The Munsters – The Complete First Season
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 08/22/2006It has its own stormy weather and fire-breathing housepet named Spot, but the mansion at 1313 Mockingbird Heights is otherwise like any other American sitcom home. This is the address of the Munsters, the family that for two seasons, 1964-66, found a permanent place in pop culture–if not “monster” success. Developed by Leave It to Beaver team Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the series was a standard sitcom (complete with the same awful canned laughter), except that the Ward Cleaver character was a reanimated corpse. Dad Herman (Fred Gwynne) was a Frankenstein’s monster, mom Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo) and Grandpa (Al Lewis) were vampires, and son Eddie (Butch Patrick) a little wolf-boy. Munster niece Marilyn was inexplicably normal, which prompted much worry from the other members of the family (she was played in early episodes by Beverly Owen, who left to get married, and then by Pat Priest). The plots revolve around typically tortured sitcom situations: Herman must lose weight to fit into his old Army uniform, Herman has insomnia, Herman takes dance lessons from a crooked instructor. (As that list would suggest, 6’5″ Fred Gwynne’s wonderfully agile slapstick and Borscht Belt comedy made him the center of the show.) What distinguished The Munsters from Father Knows Best was the Universal horror-movie lineage and the ghoulish one-liners (the latter growing a bit tedious after a while). The three-disc DVD has all 38 first-season episodes in excellent transfers, a 15-minute pilot with different actors as Lily and Eddie, and no extras or commentaries. High points include “Hot Rod Herman,” which features the tricked-out Munster Koach and Drag-u-la (boss wagons both), and “Eddie’s Nickname,” the one where Grandpa gives Eddie a potion that causes the boy’s beard to grow (a weirdly memorable image, if you’re a kid). The show was either pure kiddie farce or a radical comment on the absurdly unreal world of sitcoms. Either way, if you grew up with them as an alternate TV family, you can’t help but have warm feelings for the Munsters, as clammy as they are. –Robert Horton
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(out of 109 reviews)
Review by Servo for The Munsters – The Complete First Season
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I grew up on both the Munsters and the Addams Family, so I’ve always had much love for both shows, but when it came down to it, the Munsters was always my top pick. Maybe it was the collection of “monsters” within the family, or Marilyn, or the family’s crazy hot rods the Munster Coupe & the Dragula from legendary customizer George Barris, or just the comfort zone of the corny one-liners and family-oriented atmosphere. In any case, the Munsters is definitely classic in every sense and now it’s here on DVD!
The set’s package design is somewhat inspired. The outer box opens “coffin-style” to reveal the disc-holding “digipack” inside, as the flipped-open box top has the table of contents on it with only the episodes plus the unaired pilot listed. The episodes are spread across 3 double-sided discs. Here’s a list of the season 1 episodes:
The Munsters Unaired Pilot
Munster Masquerade
My Fair Munster
A Walk on the Mild Side
Rock-a-Bye Munster
Pike’s Pique
Lo-Cal Munster
Tin Can Man
Herman the Great
Knock Wood, Here Comes Charlie
Autumn Croakus
The Midnight Ride of Herman Munster
The Sleeping Cutie
The Munsters’ Family Portrait
Grandpa Leaves Home
Herman’s Rival
Grandpa’s Call of the Wild
All-Star Munster
If a Martian Answers, Hang Up
Eddie’s Nickname
Bats of a Feather
Don’t Bank on Herman
Dance With Me, Herman
Follow That Munster
Love Locked Out
Come Back, Little Googie
Far Out Munsters
Munsters on the Move
Movie Star Munster
Herman the Rookie
Country Club Munsters
Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights
Mummy Munster
Lily Munster, Girl Model
Munster the Magnificent
Herman’s Happy Valley
Hot Rod Herman
Herman’s Raise
Yes, Galen, There Is a Herman (aka My Friend Herman)
38 episodes plus the unaired pilot, that’s ALOT of Munsters!
Review by pestcomics for The Munsters – The Complete First Season
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I am overjoyed at the prospect of owning The Munsters – The Complete First Season. This series has been and probably always will be one of my all-time favorite television shows. I can still remember growing up watching the afternoon reruns on WPIX from New York.
The Munsters was created by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the same team that brought Leave It To Beaver to television. Beaver was the quintessential American family sitcom of the late 50′s – early 60′s. Connelly and Mosher helped to establish all those nostalgic family sitcom cliches we’ve all come to love (or hate) in Leave It To Beaver then they went on to totally parody them in The Munsters. The first season opening credit sequence of The Munsters is a great example of the way they parodied the typical family sitcoms of the time. You see Lily Munster, housewife and mother, sending her brood off for the day in the same manner June Cleaver and Donna Reed did. Lily hands each of her loved ones their packed lunches or school books as she pinches their cheeks or gives them a little motherly kiss.
Although The Munsters was considered much less sophisticated than its 60s creepy TV rival, The Addams Family, it is overall a much more entertaining series to me. Although the subversive quality of The Addams Family continues to make it an entertaining series to watch as an adult, I have to admit I didn’t enjoy it as a child. The Munsters with its broad comedy and more obvious monster characters was much more fun to watch as a kid. It’s worth pointing out that even though Morticia and Gomez Addams had a fiery sexual relationship on screen, Lily and Herman Munster may have been one of the only 60s TV couples to have been seen sharing the same bed (rather than the customary twin beds).
The Munsters – The Complete First Season contains all 38 first season episodes (yes 38 shows in one season!) as well as the original unaired pilot (in color I think). It doesn’t appear that there are too many more extras in this set which is a bit disappointing. I would have loved to have seen episode commentaries by surviving cast members, documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, etc. Hey, maybe we will get some of those extras on the Second Season set?
Review by Laura De Giorgio for The Munsters – The Complete First Season
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I have purchased this set as a gift for a friend who was mentioning for the past several months how much he’d like seeing these episodes again. As I read some of the reviews posted here, I was concerned whether these DVDs will play properly and was delighted that the set I purchased through amazon.com played perfectly.
Having seen these episodes for the first time now (with my friend) I found the series both entertaining and heartwarming and was happy that the episodes are also geared toward instilling ethics and moral values. Whatever challenges the heroes of these episodes may be facing, they always act with integrity, and even though the main character – Herman Munster looks like Frankenstein and is rather clumsy, his good nature makes him a very lovable character. He is a wonderful example of what makes a human being worthy of love and respect, regardless of the physical appearance and whatever quirks one might have.
Review by Mymunster3 for The Munsters – The Complete First Season
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The Munsters are an ageless classic. Though they only lasted 2 seasons on CBS, The Munsters are still around 41 years later to please their fans!
This complete first season set, features all 38 episodes from The Munsters first season on CBS. Also featured is the color pilot episode, “My Fair Munster”, which features different people playing the characters of Lily and Eddie.
Some VHS tapes have been released in the past featuring this color pilot, but only the first 5 minutes of it. Well, rest assured, this color pilot episode is fully intact. It is the original first pilot of The Munsters, in all it’s colorful glory.
Here’s one thing you should look for, as you watch this set, take a look at the make-up change from the first 13 episodes. The Munsters are not as dark, and the sandy look in their faces, disappears. Not to return again, until the very beginning of the second season, because episodes from the early first season re-ran during the summer of 1965, so they had to had some extra darkness to the Munster’s faces, until about 10 weeks into the second season.
Another thing to watch for in this Season 1 set, is that the first 13 episodes, were almost filmed in the dark. There is almost no light or contrast in the very early episodes like “Autumn Croakus,” “Munster Masquerade,” “My Fair Munster,” and “A Walk on the Mild Side.” It is not a DVD problem, it’s just how the original early episodes were filmed, as to establish a light tone, and not have children scared away.
Also, take a look at Al lewis’ widows-peak. It changes from episode to episode, and eventually is no longer drawn in with a pencil. They finally get him a widows-peak wig to wear in “Munsters on the Move.”
The last three issues I would like to address, is space of episodes on the discs, B&W film turning sepia, and the picture quality of “Autumn Croakus,” and “Lily Munster~ Girl Model.”
There are 39 half-hour items on this set. If you have 3 double-sided discs, why not use the space appropriately? The episodes should have been spaced in this manner, seven episodes on Disc 1 A, Disc 1 B, and Disc 2 A, then 6 episodes on Disc 2 B, Disc 3 A, and Disc 3 B.
There is also a visible problem with some episodes turning sepia. Not all the episodes have their original rich B&W format. Some episodes have a yellow-brown tint that is visible by turning up the color on your television set. The only episodes with real B&W, are “Low Cal Munster,” and “Love comes to Mockingbird Heights.”
“Autumn Croakus,” and “Lily Munster~ Girl Model,” both seem to have some sort of video problems. In “Autumn Croakus,” their is a huge lightning-bolt shaped film crack for one frame. It is big, and makes the whole picture jump. “Lily Munster~ Girl Midel,” has a unique video problem. There are about five small black dots that stay in the middle of the screen for about the first 7 minutes. Then, they finally fade away and the picture gets better.
DVD info for The Munsters The Complete First Season
Spoken language: English
Captioning: English, Spanish, French (There is NO captioning at all for the Pilot episode)
DISC 1; SIDE A
Unaired Color Pilot “My Fair Munster”
Munster Masquerade
My Fair Munster
A Walk on the Mild Side
Rock-A-Bye Munster
Pike’s Pique
Low Cal Munster
DISC 1; SIDE B
Tin Can Man
Herman the Great
Knock Wood, Here Comes Charlie
Autumn Croakus
The Midnight Ride of Herman Munster
The Sleeping Cutie
Family Portrait
DISC 2; SIDE A
Grandpa Leaves Home
Herman’s Rival
Grandpa’s Call of the Wild
All Star Munster
If a Martian Answers, Hang Up
Eddie’s Nickname
Bats of a Feather
DISC 2; SIDE B
Don’t Bank on Herman
Dance With Me, Herman
Follow That Munster
Love Locked Out
Come Back Little Googie
Far Out Munsters
Munsters on the Move
DISC 3; SIDE A
Movie Star Munster
Herman the Rookie
Country Club Munsters
Love comes to Mockingbird Heights
Mummy Munster
Lily Munster~ Girl Model
Munster the Magnificent
DISC 3; SIDE B
Herman’s Happy Valley
Hot Rod Herman
Herman’s Raise
Yes, Galen, There Is a Herman
Don’t forget to check out:
The Munsters The Complete Second Season
Munster, Go Home!
The Munsters’ Revenge
… which are all on DVD!
~ENJOY!!!
Review by bpesti for The Munsters – The Complete First Season
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Universal continues to frustrate. A Great show. Timeless comedy and performances. A nice spin on the family sitcom. Great to have it on DVD. Good picture and sound. Nice menus with episode synopsis. A nice DVD package. BUT two defective DV-18 double-sided dual-layered discs on my set. Two episodes on different discs (Rock-a-Bye Munster and Come Back Little Googie) either pixelate for 10 seconds or pixelate then stop the player. It’s terrible holding your breath wondering if/when the disc will freeze or completely stop playing. This happens too often on Universal DV-18 DVD’s. Universal’s Quality Control is horrible. The bonding process, poor manufacturing or cheap materials or something else is at fault, not to mention the discs scratch eaiser and are more difficult to handle than DV-9 single sided discs. Universal DV-18′s seem to have a failure rate that’s unneccssarily high in this day and age. I’ve had it also happen on Dune Extended Edition. I exchange it twice at Walmart. Both copies had pixelation problems in different scenes. Another copy bought at Best Buy was fine. Buck Rogers Epic Series Disc One had a large scratch on it right out of a new sealed box. Many people I know had pixelation problems on Miami Vice Season One. Thankfuly I did not. Universal’s continued choice of using DV-18 discs is a bad one. FWIW I emailed Universal at universalstudios.com. They said they will replace the defective discs. The DVD’s will supposedly be tested prior to shipping. They will send a pre-paid envelope in which to return the discs. They want just the discs not the entire set and packaging so that’s fine with me if the replacements play fine. But this shouldn’t even be a continuing issue with any discs. 5 stars for the Munsters Show and having it available on DVD. Zero stars for Universal continued use of poorly manufacturered DV-18 discs on great shows like this.