I used to have real trouble with endings. As a child, even minor changes (such as my teacher changing the mural on the classroom door) would send me spiraling; for a while my family had to make photocopies of every book we checked out of the library because I’d refuse to give them back otherwise. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of myself bawling on the floor of my grandfather’s house during the final episode of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman because it was one of my favorite shows and I couldn’t stand the thought of it ending.
Knowing this, you would think I’d be a prime target for all these reboots and revivals of “classic” shows and movies, but you’d largely be wrong. My fear of change in my younger years came from many sources, but one of them was such a deep love for the important things in my life that I couldn’t bear to think about them ever being any different. When Doug — another childhood favorite — was rebooted by ABC, I was excited until I watched the new pilot and was turned off by all the changes they made to the show (ironically, at least in the first episode, under the guise of helping Doug to learn to accept change, but I digress). The point is, reboots are a huge risk because they often end up being either poor copies of the original or completely missing what made the originals so beloved in the first place, and why would I want to put myself through that?
Revivals are a bit different. I’m thrilled to see series that were cancelled too early (Young Justice, for example) get to pick up where they left off, and there are some series where enough time has passed that they can come back with something new and interesting to say (I’m not really a fan of Fuller House or Girl Meets World, but I at least appreciate that they focused on the next generation of the cast rather than trying to recreate the original; Degrassi was also excellent at reinventing itself every time it came back to life). But now that I’m an adult I’ve come to learn that all good things have endings, and the idea of reviving my favorite shows that have already had perfect endings feels more like a threat than something to be excited about.
I’m sorry, this has been a really long-winded way of saying that I’m wary of reboots and revivals, but, but, if they’re going to be done, they should be more concerned about capturing the spirit of the original than anything else.
To get more specific, I want to talk about The Munsters and its attempted revival, Mockingbird Lane. The Munsters, of course, is the 1960’s sitcom about a family of “monsters” from Transylvania living a typical American life. It had a bit of a rivalry with The Addams Family, which aired at the same time, but the key difference is that the Addams reveled in their eccentricities; the Munsters considered themselves the model American family, and thought everybody else were the weird ones.
Mockingbird Lane, meanwhile, was a special aired in 2012 as an attempt to reboot The Munsters for modern audiences that was, ultimately, not picked up as a series, with NBC claiming that it never fully came together and that they couldn’t figure out the right balance. Personally, I thought Mockingbird Lane was interesting as a series about a family of supernatural creatures trying to hide in plain sight and reckon with the ways their abilities made them different from everybody else; the problem is that the premise is the complete antithesis of The Munsters. I’m not going to act like The Munsters was some masterpiece that can’t be tinkered with, nor that Mockingbird Lane director Bryan Fuller didn’t get the original series (his take on Herman was threatened by his heart giving out because “he loves too much,” which is so traditionally Herman that it hurts), but changing that one fundamental building block created a reboot that had none of the spirit of the original, despite featuring the same characters. It just didn’t work for me.
So how would I reboot The Munsters? Glad you asked! I wouldn’t focus too much on the supernatural aspects, the same way the original series didn’t. Much like The Flintstones, the supernatural element is mostly table setting; while it can contribute in small ways, the general plot of an episode should be able to stand alone without any mention of the supernatural.
Again, I think the key is to respect the heart of the series, that core idea that the Munsters pictured themselves as the model family. The Munsters was a traditionally sixties sitcom with a traditionally sixties take on family; a totally valid way to approach this would be to play this for parody much like the nineties Brady Bunch movies did, dropping the wholesome throwback Munsters into the modern day and watching sparks fly. That would be fun, but that’s not the approach I would take. Instead, I’d update them.
The model American family these days looks very different than it did in the sixties, and a modern-day family sitcom looks very different than it did in the sixties as well. The Munsters’ approach to the family dynamic was very of its time, with Herman the “head of the house” and breadwinner and Lily the housewife; Herman and Grandpa drove the plots and got the lion’s share of the focus, with the rest of the cast largely playing archetypes and reacting to Herman’s antics. Each episode also featured only one plot, while most modern-day sitcoms (especially single-camera comedies, which I assume this would be) juggle two or three. Both societal progress and television sitcom’s ever-evolving structure demands more from the Munster family.
So let’s flesh out the “supporting” characters more, then, because they need their own plots and perspectives as well. Lily would have to have a life of her own outside the home, but she (and Grandpa) are also essentially immigrants who came here from Grandpa’s beloved “Old Country” (of Transylvania), so why not play into that and have Lily be conflicted by the differences in how women are treated between the two countries? Marilyn was almost a cipher, chipper and pleasant, but she’s living with her aunt and uncle and thinks herself ugly because she looks different from the rest of the family; surely there’s a lot you could do with a character with that kind of trauma and inferiority complex. What would little Eddie’s life be like at school? I think his very presence would fracture the school (half the kids and staff loving him, half hating him), and that could be awfully entertaining.
The Munsters also had zero continuity or recurring characters, so I think there could be a lot to explore there. The series’ most common running gag was people fleeing in fear at the very sight of the Munsters, but there were still people — such as Herman’s workmates or Eddie’s schoolmates — who seemed to tolerate the Munsters, or even seemed amused by them. What kind of person would be friends with one of the Munsters? Would they see the Munsters the same way they do? What kind of friction would that create?
Of course, even sitcom characters these days need to grow and change. Because the Munsters can never be aware of how different they are from everybody else they lack self-awareness, and that makes character development difficult. It’s a challenge, but there’s still more mundane flaws and growth a writer could explore — or, they could instead embrace the fact that the Munsters are flat characters.
What does that mean? In a nutshell, flat characters are ones who don’t change over time, but while that term generally has a negative connotation, it doesn’t have to. Let’s take the example of Son Goku. Over the course of Dragonball and Dragonball Z, we see Goku grow from a twelve-year-old boy to a grandfather, yet he’s essentially the same exact character in the last chapter as he was in the first. Sure, he matures slightly, but he never has any sort of character arc. Instead, his existence helps other characters grow. He helps Bulma and Yamcha face their fears, helps Krillin overcome his selfishness, helps reform the likes of Tien and Piccolo and Vegeta, fierce villains who became his closest friends. Goku’s a flat character but not an uninteresting one because his existence makes the characters around him more interesting.
You could easily do the same with the Munsters. They look like terrifying monsters, but beneath that veneer they’re pure-hearted, kind and generous and close-knit. What kind of effect would that have on the people who meet them, who maybe find in the Munsters a kind of compassion or hospitality they’ve never experienced before? This would also be an excellent time to, again, point out that the Munsters are immigrants. Maybe their appearance and customs are different, but beneath that they’re no different from their neighbors, and just as deserving of respect. Maybe that’s not the most original of metaphors, but it’s still a potent, timely, and necessary one. You could build a series on far worse.
Anyway, this is just a framework. The quality of the series would ultimately come down to the exact plots and, most importantly, the jokes themselves. But I think you could create a really good Munsters reboot with this framework, one that honors the heart of the original series while also feeling thoroughly of this time.
So, yeah…CBS, NBC, whoever has the rights to The Munsters right now…hire me.
CHECK OUT
The Munsters isn’t must-see TV by any means, as it was silly even in the sixties and definitely feels dated today, but if classic sitcoms are your thing, you could do much worse. The complete series is on DVD, of course, and reruns are currently airing on Cozi TV as well.
This is completely unrelated to the rest of this column, but the American Netflix just got the rights to Avatar: The Last Airbender, and that absolutely is must-see TV. If you’ve never watched it before, or if you just haven’t rewatched in a while, now is the time to check it out. It’s got humor, heart, complex characters, gorgeous animation and action sequences, and really great messages. It’s one kids and adults alike will enjoy, together or on their own. (Just start from the beginning with this one — there’s continuity and it does matter). I’m enjoying my rewatch immensely, and while I don’t have any plans to write any more about it at the moment, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see it pop up again here in this column at some point.
ABOUT
“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!