was a page at like
one of the big national one ofthe big national political conventions back in the
day. And she was on episodesof my favorite Martian Perry Mason, the

(58:01):
Lucy Show, Mannix, Bewitched,the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Another connection
there, et cetera, et cetera. One of these actresses that went on
to you know, an episode ortwo here or there on all these other
big sitcoms of the era which wesee so much. In that time frame,
there were so many sitcoms being made. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
they I know that she was well, you know, it's kind of

(58:22):
like the original not well, maybenot the original, but the Darren Switch,
you know, which is like midwaythrough the first season. They got
it unannounced because they sort of hitthey hit a cookie cookie cutter with her.
You know, she was like aMarilyn Monroe Sandra d Cross, you
know, of of cross pollen,whatever you call that, of the of

(58:44):
the two character types. And you'retalking to Darren Switch, you're making a
reference to Bewitched, which we didto show about where they replaced that the
husband character with a different actor.Yeah, and then she said basically,
my you know, maybe I hadan episode or two, but mostly I
was in the kitchen helping h auntLily make you know, clean clean the
table, and say where's Uncle Herman, what's Grandpa up to? You know?

(59:07):
That was you know, she lovedyou know, she's another one that
went to all the I don't knowif she still does, but went to
all the conventions and and loved allthat stuff. Yeah. Sure, but
she's also realistic about her part andthe show. You know, she was
you know, she was you can'treally quote her very much, no,
I mean she was essentially the straightman in a cast of kooky characters.

(59:30):
So they you know, you're notgoing to have as much in the same
things to do when that's your roleis to be the normal person for them,
to contrast everybody else against, right, And it's a one gag joke
of she's the beautiful one and theytreat her like she's ugly. Like how
many times can you revisit that joke? You know? Oh my god,
it was so funny because I rememberthat that scene you were talking about with
the boyfriend in the episode, andand she walked by and says, Lily,

(59:52):
soas I don't know what's wrong withher or something to that effect.
And herman just has this look ofabsolutely disgust on his face. He's talking
about how she looks. It wasreally funny. And they do the I
don't know if they still do,but Butch and Pat Priest used to go.
There's this house in Waxahachie, Texasthat Troy and I visited it.

(01:00:15):
I wish I'd be able to getin it. But these this couple built
the Monster's House to scale. Everythingin it works. There's the coffin clock,
there's the thing that you you pulleddown to open up the the stairway.
I mean, this house is perfect, perfectly done. The guy says,

(01:00:36):
if I had the money, I'ddo you know, I'd have the
Psycho House at the end of mystreet. And you know that's sort of
a thing. But they have theMonster's House that they built from scratch in
Texas, which is really pretty cool. But do they have a dragon named
Spot? That's the big question.I'll bet you they have a prop.
They have to have a prop.You have to have a dog named Spot,

(01:00:57):
like you have to have some peoplewith that name, yeah, or
a lizard that was funny whenever Scottwas spot made an appearance. I mean,
of course, the iconic, iconicthere's that word again, when the
when the when the stairway opens andhe's there and he blasts out the fire.
But every once in a while heget out and all you choose this
enormous dinosaur taiale going past the backdoor. It was, it was,

(01:01:21):
It was really funny. That wassuch a clever show, such a clever
show. I wanted to mention afew of the guest stars from it.
You know Mel Blank and Bob Hastingsvoice the raven in sixteen episodes of the
show. Mel Blank, of course, the man of a thousand voices,
who did uh you know, thelady characters, Bugs, Bunny and all

(01:01:45):
them. Yeah, you know that. Then there's I can' had anything from
that show. That clock with theraven coming in, and that was amazing.
That clock is such a such anawesome prop. Really, everything that
whole place is filled with amazing props, but that clock. If I had
my choice of anything, it wouldbe that and then other big guest stars

(01:02:07):
on the show. Over the years, Don Rickles played a doc Happy Have
meire Dom Deluiz played a doctor.Dudley. John Carradine appeared as a character
named mister Gateman, and Jane Withershe was the Yeah, I'm sorry,
that was the he on the funeralhome. It was Gateman Kingsley, but

(01:02:30):
it was herman's boss, his herby'sboss. Yeah. Yeah. Jane Withers
played a character named Fanny Pike.Of course. Jane Withers, famous child
star, was a rival of ShirleyTemple's back in the day, and also
famous for being the Comic Cleanser spokespersonin the sixties. She was interesting.
We've mentioned her before and I don'tknow what the episode was, but it's

(01:02:51):
because her second husband had been oneof the members of the Four Freshmen singing
group and Heed He died in aplane crash up Bass Lake in nineteen sixty
eight. And I don't know whenthat came up, but it came up
in another one of our episodes,and I don't remember it why it was.
She was She collected costumes before DebbieReynolds did. She had some really

(01:03:14):
iconic stuff. Maybe it was duringan obituary episode or something like that,
but maybe she She supposedly had warehouses, several warehouses full of movie memorabilia.
Yeah, exactly, And she suedthe airport up there that her that.
Yeah, she sued and got asettlement when her husband was killed. His

(01:03:34):
husband, they were on a smallplane it with him and three other people.
It was a business trip. Theywere scouting I think some real estate,
some land that they were thinking ofbuying, so they were getting an
aerial view of it. And sheclaimed that the airport there was a death
trap and known to have to beunsafe, and she sued them and years
later and supposedly got like two hundredthousand dollars settlement, which would have been

(01:03:57):
a lot at that, especially inthe early seventies when she did it.
Their mid seventies when the case wentthrough, Yal, I didn't know that.
That's fascinating. Another guy who hada bit part in it, John
Mitcham, who was Robert Mitchum's brother, had a role in one episode as
the first workman. Oh interesting,okay, And I think he did have

(01:04:17):
Robert Mitchum's look. You could definitelytell they were brothers. And then a
very famous football player named Elroy Hirschwhose nickname is Crazy Legs. He played
for the Rams. He's a Hallof Famer NFL receiver and he was their
general manager. Later on, hehad a short movie career. Some big,

(01:04:38):
you know, famous athletes back then, could you know, sometimes branched
out into acting, sometimes successfully,sometimes not. He had a brief career
as an actor, and he washe appeared as I think as himself.
He was that famous as a footballplayer, and he played himself in one
of the episodes. So they hada boxer. Max Rosenbloom showed up in

(01:04:58):
an episode. I think he wasa kar thief or something like that.
But Maxie, he went by thenickname Slapsy Maxie, and he opened up
night clubs around l A, oneof them being in the new Beverly Cinema
what it is now, but thatused to be a really famous supper club
back in the day, owned byMax Rosenbloom or Slapsy Maxie is what it
was called. And that's Tarantino's Theater. So it's just a nod to We

(01:05:21):
got to get that in there somehow, something man related, of course.
Uh. But yeah, there wasa good Do you have any more on
your list? The the the thethe actors. Another one I wanted to
mention was Louis Nye probably in myopinion, the best episode of the Monsters,

(01:05:42):
because you know, the whole Monstersthing kind of started. Of course,
there was the universal Monsters, andthen that kind of drifted away,
and then the late night horror showhosts started showing up and like vampiras,
and it became you know, bringingbringing them to the more youthful presence,
and that's one of the reasons theythey worked on the Monsters and the Adams

(01:06:03):
Family or got it rolling at thatpoint. And and Zombo was on the
show. The monster Zombo was acharacter who was a horror host, and
Eddie was obsessed with him. Andthere was this contester right in why I
love Zombo because and Eddie and Hermanwould get very jealous of Zombo because Zombo

(01:06:25):
is this creature with fangs and youknow, messed up feet, our hands
and and you know, Eddie waywhat Eddie wins, and he wins like
a television and a bicycle and allthis amazing stuff. And Herman's very jealous,
and he gets a guest stint.Eddie gets to go on the Zombo
show. And he goes and it'sactually Louie and I the comic actor in
a makeup chair with nothing on,and you could hear the Zombo voice and

(01:06:47):
Eddie's like, it's like he's likejust he's like really devastated that Zombo's not
real. And then when he getsall his get up on and Eddie's on
the show, Eddie just flips andgoes, Zomba's a fake and starts rip
off his wig on the It's aIt's an excellent episode. It's it's my
favorite. I think Zombo it was, Yeah, that was that was really

(01:07:08):
cool. It's like when Wryl Pharaohattacks the Santa Claus impersonator in Elf.
There you are just like that,he said, you smell like beef.
Oh my god. And know andit was one other thing that it was
important to the show. I mean, of course, the show had so
many important aspecially the mood. Themusic was spectacular. The theme song,

(01:07:32):
although they changed it, you know, season one and season two had two
different theme songs. Both were composedby Jack Marshall was his name, and
they the sex the second season.I guess they wanted to get like a
Dick Dale kind of a guitar thinggoing on, and Jack Jack had Jack
Marshall I did that himself, buthe composed both of them, and I

(01:07:53):
guess members of the Wrecking crew performedon that recording too. Oh wow,
a fantastic documentary. If you haven'tseen it, by the Wreckon doc is
really good. Yeah. There wasalways kind of a surfy style, you
know exactly. It was always thatkind of surfy style thing. You know,
which surf movies were big at thatpoint, of course, and the
Beach Boys were big at that point. Dick Dale was big at that point.

(01:08:15):
So yeah, makes sense why theywent away the same reason that Gilligan's
Island is set to kind of aclipso theme because clipso music was in vogue
at the time. Yeah, andanother one that they switched after the first
season, you know, with awell they added the lyric different reasons,
different reasons, but both of thethemes on the Monsters we were spectacular.
I think, ex all pieces ofmusic. I don't know anything about the

(01:08:38):
creators. I don't know anything aboutthe writers. I'm glad you had all
that stuff because I had nothing onthat. I always gravitate towards that side
too, because I'm a producer.Yeah you do, and that always intrigues
me. Those guys' careers is alwaysso interesting to me. It completes the
story most definitely. So there's arumor that, well, I don't know
if you can actually track it downexactly, but they say the Monsters were

(01:09:01):
the first. Herman and Lidy werethe first sitcom couple to be in bed
together. And they were in bedtogether in one bed, you know,
the Brady Bunch. Florence Henderson saidthey were, But the Brady Bunch happened
in nineteen sixty nine and Monsters proceededthat considerably. And Steve in his book
uncovered that when I Love Lucy wason and they went on a road trip,

(01:09:27):
Fred and Ethel were technically the firstpeople on camera to be in the
same bed together. And as faras sitcoms go, the first couple in
bed together, I guess for theFlintstones, Willman and Fred Flintstone. They
showed him in bed together. Soit's kind of interesting. But the Bunsters
totally poor kid children's eyes. Onceyou think of the children they on on

(01:09:53):
Lucy, they couldn't even say well, they couldn't even say pregnant. We
touched on that one too in ourwell. On the very first shot in
the entire series. In the firstepisode is Marilyn Munster kissing her date on
the front porch and him kind ofgetting handsy with her and trying to make
the moves. Marilyn Munster, thatwas a play. You think that was

(01:10:13):
a take on Marilyn Monroe. Oh, totally, totally. She just died
prior to the show coming out.Yeah, I mean not in personality,
as they said. It was aSander d kind of a you know,
sweet girl character, but certainly,yeah, a nod to Marilyn Monroe.
I'm sure of that. I yeah, I don't know if that's written down,

(01:10:34):
but I have no doubt in mymind. I was just at last
weekend, I went and did brunchat the Hotel bel Air for the first
time, which of course has severalfamous connections to Marilyn Monroe. She lived
there off and on, so Ithink a couple of times. And then
her last photo shoot a few weekssix weeks before she died, was at
the Hotel bell Air as well.There's a famous picture of her standing next

(01:10:57):
to the pool diving board there duringthe photo shoot. It was for Vogue
magazine, I think, and shedied six weeks later, so, and
you know, not too far awayfrom where she lived at the interview down
the street, almost probably about twomiles away. Yeah, yeah, beautiful
place. Spell their hotel has spenonce only when it was renovating it for

(01:11:19):
like two years. And yeah,I wish I could have seen it before,
because I did hear from someone Iwas there with. She had been
there a bunch of times over theyears going back, and she said that
it wasn't as charming as it usedto be before they renovate, which happened
so often with these places. Itwasn't as warm, I think, as
it used to be warm feeling,but it's still really nice. I love

(01:11:41):
it. It's great there. Yeah, it's beautiful grounds. It is beautiful.
It is beautiful quiet. So itgot to the to the end of
it, so that the Monsters didtheir reunion in nineteen eighty one, and
I don't believe butch Or Maryland,butch Or pat Priests were even invited back
because they, you know, theother monsters well and Yvonne and Fred did

(01:12:02):
it. And this is you knowwhat thirty twenty years twenty nineteen seventeen years
after they quit the series, Iguess, and so they got older,
but Eddie and Maryland couldn't be older, so they hired young people to do
that. Oh that makes sense.Yeah, well, also they're not covered
in makeup, well, Eddie is, but Eddie has to be a kid

(01:12:23):
still. You can't make a handlook like a kid, and you know,
the Maryland character is going to looklike however she looks. They can't
cover up in monster makeup to hidethe age. So yeah, I guess
that makes sense. And Eddie wasjust like a normal kid, except he
looked funny. But he never hadany any you know, there were hardly
any other any gags about him beinga werewolf, you know they, yeah,

(01:12:45):
there was. It's always about thesilly things that the family did.
And so I was looking at thereasons that they canceled the show, and
they said that the CBS programming hadsaid it just he thinks it just wore
itself out. At two years atthe seven thirty time slot is a lifetime
for a program, and just likeseven thirty, who watches TV at seven

(01:13:11):
thirty anymore? You know, it'ssuch a different such a different time.
And when they when hit shows wereon Saturday nights, you know, which
is like unheard of anymore, youknow, they hardly have any like real
shows. And also at seventy episodesthey did in two years, how many
more gags can you come up withand storylines to fit this? And it's
They've tried to reboot it multiple timesover the past couple decades. I think

(01:13:35):
Seth Myers tried to reboot it,and some other people have tried to bring
it back, and they just theykeep failing to make this, to make
the series work for modern audiences,like what do you do? How do
you what tone do you strike withit? That would work with that would
work now? I don't know.Rob Zombie didn't find it. I didn't

(01:13:56):
watch his Monsters movie. The trailerdid not look great. I'm sorry to
say. It was so awful andI and I was looking forward to it
because they sunk a lot of moneyinto it and they recreated the house and
they did clear the trailer. Honestly, the trailer made it look a lot
like like an SNL sketch like qualityokay production, which I remember them again,

(01:14:17):
they're trying to go for that originalcampy look. I get that's supposed
to look that way, but stillyeah, yeah, no, that was
painful, really really really painful.And the other the quote I found it
about the producer Joe Connolly. Idon't know. He always said, you
know, kind of nice things aboutit, but then he said at the

(01:14:38):
end of the show that the actorswere pain in the ass. This is
a quote. Fred and al objectedto anything. Fred hated the makeup and
caused a lot of trouble about iton the set. We could not stand
Fred Gwynn. We were happy withwhat we had done, but we had
just had it, huh see.And then I've heard other people, other
actors they were on it say itwas a happy experience and fond memories and

(01:14:59):
people had a good time on setand offsets. So I guess it depends
on who you are and who youhad to deal with exactly. I'm sure
that's what it is. I'm surethat's what it is. And there's one
other fun fact. I did watchthis the other night in nineteen. In
two thousand and eight, they releaseda black and white porn film called This

(01:15:19):
Ain't the Monsters Triple X. Ohno, I did watch this the other
day. Lily and Herman celebrating theiranniversary with a session in the cemetery,
Eddie finally gets a chance to howlwith pleasure after having a run in with
two smoking hot girls, and cousinMarilyn will live out her fantasies in the
spooky mansion. But wait till yousee what Grandpa has in store for you.

(01:15:43):
He's conjuring up plenty of plenty oftreats in his laboratory. It's terrible,
of course, as you'd expect itto be. But they did work
on it, you know, theydid make cool sets. It wasn't quite
you know, it wasn't up tothe standards, of course. Was it
better than the rob Zombie Monsters movie? Well, yes, because there was

(01:16:04):
something to look at. Oh,it was so that agony, it was
so and you know what, theshow needs a laugh track, you know,
That's what I meant. We watchedMunster Go Home the other day.
Munster Go Home was a full lengthmovie. That's when it had John John
Carrody played the butler. Hermione Gingle. They got this wacky old you know,

(01:16:26):
she used to be on Bewitch tothis British actress and Terry Thomas was
was the main lead aside from thecast of the monsters, no laugh track?
And although I liked the movie MonsterGo Home, you need that.
You just needed that because just fallflat and they do. Yeah, but

(01:16:47):
the Rob Zombie one man? Thatwas that was agony? Was there a
the Rob Zombie one? No?No, I don't think so. At
least it wasn't in my head.It was so unfunny. You blocked out
the laugh track, is what happened? Yeah, I look. My thing
is as if Look, it's debatable, but if you're going to recreate something

(01:17:10):
faithfully like that, why not goall the way and add the laugh track?
I would say, I would say, especially in the porn version,
there you go, there you are, and there you are. I'm going
to reserve all the jokes that justhit my brain just now for it.

(01:17:34):
You can watch it for free.I found it just just type in.
Of course you're watching it for free. It's porn on the internet. Who
pays for that? This ain't theMonster's Triple X? Look it up?
All right? And with that,Oh god, I have there's too many
jokes in my head right now.I have to stop. All right,

(01:17:56):
Well, guys, Happy Halloween.Oh one more thing, one more thing.
Did you see that thing? Iposted on Facebook the other day where
it was like the first or secondepisode where Herman Munster takes a fall,
Yeah, tolf of his wig kindof fell off. It just like popped
up like that was really wild.It was like it kind of made me
a little bit sick because it waskind of gross to think his head opened
up like it was scalped for asecond. Yeah, now that was that

(01:18:18):
was a That was a neat littlebecause I guess they had a problem with
the lights in his makeup and theglue and all that kind of anyway,
if like that, I love alittle goose like Thattter when they throw a
character against the wall and the wallmoves because it's a fake wall and look
stuff like that. Yeah, that'sreally funny. There were one of the
Terminator movies, one of the notgreat ones, one of the later ones
after T two. I remember there'sa scene where they get thrown against the

(01:18:40):
brick wall and you could see thewall give oh when they hit It was
like, oh, how did thatmake it in? Yeah, he was
a different angle, right, Butthat house with the house was just insane.
That was such an amazing set towatch that house. That smoke coming
out of the chimney that was.That was an awesome, awesome set.
They did such an amazing job withthat. Yeah, all right, well,

(01:19:03):
happy Halloween everybody, sincerely, thanksfor joining us. Enjoy. If
you're dressing up, have fun.I'm dressing up as Karme from The Bear,
Who's interesting on Basic as a chef. It's the easiest one I could
dress up as because all I diddo is buy a wig. Who is
it? Have you watched The Bear? The Bear's fantastic. It's kind of

(01:19:25):
a dramedy. It's about a chefin Chicago and it's the actor Jeremy Allen
White I think his name is fromHe's most famous from Shameless, I believe,
Okay, And yeah, they justfinished their second season and it's really
good. I really like it.It's intense and funny and dramatic and yeah,

(01:19:45):
it's really really well. It's areally well made show. The Bear
pop culture thing. It's just dressedup as him as a chef. It's
just a chef's costume. Basically.I kind of have to have watched the
show to get it out of theway. It's like, oh, why
are you wearing an apron? Butit could be Gordon Ramsey. That's true.
I could be anybody that they want, anybody. They could just yell

(01:20:08):
out of chef's name and yeah,yeah, you got it, you nailed
it. That's me. Well I'mgoing I'm going as Zoltar. Of course
your shoulder as always, yes,and I have the whole costume. I
won't be wearing any dark makeup becausethat wouldn't be right. But I've got
the whole costume. And I evenfound a box now, so amazing about

(01:20:30):
that. I love costumes like thatbecause you can store them and bust them
out later and without. If youhave, like a you need a last
minute costume, there's one ready foryou. You know. I had a
Caveman costume forever that I could justthrow on in two minutes if I needed
to, you know, last minute, get invited somewhere, and I didn't
plan on it. So it's niceto show those costumes. I did when
my friend Brian and I went asthe Lobbyankas. Oh god, no,

(01:20:55):
I can't these are these are these? Can never know? I shouldn't never
see the internet. But yeah,believe that to everyone's imagination, because what
you're imagining is probably even more terriblethan what it actually was, which was
not great. Probably, we knowthey were really good costumes. They were
really good. God, that's whatI'm afraid of is that they were very

(01:21:17):
faithful. Yeah, the other peopleat the party were kind of like but
it worked. And with that,we'll see you on the next show.
Happy Halloween, and we'll have tocome up with a Thanksgiving Day one.
Yeah, we'll to figure it out. We are going to do a Carpenter's

(01:21:40):
one one of these days. That'shappening. Yeah, yeah, I'm going
to do one. Because somebody wantedus to do a Mash one too.
Did we ever do that? We? I think we did. There was
that one where I thought we didand we didn't. Hold on. Maybe,
how have we not done a Mashepisode because I hate that show?

(01:22:00):
Probably? Yeah? Oh I lovedthat show growing up. It was on
a lot. My mom and mygrandpa had it on all the time.
Wow, I am shocked that wehaven't done a Mash episode. Why did
I think we'd done one? Idon't know. We've talked about it enough
times, I think. Yeah.Also, someone wanted us to do Hogan's
Heroes, and you said you hatedthat show as well right, yeah,

(01:22:20):
yeah, well, you know ithas a lot to do with being a
little homo, and the female presenceis almost there's no female presence in it,
yeah, because it's a World Wartwo very very minor, and that's
something that you know, there's nostrong female characters in that. And that's
a gay thing. I can't explainit, but I've noticed that about a

(01:22:40):
lot of people, like gay people, they really don't gravitate towards shows that
don't have a large female presence.That makes sense, I guess that's interesting.
Yeah, and well Mash had goodfemale presence hardly though. Yeah,
Hula Ham was a bit of aballbuster. Yeah, but I mean she
was still you know, had soshe was one character of an ensemble of

(01:23:05):
you know, right, and youknow that was there was was it Margaret
Show? Once said the comedian MargaretShow was on stage Because when I was
a kid, I knew that oneday I could grow up and be an
extra on Mash. Right, right, who's a Korean comic. She's a

(01:23:27):
comic with Korean descent, And it'sjust a frinny joke. I thought,
Yeah, all right, guys,happy Halloween and exciting and we're happy to
be doing the show on the regularand we will talk to you guys on
the next one. Thanks for joining. This has been an episode of the
Dearly Departed podcast. Dig up moreepisodes at dearlydepartedpod dot com and on iTunes

(01:23:55):
and Google Play. See you nexttime, he spo