"The Munsters" 1964-1966 (CBS Thursdays at 7:30 PM)
"Batman" 1966-1968 (ABC Wednesdays and Thursdays  at 7:30 PM)
Munster, Go Home! 1966
The Mini Munsters Go Home 1967 (CBS one time special)
The Mini-Munsters 1973 (ABC one time special)
The Return of the Monsters 1981 (NBC)
"The Munsters Today" 1988-1991 (syndicated)
Here Come the Munsters 1995 (FOX)
The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas 1996 (FOX)
"The Munsters Today Today" 2001 (syndicated)
 
 

Update: Beverley Owen recently made a statement at the 2004 Presidential Debates which is as follows:
"I believe that the environment should be used to its full potential. I don't care or even think about smog, pollution, or the killing of wildlife. If we need oil, we'll get it. Whether it be on a wildlife preserve or in an elementary schoolyard, we'll get our oil, coal, and petroleum by any means. Don't think about pollution, it won't affect the earth until after we're dead anyway" - Beverley J. Owen.

Also, a couple in Brazil recently completed the construction of their Munster Mansion home! They began building in mid 2003 and will throw a Halloween Bash this fall in which Munster stars Beverley Owen, Happy Derman, and Yvonne De Carlo will be in attendance.
 
 

Update: Beverley Owen has recently come forth with the missing "Olga The Dancing Bear, Part II" episode of The Munsters! Though not shown on TV Land, the episode will be included in the syndication series to be shown on local television stations. Be sure to watch for it!

On September 24th, 1964, The Munsters hit the airwaves. To the viewer, it was a witty and creative comedy, but behind the scenes, it was a different story. . .

     In the beginning, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, two producers from Universal thought up the initial idea of The Munsters while at a bar in Chatine, CA.
     "We had just finished up with 'Leave it to Beaver,' so we were out celebrating with Jerry Mathers, Barbara Billingsley, and all them. The Beaver kept blabbing on and on about how he loved monster movies and all this trash, but it gave Barbara Billingsley a fantastic idea for a new TV show. It was basically about a family of famous movie monsters who don't even know it. Bob got out his typewriter and just started typing illegible scripts like mad. We had struck a creative goldmine! It just seemed to flow from my veins like alcohol,” says Bob Mosher.
     After the initial script was written and shown to executives at Universal, the response was less that ecstatic but they decided to go along with it anyway just for fun. "It was more or less the same concept as Bewitched or Gunsmoke, but we went with it anyway."
     "The show was actually going to be shot in color. We thought it would be fun to see the show in color since it never had been seen that way before," Norman Abbott said at his Ohio home in 1990.
     Now that the show was mapped out, and a script was ready, casting needed to be done. Child star Happy Derman was immediately selected as Eddie due to his many, many film credits. New York actors Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis were chosen because producers had been pleased with their "Car 54, Where Are You?" work. "It was so exciting to have real life cops on board for the show," said Norm Liebmann in a 1977 interview. Joan Marshall was chosen for the role of Phoebe because she looked as though she could easily take orders and be slaved about. "I was thrilled to be part of a TV show. I had a feeling it would fail, but I wanted to be in color, so I did it," Joan said in 1972.
     After flying two New York actors Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis in to be in the pilot, they snatched up brunette beauty Beverley Owen to play Marilyn, the misfit niece.
     Beverley Owen, born Beverley Ogg in Ottumwa, Iowa, was tricked into the role. "My good friend Monique told me that it would be my own TV show called 'The Beverley Owen Comedy Hour' which would be a somewhat variety show," Beverley says, "Little did I know that my life would be turned upside down and I would be a nobody in just weeks."

     Owen, a former Rheingold Girl, was thrilled to have her own comedy hour. "It was like a dream come true!" she said. "I moved from New York to Los Angeles with nothing but happy aspirations. Sure, I had only appeared in a few local commercials and an episode of Kraft Television Theatre, but I somehow knew this was my big chance to make it in this world. They signed me to a seven-year contract and told me I would only be appearing in a pilot of The Munsters to see how my acting abilities were. I should have known something was going on when Monique refused to show me the first three pages of the contract, but I signed it anyway."

    Upon receiving the news, Beverley's musically talented mother composed a good-bye song for when she left to go to Los Angeles. "As I was getting ready to leave, my mother handed me a tape, then she sat down at the piano and began to sing a lush ballad containing all the sorts of 'good-byes' and 'don't cries'.. I was sick of her crap. I spit in her face and slammed the door on my way out. " When questioned about why her character was a blonde knockout, she said "Yeah, I don't know why they made me a blonde. The wig was ugly and the character was stupid. I was just joking around one morning after a night of boozing and I'm like, ‘Wouldn't it be funny if I was a blonde?' The makeup artist put a wig on me and we both laughed into the night. As I later found out, this wouldn't be a laughing matter," Beverley Owen admits in a 1969 interview.
   "The Pilot was fun." Happy Derman tells us, "The actors were nice to me, but the crew wasn't. They liked playing jokes on me but I didn't like them at all. Once they put a piece of candy on a hot stove and told me I could have it. Being the naive child of nine years, I picked up the melted Tootsie roll and had to be rushed to the hospital. I experienced 3rd degree burns on my fingers and 2nd degree on my face. I liked doing the pilot though."
     Everything was going well on the set, until Joan Marshall started noticing rope burns on co-star Beverley Owen. "I figured she was an avid rope climber at first, and didn't stop to think there was any real trouble," Joan said. One day, towards the end of filming, while touring the sound stage, Joan found Beverley tied up to some lighting equipment. "I knew I had to save her right then. It just wasn't fair she had to be tied up while the rest of us were free to roam."
     Unfortunately for Joan, her instinct failed her yet again. She was shot by producers, and did not come out of a coma until 1969, when the Munsters were long gone.
     During the filming of the pilot, the cast couldn't be happier.
     "I was finally in a hit TV show!" Marshall says. Fred Gwynne and the rest of the cast quickly settled into their roles that that would eventually immortalize. "I wasn't really thinking I would immortalize the role. In reality, I really didn't care. I just made sure that I got my vodka in between scenes." Beverley Owen confesses. While on probation with the producers, Beverley wandered the sets of numerous films and TV shows.

     "I just loved the atmosphere. But it would later be something I came to hate." she says. "Once, I was walking on the back lot looking at all of the fascinating architecture of the homes used in TV shows when suddenly I was struck by an out of control tram." she cries. "I was recommended to spend at least four months in the hospital but the producers forced me to stick it out for the rest of the filming of the pilot."
     When the color pilot was shown to network executives, they were furious. "I was told this was going to be a parody of Universal's famous movie monsters, meaning it'd be in black and white. When we saw it was in color, we knew it was the work of the Commies." They demanded it be redone in black and white, and so it was. Al Lewis was so bored on the last day of filming, that they decided to add a lab scene in Grandpa's dungeon that had nothing to do with the script.
     "Al had Beverley and Butch build him a makeshift laboratory set, and Yvonne went to a local high school to get chemicals, beakers, test tubes and all that for props. He started making up all this dialogue about a love potion and other crazy stuff. It worked brilliantly," recalled Gwynne in 1992. When the producers decided to do another pilot, Marshall was removed because of her incoherent state, and Derman was removed because the producers were tired of him. For the filming of the third pilot, director Norman Abbott chose Yvonne De Carlo (born Margarita "Peggy" Yvonne Lillian Peggy Middleton D'Carlotta), a 1910s silent film siren, to play the part of Lily, formerly Phoebe.
    Yvonne had mixed feelings about the show. At first she was embarassed and thought she would look ugly, but her agent and her bankbook told her 'do it, it might lead to something.' "My bankbook was one of those talking bankbooks," explains Yvonne, "I bought it from an evil sorceress who lived down the street."
    Coming from the silents, Universal executives were afraid Yvonne might not actually know how to act. "Acting in silent films is actually more difficult than one may think. You have to study hard, take lots of tests, and listen to all the adults on the set who are constantly looking out for your rights as a child actor." explains Yvonne. Unfortunately, there were even more problems coming for Yvonne.

    "Fred and I heard that they had hired Yvonne De Carlo. Being from New York, Fred and I barged in, 'What do you mean!?' we shouted. We attempted suicide seventeen times. We took every pill in sight and slit every vein in our body with anything we could find, but to no avail. Yvonne stayed in the show and ended up being great. We were wrong, Fred and I, hahaha," a laughing Beverley Owen tells us.
     Of course, they weren't the only angry cast members. "We were furious," Al Lewis says, "Pat and I went into Joe Connelly's office and had a fit. We threw chairs out the window, tipped desks, ruined scripts, and then we laughed. Unfortunately it did nothing for us and Carolyn Jones stayed in the show."
    "Yes, I played Lily on The Munsters. My first film was Salome, Where She Danced. I liked doing it a lot. Once, I was fortunate enough to work with Humphrey Bogart in one of my earlier films." Yvonne De Carlo replies in a 1992 interview after being questioned about the make-up process.
 Nine year-old Butch Patrick was also brought in as a new cast member to replace the now washed-up actor Happy Derman.
    "It was a shame to let such a talented child actor such as Happy leave the show," Norman Abbott confesses, "However, I admired his spunk to stick it out with Gwynne and Lewis."
     Remembers Patrick, "My exotic eyes were what got me the part. Well, that, and the fact that my Grandma Beatrice owned Universal Studios and half of Hollywood."
    "I was so angry when they said I had to work with movie heart throb Butch Patrick. My daily regimen of acrobatics calmed my nerves, but I was still very upset during the first few episodes," says Owen.
     She recalls humorous times on the set of The Munsters. "When filming began on the third pilot, it was regularly calm and a rather tight ship. By the end, it was a drunken mess. Butch Patrick kept falling from the rafters and broke his neck twice. The entire cast and crew found it to be the cutest thing ever. We always giggled and clapped for Butch when he would unknowingly put his life in danger."
    Yvonne De Carlo was having her own difficulties on the new show. "I had never done film with sound before. My first day on the set, when they lowered the boom mic near my head, I thought it was a flying dragon and I maced the boom mic operator. It was a traumatic experience for everyone, and I was fired several times during the series for repeating this action. Twice they replaced me with a marionette named Chloë Van Duesseldorf. She didn't last long, though, after I transformed my bat necklace into a boomerang and threw it at her puppeteer. It was the highlight of my career, actually," Yvonne said in an interview in 1999.

     De Carlo and everyone else on the set had no idea how that third pilot ever got finished.
     "It was quite the environment. There were beer bottles littering the set. It took ten tries to get Butch on his perch because the rope man was so drunk," recalls De Carlo in 1988.
    As a clever gag, Joe Connelly thought it would be funny to have a giant dancing chicken that lived in a grandfather clock. By filming time, it had been scaled down to a raven in a cuckoo clock. Mel Blanc recalls: "Yeah, I was brought in to do the voice. I had to sign autographs and do Bugs Bunny impersonations until sundown, but it was worth it to be part of the Addams Family."
     When the pilot was finally completed and accepted by Universal, the cast and crew threw a gigantic party at Studio 54, the popular Disco Dance hangout. "I loved to boogie." says Owen. "While I was boogying, the rest of the cast including Butch was enjoying cocktails at the bar. I later joined them until we all passed out and had to be escorted home by the local authorities."
    As the cast began to set their daily routine, crew members started noticing odd behavior from Beverley Owen. "I remember one time specifically where Beverley locked herself in her dressing room, she had her rap music blasting and Joe Connelly was pounding on the door attempting to get her attention. It wasn't until they broke down the door that they saw her laying there on her couch, wearing nothing but a towel, and eating a candy bar." "She was a regular tyrant of the set," remembers Pat Priest.
     When questioned about her feelings towards being tricked and not having her own comedy hour, Beverley said "I really didn't mind. I loved doing The Munsters so much that it was far better than any comedy hour could ever be. I loved the cast so much. It was really a caring environment despite the hangovers in the morning."
     Nearing the time that the show was ready to air, it needed a sponsor. "Xerox was so fitting" said Mosher in 1986, "I mean, the Munsters are poor copies of our childhood monsters and ghouls, just how Xeroxes are poor copies of documents. I mean, think of it this way. If you were a monster, wouldn't you use Xerox to copy your documents? I know I would." And then he winked and smiled.

     After being picked up by the CBS network and not having a script for an actual episode, the cast and crew expanded the third pilot into a full thirty-minute presentation. Because of it's horrible production values, and sub par acting, it was shelved to be aired much later in the season as the second episode.
    On September 24, 1964, The Munsters premiered on CBS. "We had the biggest bash ever," tells Beverley, "it was so big, in fact,t hat the newspapers dubbed it Bevvy Baby's Big Ol' Booze Bash. By the time the show had premiered, though, co-star Beverley Owen had gained a substantial amount of weight. "They forced me to consume nothing but water and cocaine to shed the pounds. I have a strong feeling that this is what began my life of booze and illicit drugs," she confesses.
     Edward Mallory remembers how difficult it was to finish the episode even though he had one scene. "That first scene in the car with Beverley and me took the longest to do. She kept screeching and ordering the prop men to bring her another beer and a bag of peanuts among other things. It was horrible," said Mallory in a recent interview.
     It was obvious to the viewing audience and everyone that worked on the show that Owen had to leave the Munsters. She admits she had many problems with all of the cast members. She knew she could never get married if she didn't leave the show, but she was kicked off before she could beg to be released from her contract.
     In mid-season 1965, producer Joe Connelly took Beverley aside and told her "Look, Bev, we have a lot of episodes coming up in which the Marilyn character needs to type, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to let you go." Beverley tells us " Can you believe it? I was fired from the show for a lack of typing skills. Apparently I wasn't good enough so they gave me the brush off. I was furious. I ended up getting the last laugh, though, when the girl who replaced me died a year later."
    As Gwynne recalls, Owen had a split personality. "She always made things difficult. I'm glad she was kicked off the show. From what I heard, when she didn't get her own comedy hour she went into Joe Connelly's office and beat the crap out of him. Everyone was wondering what happened to him when he was in intensive care for two weeks. On the last day of filming she played horrible jokes on Yvonne. I think she once put itching powder in her underwear. When she left the set for the last time she yelled, 'screw you,' and threw lit fireworks at us."
    "We all watched as she stole a chair off the set, jumped in her helicopter waiting on the roof of Stage 32 and flew off in a matter of seconds. She later ejected the chair out the window and, unfortunately, it hit Yvonne De Carlo," remembers Pat Priest. "I had a feeling it was aimed towards me. Probably due to the fact that we got in a huge scratching and cussing fight minutes before she left. She was so great to work with, though, she really did a great job as Sephora in The Ten Commandments," Yvonne tells us.
    "She actually played mind games with us," recalls De Carlo. Believe it or not, Beverley Owen was a child psychologist. She believed that kids liked the Munsters much how they like drinking poison, it's dangerous and kills you in time. "This one time she just glared at us with her deceptive brown eyes and the rest of the cast was in a transe for the remaining duration of the shoot, it was kind of scary. Three cast members went home and committed suicide while two others turned to prostitution on the streets of Mockingbird Heights."
    After leaving, Beverley headed for the Rocky Mountains in search of Old Ernest's hidden treasure. On her way, she encountered a traveling show bear named Olga. "We became the best of friends, you know, late night chats and laughing around the fireside. It wasn't until I learned that Olga had been asked to do The Munsters that I really got upset. It seems as though Monique had told Olga she would only be doing a pilot and would have her own 'The Olga The Dancing Bear Comedy Hour,' I was ticked. Monique was up to her old tricks again.. silly idiot, tricks are for morons.. I hate tricks, and I especially hate cereal."

     At times, the set could be a frightening place for young actor Butch Patrick who was exposed to violence while doing the show. "We had to keep the studio doors locked at all times because Beverley would come around in full medieval armor on horseback demanding to be brought back onto the show. She even had a dueling lance." When questioned about the incidents Owen laughed and smiled.
     With four episodes now in the can, the Munsters were hot property. Merchandising offers came flooding in from all over the world, especially Israel which was in the lead with 87% of the population as Munsters fans.
    In 1965, to gain popularity to the show, it was decided the Munster family should get a new car that would appeal to the children of the day. George Barris originally designed the Munsters Koach to be a tombstone with wings. However, technology had not developed fast enough for that by 1964. Writer James B. Allardice was outraged that the script for episode four was now ruined. "It was key that Herman's present be a flying tombstone. The show never recovered from this heinous outrage," recalled Allardice in 1975.
    Also to gain popularity, producers decided to start a contest to boost the already falling ratings. "We were in 45th place, despite the fact that there were only 30 shows on at the time," recalls Joe Connelly. The contest was called Who Wants to be a Munster? All contestants were to submit a thirty page thesis on why they deserved to guest star on the show and meet the cast. Unfortunately the only person to enter was Beverley Owen. Her essay was only a few sentences written in crayon on a Denny's napkin, prompting both Denny's and Crayola to sue the Munsters and CBS. The contest was canceled and so as not to have another psycho on their hands, everyone on the cast and crew made a sacred vow that they would never change Marilyns again.
    The next week, chaos ensued without Beverley to hold things together. Butch Patrick's tutor sobbed to herself in the corner, and Ezra Stone kept accidentally dropping expensive lighting equipment. During the filming of a scene with Lily and Marilyn, Yvonne kept repeating her lines to empty space, until a set designer realized that no one was playing Marilyn. Everyone had forgotten that Beverley had been fired, so they quickly advertised in newspapers and magazines for a replacement. Pat Priest answered an ad and tried out for the part.
     Priest, a former toilet bowl manufacturer from Boise, Idaho, was thrilled to audition to be the new Marilyn.
     "Beverley had left on a Friday and I came in on the same day. I tried out and went home. They called me on Saturday to tell me I got the part, I came in on Monday to rehearse and was filming by Wednesday. The next week, the makeup artist said he needed to do figure out how to make me look like Beverley. Now this was on a Wednesday. I agreed and we went into the makeup room to see what looked best. We decided that chartreuse was a good color for my hair to be so we dyed it on a Friday. Today is Thursday, correct? (yes) Thanks, I just want to remember it for future reference."

     "I enjoyed both Beverley and Pat, but was somewhat relieved when Pat came
on. She liked to get drunk with us after a long day of shooting, but she didn't go trying to get us to go to local convents and taunt the nuns, like Beverley did," said Gwynne, "She smoked like a chimney though. Pipes were her game, but we still enjoyed smoking together immensely." Recalls Pat, “I smoked it so much that I eventually made it a part of my character which allowed me to smoke on camera as well."
     Pat soon learned the rules of the set. She was almost removed from the series on
her second day during publicity shots. "I tried to sit on the right side of the picture. They said if I tried that again, I'd be shot before I could say ‘Marilyn’," says Priest. "On our second photo shoot, I still hadn't learned my lesson and when approaching the right side, I was wrestled to the ground by FBI agents. After waking from a coma two weeks later, I was told that I must never be on the right hand side of the promotional photos. It was a very frightening experience."
    The Munsters were now riding sky-high on TV's Neilsen ratings in eighteenth place. "We didn't have a Marilyn for 45 episodes." Lewis comments. "Pat Priest came in later near the end of the show and acted like she owned the place. Never believe those phony articles you read in the paper. It's all a vicious lie!"
    One of the key reasons for the high ratings was the set designer's and prop master's attention to detail. The whole crew of The Munsters prided themselves on never using fake props. "Lily's brother Lester, the wolfman, was a real wolf we had brought in from Transylvania. Unfortunately, it was rabid and attacked Beverley Owen. She soon became rabid herself and was sent to the vet. We never heard from her again." Rabies soon broke out on the set as cast and crew were infecting eachother. Everyone was foaming at the mouth and water was, in turn, banned from the set.
    By the end of season one, the Munsters were the only thing in town. Everyone knew every episode by heart, and Beverley Owen was long forgotten. The main five were the biggest stars of the year, and everyone was a Munster maniac. That would all soon change in September of 1965.
    When the first episode of season two aired, America was introduced to Olga the dancing bear. When they found out it was not going to appear in any other episode, fans protested. "I really loved working with that bear. It was one of my fondest memories that I look back on often," said Gwynne in a 1990 interview.
    As the show went on, everyone involved in the show had a life spiraling into alcohol. "I thought my bat necklace was neat," said De Carlo when questioned about this. "What did it matter? I was television’s only vampire and I didn't care what anyone thought. If I wanted to dress as a Russian peasant on the set, I would. I eventually got to use it in my on-camera character, and it was great," comments Priest today.
    And with alcohol on the set came drugs. "Most people think I got hooked on drugs in my 20's, but it all really started right before Beverley left. She gave me some drugs, so I figured I had to try them. You can see on some of those episodes how bloodshot my eyes are," said Patrick.

    As season two moved along, Fred Gwynne became increasingly annoyed with the character he would one day look back upon with fondest memories. In January of 1966, Gwynne decided to leave the show. A new character, Batman, was brought in to temporarily replace him. He was spun-off soon after into his own sitcom, which ironically destroyed The Munsters in time. "I thought it was great to give him a spin-off, and suggested CBS air it Thursday nights after The Munsters. Unfortunately, ABC snatched up Batman before CBS could purchase the rights. Apparently ABC was quite outraged after CBS had stolen the spin-off to The Addams Family, The Lucy Show, which starred Vivian Vance and Gale Gordon," lamented Bob Mosher in 1975. ABC placed Batman during the same timeslot as The Munsters, stealing the key ratings demographic of females aged 65-80.

     Towards the end of season two, Pat was having second doubts about the casts true feelings towards her. "I think they mostly loved me because my mother, Ivy Baker Priest, former treasurer under President Dwight Eisenhower, sent care packages of crisp, new $100 bills daily to the cast. As a result, the national debt skyrocketed and my mother was impounded for twenty-seven years," Pat says with tears in her eyes.
     Many viewers began to notice that episodes were becoming more and more contrived and ridiculous as season two continued to progress. One episode even featured Herman and Grandpa trying to produce their own carbon dioxide. "Fred and I would try to make suggestions about the script during the week, but our ideas were always shot down. It was very frusterating. I mean, how many times can someone see the Munsters and run away screaming and it still be funny? Well, I did some scientific research, and the exact number is seven," Patrick informs us.
     Unfortunately for everyone, during the filming of the last episode for that season, Joe Connelly announced that the show was canceled by CBS because the show would not convert to color for the next season. "We were planning on going to color but they never even asked us." says producer Bob Mosher. The series had also been rumored to have been recyling scripts from the popular '50s series "Leave it to Beaver." "It's so true. I once walked in on Joe Connelly scratching out the 'Leave it to Beaver' title on the script and replacing it with 'The Munsters,'" remembers Jo McDonnell. "One episode in particular is the one where Beaver complains about being too short, so June goes down into the dungeon and whips up a growth potion that accidentally turns Beaver into a wolfboy with a beard," she tells us, "of course, the plot was slightly changed." The second the final episode was completed, the cast and crew began destroying the set. "There was no time to waste. We had to destroy it before it destroyed us," Butch recalls.
    "After we found out the show was canceled, so we figured 'whatever' and threw a huge booze party. I don't really remember what happened, but I know there was something with Debbie stealing a Universal tram and Al crashing it into the dungeon. It was the best cast party ever!" recalls veteran actress Hermione Gingold. While the cast fell out of the roles they had immortalized, Universal served up one last punch to get the Munsters going again.
    After reviewing the contracts, Universal found that all of the actors still had four days left so they quickly forced them all to return for a feature film. "We really couldn't write a whole script in the half hour we were given so we recycled tons of the original series' scripts." It would be a wacky movie in which The Munsters would take a trip to some random and pointless destination. England was chosen mostly because of British actress Hermione Gingold’s interest in the movie.
     "One day I was talking with Hermione Gingold. She told me it would be great to cast her in a Munsters movie because she had loved them since seeing them as a little girl. So I thought, what the heck. Let’s do it, just for fun," said Connelly in 1977.
     "I was asked not to be in the movie because of my dependency on children's cough syrup and Clorox, funny how they never had a problem with it on the show." Pat tearfully tells us. Thinking back, she confesses "I was sad, but glad. The drunken mess that was the Munsters was taking it's toll. I laugh every day about it now, though."

     The producers having let go severely dependent upon drugs Priest brought in eighteen year old Debbie Watson, a contract player, who was only moderately dependent.
     "I had a blast!" Debbie explains. "It was such a groovy group to work  with. We would be kickin' it on the back lot, joking it up y'know? It was wicked."

     "The movie," De Carlo recalls, "was the greatest bullfight I ever saw. I would definitely go back to Mexico if I had the chance."
    Filming began rapidly, as the cast was given high concentrates of caffeine pills to keep them going for the tight shooting schedule. "Well, they told us to memorize the script for the next day, they started shooting Tuesday and Wednesday, had it edited by Thursday and it was in theaters on Friday" remembers Priest, who had no affiliation with the movie. "You cant even tell how we weren't even wearing our make up half the time, and I think the race scenes were actually just stock footage from when Fred Gwynne dressed as Frankenstein and competed in NASCAR in 1962."
    In order to entice theatre patrons, some move houses put up foreign posters to help make movies seem more interesting. "It was my idea, as I recall," says teen idol Debbie Watson, "It worked like magic and Munster, Go Home! ended up being the lowest grossing film of 1966." Watson was immediately fired from the production. After losing their key ingredient, producers of Munster, Go Home! searched for a new Marilyn. "We only had two hours to complete the second half of the movie, so we just found this girl on the street who was perfect. Her name was Helgetta Grunch. She smelled like a banshee and was from Russia, but she played the part perfectly."
     Sadly, the feature film, "Munster Go Home!" laid an egg, much like the 1967 cartoon show "The Mini Munsters Go Home." In the 70’s, a prop guy found a copy of “The Mini Munsters Go Home” sitting in the trash at Universal and decided to redo it as simply “The Mini-Munsters.” It was a smashing success: The Munsters were back, and with attitude. It was all the rage, and everyone from babies to old people had a Mini-Munsters lunch box and T-shirt. Al Lewis was brought back to do the voice of Grandpa. “I knew I couldn’t do any acting without being thought of as Grandpa, so I decided to do a cartoon where people couldn’t see me. Little did I know, I had been tricked into playing Grandpa anyway,” recalls Lewis in a 1988 interview. Movie superstar Cynthia Adler was brought into to voice Lily, as Yvonne De Carlo had a prior commitment to her work on the Broadway show “Cats.” Marilyn was written out of the show as Beverley Owen had, unbeknownst to Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, taken out a patent to the Marilyn Munster character, and threatened to sue unless she could voice the part.

     The Munsters remained in hiding until 1981 when TV reunion movies were all the rage. “The Return of the Monsters” was aired on the NBC network to dismal ratings. “No one even knew it was the Munsters because of the typo,” recalls Jo McDonnell, who played Marilyn number twenty-six.

     While producers were still in search of actors to fill the roles of Eddie and Marilyn, Beverley Owen's agent told her of the upcoming film.
     "Monique forced me to audition, but this time for the role of Lily. I never really liked the Lily character, but fell in love with the bat necklace, so I did it." Beverley remembers difficulties in negotiating her payment for the role. "I didn't know what actors were getting paid for movies those days, so Monique told me, '..name an astronomical price.' and I did. They, of course, turned me down and I never worked in show business again. I hate Monique." Yvonne De Carlo ultimately got the part and remembers how Beverley treated her."
     "Who is Beverley Owen? Is that the girl from Salome Where She Danced... wait, that's me. Never mind" she tearfully remembers.

     Then, in 1988, Universal had a brilliant idea.
     "It was brilliant." Says a spokesperson for MCA-Universal. As history has a tendency to repeat itself, it did.
     "My agent called me up on a Wednesday and says, 'How would you like to be in a new Munsters TV show?' I was thrilled and quickly arranged an audition. I went in on Thursday, they called me up to tell me I hadn't gotten the part on Saturday, and Monday I went in to start taping. I was banned from the set after that little stunt." Pat recalls.
     In the end, Hilary Van Dyke was chosen to portray the Marilyn character. "It was fun." she says, "We all had a great time on the set, except for when that Beverley woman would come around. One day while taping she busted one of the set doors down and demanded to be an extra. After being refused the part, she chucked a beer bottle from her back right pocket at our director and put him in intensive care for a week."
     "Yes, I do have a small temper at times." Owen tells us after being questioned about the incident.
 Former Miss Canada, Lee Meriwether, was cast as Lily, and unknown Howard Morton was selected to play the irascible but wacky Grandpa character. The day the pilot was to be filmed, producers realized they hadn’t actually cast a Herman yet. Finding John Schuck wandering the sound stages of MCA-TV, he was quickly chosen to fill the part. “I realized I looked nothing like Herman, so I decided to make the role something people would hate.”

     In October, 1988 on the night of the premiere, audiences were thrilled as the freaky family was once again on their television screens, and this time in a crappy-80's-fog filtered effect. "I totally freaked," comments a random teen. The Munsters were back, and with a pumping electric theme as well. "It was so pumping!" recalls the teen. "I thought the show would probably be the same as the 60's series, because it was basically the same cast and set... so I thought, let's just do it. Turns out the Munsters Today was a total waste of my life and I regret ever being born," Norman Abbott, Bud Abbott's nephew, painfully tells us.
    After "The Munsters Today," the family remained in hiding until 1995 when FOX premiered "Here Come the Munsters" as a Halloween treat. "I played Lily. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I could really feel how the original cast felt except we didn't use the same house or an even halfway related set. In fact, I think our exterior shots are of a whorehouse. But still, I had a great time." Veronica Hamel says.
     As we walked around, we had the opportunity to interview Mathew Botuchis, little Eddie while he was destroying some fan mail he had received. "This movie is so great. I wish I would get paid for doing it though, they forced me into the role, they said I would have my own show called 'The Mathew Botuchis Comedy Hour.'"
     Also featured in the movie was a special cameo by Yvonne De Carlo, Butch Patrick, Al Lewis and Pat Priest. However, Beverley Owen, Fred Gwynne, Joan Marshall and Happy Derman were all banned from appearing in the cameo because producers felt their presence on the original series was minimal. "I can't believe they were saying this crap to me. I starred in, wrote, directed and produced the first twenty episodes with my bare hands, and they treat me like the scum of the earth. I had to fly to Jamaica daily to console Joan, who couldn't stop crying. It was the lowest point in my illustrious career," Owen angrily tells us.
     From the popularity of the first movie came a hit sequel, "The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas." During the making of it, director Earl Bellamy told us, "We're trying to make it as less Munsterish as possible this time. We're using an even faker house than before and we're changing the makeup drastically so people will think it's something new, something fresh. The set will also be just a random layout so no one will be reminded of the Munster family at all. In fact, the movie really has nothing to do with the Munsters or Christmas."

     Today, the original cast looks back fondly on The Munsters. Butch Patrick owns a drug ring in Southern California where he still keeps in touch with co-stars Beverley Owen and Al Lewis. Yvonne De Carlo refuses to talk about the Munsters anymore after being typecast as an excellent actress. She currently resides in the Hollywood Hills Golf Course, in the eighteenth hole. The golf course touts its status as the only course to offer "a celebrity in every hole!" Fred Gwynne continues to do occasional voice-overs and movie appearances, just for fun. Al Lewis on the other hand thrives on the attention he gets by lying about every fact possible of The Munsters. Pat Priest also thrives on the attention.
     "I loved the Munsters,” she reflects, ”They were the creepy, kooky, and altogether ooky family that could always learn to care for one another. It really was a brilliant thing to see."
     And after months of searching, we finally found Beverley Owen slouched over a bar in the Bronx.
     The Munsters is a freakish phenomenon that is reborn every year as new audiences discover The Munsters, television’s first family of freight.

Beverley Owen greets us outside her New York home (2001)
 

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LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 16, 2003!

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