The Munsters
The Munsters live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane in the city of Mockingbird Heights, a fictional suburb in California. The running gag of the series is that the family, while decidedly odd, consider themselves fairly typical working-class people of the era. Herman, like many husbands of the 1960s, is the sole wage-earner in the family, though Lily and Grandpa make (short-lived) attempts to earn money from time to time. While Herman is the head of household, Lily makes many decisions, too. According to the episode in which Lily and Herman Munster were trying to surprise one another for their anniversary, they were married in 1865. Despite the novel approach of the family's being (mostly) supernatural creatures (except for niece Marilyn, who is "normal"), the show followed the typical family sitcom formula of the era—the well-meaning father, the nurturing mother, the eccentric live-in relative, the naïve teenager and the precocious kid.
The costumes and appearances of the family members other than Marilyn were based on the classic monsters of Universal Studios films from the 1930s and 1940s. Universal produced The Munsters as well and was thus able to use these copyrighted designs, including their iconic version of Frankenstein's monster for Herman. Other studios were free to make films with the Frankenstein creature, for example, but could not use the costume and style of make-up originally created by Jack Pierce for the 1931 Universal Studios film Frankenstein. The make-up for the show was created and applied to the actors by Bud Westmore, who pioneered many make-up effects and designs for many of the Universal monster movies.
horror