MovieChat Forums > The Munsters (1964) Discussion > Didn't they realize?

Didn't they realize?

posted 8 years ago by Videoguy7579
11 replies | jump to latest

I'm new to this board, so I don't know if it's been discussed before.

I love The Munsters, but there was one thing I never understood. They always call Marilyn the plain one, or the ugly duckling, and how in the world is she ever going to find a husband with looks like that? I know that's the running joke, but didn't Herman, Lily, and Grandpa realize that the ENTIRE WORLD looked like Marilyn? If they felt that way about her, certainly the men she dated would be considered "plain" and "ugly" in their eyes. With all the references they make to current celebrities of the day (Steve McQueen, for example), they seem to be accepting of the outside world.

I remember one episode where there was a scene in Marilyn's bedroom. The room was completely "normal" - clean, regular furnishings, no cobwebs or holes in the walls. But if she was a Munster by blood, wouldn't her room look exactly like the rest of the house, since she was content to live in the broken down parts of the house?

[–] ministerwithoutportfolio 8 years ago

Yes indeed. Ive often thought of that.

But discontinuities (or whatever the official film-science word for that is) can be overcome provided the audience is laughing so hard they dont have time to think about it.
There, The Munsters succeeded IMO.

Its similar to Moe hitting Shemp's head with a hammer 10 times. Moe's bathos - or whatever - is so believable and the timing is so perfect - and the sound effect so luscious that you -the viewer - are inclined to suspend disbelief.

[–] tinkerbell_jonna 8 years ago

One thing I didn't get was Marilyn also saw HERSELF as ugly and the rest of her family as normal... you'd think Marilyn would have made an ATTEMPT to look like the rest of her family, but she seemed to take pride in her "ugliness" ~what we would see as beauty~

[–] kenos-542-105972 8 years ago

I wrote on another thread that part of the fun of the show was accepting all those little inconsistencies. I also noticed that The Munsters often cited "normal" looking celebrities like Steve McQueen and Frank Sinatra as examples of sex symbols at the same time that they were describing the average Joe as looking "weird" but it all becomes sort of an inside joke that the whole premise is so unbelievable anyway so why not just take it to the extreme. It's a bit like the suspension of disbelief required to watch all the Raiders of the Lost Ark films.

[–] paulfreed 8 years ago

Going by memory there was an episode in which Lily was a model (Harry Mudd) was the designer. Herman shows up as a rich Texan, and Grandpa takes a pill or something and turns into a blond bomb shell to make Lily jealous. You would think in Munster logical grandpa would have turned into a hideous creature to make Lily jealous, I loved the Blond talking like grandpa.

[–] ministerwithoutportfolio 8 years ago

One of the greatest episodes ever. Nobody gets jealous better than Yvonne. Somehow it is just made so much more comical than what she is getting jealous about is a monster husband.

[–] pjpurple-1 8 years ago

I like the part where Grandpa forgets he's a girl and lights up a cigar! lol

But I hadn't thought about the beautiful blonde in that way. In the Munster world Lily would be jealous of an Elvira type.

The actress in the episode was more like Marilyn. Lily's real reaction would've been more,"Oh how nice of Herman to take pity on that poor plain girl."

But you know Lily, any female around Herman made her livid.

[–] tinkerbell_jonna 8 years ago

It makes me wonder if Lily had a lot in common with Gomez Addams, he was rather jealous of Morticia if any other man was around.

[–] ministerwithoutportfolio 8 years ago

The jealousy is more an "other side of the tracks" jealousy, but its still a jealousy

[–] jmarkoff2 7 years ago

The incongruity discussed in this thread is one of the main things that torpedoed the fantasy of the series, suggesting that the writers were extremely lazy.

[–] paulfreed 7 years ago

The bedroom looking normal can be explained by the fact lots of teenagers are "rebellious" and have rooms that look nothing like the rest of the house.

[–] millsey72 (9557) 2 years ago

This sure sounds like a plot hole to me