September 05, 2006
Mr. October 31st
First aired: April 8, 1965 on CBS
Recently aired: August 30, 2006 on TV Land
Teleplay by Joe Connelly & Bob Mosher
Story by Dick Conway
Directed by Jerry Paris
I would have loved to have sat in on the pitch meeting for The Munsters. "It's like this: Frankenstein's monster is married to Count Dracula's daughter. They think they're normal, but everyone else thinks their freaks! The monster is really effeminate, and get this - he works at a funeral parlor!" "Great idea!. . .hey, what's that sound?" "It's just Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker spinning in their respective graves. Pay no attention." "Cool. Anyway, I love it! Let's do it!"
And television history is born. I'm guessing the folks at CBS were so enamored of their big hit, The Beverly Hillbillies, that they were sure the "fish-out-of-water" concept would transfer to the world of monsters. So we've got Frankenstein's Monster, aka Herman, Count Dracula, and the Count's ghoul-like daughter Lily, who is married to Herman. Who else do we need to round out the cast? First, there's Herman and Lily's son Eddie, a wolf-boy. Somebody explain that one to me: A science experiment gone wrong and a ghoul get truly freaky with each other (I once made a list of the TV couples who were the hardest to imagine having sex - Herman and Lily came in second, right behind Barney and Betty Rubble), and nine months later, she gives birth to some lupine/human hybrid. Then there's the Munsters' niece, Marilyn, who is totally hot. So why doesn't she realize that her family is a bunch of freaks? As a kid, I got really frustrated watching gentleman callers show up at 1313 Mockingbird Lane to pick up Marilyn for a date, take one look at Herman, and then get the hell out there. And then Marilyn would blame HERSELF for not being able to attract a man. Babe, take a look around! You live in a haunted house with monsters!
In "Herman the Rookie," L.A. Dodger coach Leo Durocher and sportswriter Charlie Hodges are walking down the street when Durocher gets hit in the head with a baseball that was hit by Herman eight blocks away. Instead of going to the nearest hospital for an x-ray, Durocher wants to know who hit the ball. Durocher gets on the phone with Walt (Alston?) and tells him that the neighborhood kids told him about Herman Munster. Yes, I'm sure good ol' Herman is a big topic of conversation among the neighborhood kids. Hell, if he lived in my neighborhood, I'd find a way to charge admission to see him.
Herman shows up at the practice field in a non-Dodger uniform to practice with a bunch of non-Dodgers. What a disappointment. I guess the real Dodgers got teased by the other teams when Mr. Ed tried out for the team two years earlier ("Leo Durocher Meets Mr. Ed"). I was looking forward to seeing Koufax, Roseboro, Davis, and Skowron reprise their roles as themselves. The tryout does not go well. Herman wreaks all kinds of havoc: making a Herman-shaped hole in the outfield fence, causing a player to tumble backwards in fast-motion after catching a ball thrown by him, etc. Watching Herman on the ballfield demonstrating that he has absolutely no control over his own strength reinforces the problem of trying to imagine him having sex with Lily.
Sadly, Big League stardom for Herman is not to be. Dodger owner Mr. O'Malley says that it would cost seventy-five grand to repair the stadium every time he played. Not only that, but the other players refuse to play with him. Valid reasons, to be sure, but it would have been fun to see Herman in front of a Congressional committee denying that he ever took steroids.
Random stuff:
To bring the episode full-circle, Hodges walks down the street with Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, general manager of the Los Angeles Rams who, like Durocher, gets hit in the head with a football kicked by Herman eight blocks away. Unlike Durocher, however, Hirsch totally sucks at acting.
When Herman breaks his bat by tapping it on his cleats, the bat breaks before it makes contact.
Pat Priest, who played Marilyn, was in The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant in 1971. If I recall correctly, she was genuinely taken aback by the two-headed guy. Finally got a clue regarding freaks, I guess.
According to Durocher, the Dodgers need a long ball hitter (they traded away their one power hitter, Frank Howard, after the 1964 season). If they got a long ball hitter, they could win the pennant. Well, he was half right. The Dodgers not only won the pennant in 1965, they beat the Minnesota Twins in the World Series. But not because of a long ball hitter. Jim Lefebvre and Lou Johnson led the Dodgers in home runs with a measly twelve each. Their success was due mainly to the pitching of Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, who won a combined 49 games.
One of the reasons I'm doing a post about The Munsters is to have an excuse to share a joke I wrote: What kind of screwdriver did Dr. Frankenstein use to build his monster? A flathead. You're a lovely audience. Good night.
"In this episode, Herman is teaching Eddie how to hit a baseball. Herman takes Eddie to the park and hits a ball. The next shot we see is the baseball flying over some trees at an unbelievable rate of speed. Later on in this episode, the Dodgers invite Herman to try out for their team. So Herman goes down to the practice field to try out. The first ball Herman hits is a home run. However, Herman's home run on the practice field is the exact same shot as the ball he hit in the park. The ball flys over the same trees again. They used the same shot twice for two different locations."
God I need to get a job.
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