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Mockingbird Lane - MUNSTERS 2012 - A Review
13 years ago
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So, I've just made it halfway through this "reboot" of the Munsters, called Mockingbird Lane.
This one's been kind of a roller-coaster for me.
I am quite a fan of The Munsters.
And I'm not such a fan of previous reboot attempts.
Munsters has a similar problem to Star Trek: The actors have become so identified with the characters, that when you put another actor in that role, what you end up with is not an actor playing a character, it's an actor impersonating an actor playing a character. And it doesn't work. Because all the time that you're watching you're thinking, who is this guy pretending to be Fred Gwynne?
So, when I heard that once again, some network suit had green-lit another Munsters reboot, I was annoyed.
And then when I heard that it was going to be dark, violent, and horrifying, I completely wrote it off. As it seems, did the rest of the internet. There were a good number of stories on the web explaing just what a bad idea it sounded like.
And so, when I heard that the network had passed on the idea altogether, I was relieved.
And then I saw an ad for it, now reborn as a Halloween special, and suddenly, my interest was piqued again, because the ad made it look really quite funny. And it had Eddie Izzard in it.
So, I sat myself down and tried to watch it.
And what I've discovered is that whoever wrote this had no idea what makes The Munsters work.
What made The Munsters work was this: They looked horrible on the outside, but on the inside they were just your typical family. The show essentially worked as an allegory about xenophobia and racism. You can't judge a book by it's cover. You can't judge people based on the color of their skin, be they white, black or bright green. Not even if they have a flat head and bolts sticking out of their neck. Sure, people would get freaked out by Herman, but he was just a big lovable galoot who'd end up befuddled by why people seemed to treat him so differently from everyone else. Can't we all just get along?
And because they were lovable characters, their slightly freaky lifestyle came off as daffy and delightful. They were weird, but then isn't everybody in their own way? This was just their way.
So then, to this new incarnation. Where The Munsters look attractive on the outside, but are horrible people on the inside. It's a complete subversion of the format that made the show work, and while this might have been intended to be clever, it just ends up making the show not work.
It all goes wrong in the first scene.
The story starts with Eddie Munster murdering several kids in his his boy scout troop, while in full werewolf form. He drags them, one by one, screaming, into the shrubbery, as the rest flee for their lives.
And there's just no way back from that.
Comedy just doesn't work after that.
Is there nobody left in the TV industry who understands television?
What I'm seeing here shows no understanding of what comedy is, let alone how it works. In fact, I'm reminded of the failed Wonder Woman pilot. It is so similarly tone-deaf that even just calling it tone-deaf barely scratches the surface.
Everything about this reboot misses the mark completely. The characters aren't likable, let alone lovable.
I give them some points for not just having Actor-imprsonating-Al-Lewis-playing-Granpa-Munster. But, that's about the limit.
Herman is a relatively good-looking guy, albeit one with a huge scar across his neck which nobody he ever talks to even seems to notice.
Marylin, in the original series, was a gorgeous blonde girl, (very much in the style of her namesake, Marylin Monroe) who the rest of the family regarded as "that poor ugly kid" due to how normal she looked. In this version, she's as pretty-on-the-outside-and-ugly-on-the-inside as the rest of them, thus removing her one character trait.
Lilly is just "attractive brunette" rolled in from central casting. They surround her with special effects in every scene, in an apparent attempt to cover up the fact that the actress filling the role is doing little more than filling the role.
Grandpa is Eddie Izzard in a bathrobe. He is the one high point in this whole sad spectacle, but even he can't make this material funny. It almost seems like he wasn't hired to act, but rather to be a support rack for a British accent. You can tell he's doing his best, mugging for the camera, and trying to make something out of the role he's been given, but there's so little actual role that it just makes me sad for him.
And then there's Eddie. Average looking kid with mousey brown hair, who we just watched murder a bunch of children.
The storyline for the show seems to be "Eddie murders a bunch of kids. The rest of the family alternately attempt to cover up this fact, while trying to find a way to explain to Eddie that murder is okay."
These aren't The Munsters. They aren't people I want to spend any more time with than I already have.
I made it halfway through and just gave up.
I suppose I should be thankful that this one died more quickly than New Knight Rider did, but still - it's going to leave a bad taste that lingers.
This one's been kind of a roller-coaster for me.
I am quite a fan of The Munsters.
And I'm not such a fan of previous reboot attempts.
Munsters has a similar problem to Star Trek: The actors have become so identified with the characters, that when you put another actor in that role, what you end up with is not an actor playing a character, it's an actor impersonating an actor playing a character. And it doesn't work. Because all the time that you're watching you're thinking, who is this guy pretending to be Fred Gwynne?
So, when I heard that once again, some network suit had green-lit another Munsters reboot, I was annoyed.
And then when I heard that it was going to be dark, violent, and horrifying, I completely wrote it off. As it seems, did the rest of the internet. There were a good number of stories on the web explaing just what a bad idea it sounded like.
And so, when I heard that the network had passed on the idea altogether, I was relieved.
And then I saw an ad for it, now reborn as a Halloween special, and suddenly, my interest was piqued again, because the ad made it look really quite funny. And it had Eddie Izzard in it.
So, I sat myself down and tried to watch it.
And what I've discovered is that whoever wrote this had no idea what makes The Munsters work.
What made The Munsters work was this: They looked horrible on the outside, but on the inside they were just your typical family. The show essentially worked as an allegory about xenophobia and racism. You can't judge a book by it's cover. You can't judge people based on the color of their skin, be they white, black or bright green. Not even if they have a flat head and bolts sticking out of their neck. Sure, people would get freaked out by Herman, but he was just a big lovable galoot who'd end up befuddled by why people seemed to treat him so differently from everyone else. Can't we all just get along?
And because they were lovable characters, their slightly freaky lifestyle came off as daffy and delightful. They were weird, but then isn't everybody in their own way? This was just their way.
So then, to this new incarnation. Where The Munsters look attractive on the outside, but are horrible people on the inside. It's a complete subversion of the format that made the show work, and while this might have been intended to be clever, it just ends up making the show not work.
It all goes wrong in the first scene.
The story starts with Eddie Munster murdering several kids in his his boy scout troop, while in full werewolf form. He drags them, one by one, screaming, into the shrubbery, as the rest flee for their lives.
And there's just no way back from that.
Comedy just doesn't work after that.
Is there nobody left in the TV industry who understands television?
What I'm seeing here shows no understanding of what comedy is, let alone how it works. In fact, I'm reminded of the failed Wonder Woman pilot. It is so similarly tone-deaf that even just calling it tone-deaf barely scratches the surface.
Everything about this reboot misses the mark completely. The characters aren't likable, let alone lovable.
I give them some points for not just having Actor-imprsonating-Al-Lewis-playing-Granpa-Munster. But, that's about the limit.
Herman is a relatively good-looking guy, albeit one with a huge scar across his neck which nobody he ever talks to even seems to notice.
Marylin, in the original series, was a gorgeous blonde girl, (very much in the style of her namesake, Marylin Monroe) who the rest of the family regarded as "that poor ugly kid" due to how normal she looked. In this version, she's as pretty-on-the-outside-and-ugly-on-the-inside as the rest of them, thus removing her one character trait.
Lilly is just "attractive brunette" rolled in from central casting. They surround her with special effects in every scene, in an apparent attempt to cover up the fact that the actress filling the role is doing little more than filling the role.
Grandpa is Eddie Izzard in a bathrobe. He is the one high point in this whole sad spectacle, but even he can't make this material funny. It almost seems like he wasn't hired to act, but rather to be a support rack for a British accent. You can tell he's doing his best, mugging for the camera, and trying to make something out of the role he's been given, but there's so little actual role that it just makes me sad for him.
And then there's Eddie. Average looking kid with mousey brown hair, who we just watched murder a bunch of children.
The storyline for the show seems to be "Eddie murders a bunch of kids. The rest of the family alternately attempt to cover up this fact, while trying to find a way to explain to Eddie that murder is okay."
These aren't The Munsters. They aren't people I want to spend any more time with than I already have.
I made it halfway through and just gave up.
I suppose I should be thankful that this one died more quickly than New Knight Rider did, but still - it's going to leave a bad taste that lingers.
I don't think it even tried to have any of the charm or even warmth of the original, more modernised for the sake of moderising
He said that the healthiest sitcom family by far was The Addams Family. Even though they don't necessarily understand one another they always support one another, and in their stories the threats come from the outside requiring them to band together, which they do.
In The Munsters, conflict often comes from within, and from the characters flaws and mistakes rather than from the outside.
If it's from Fox you're gonna expect a sort fo combination of quirky, edgy but mostly vulgar.
NBC.. 99% of it has to do with Skinny, gay-like people caught in awkward situations.
CBS.. Identical to NBC but with ugly people.
ABC.. It's all about families competing on who's the whitest one in the neighborhood.
Personally, I saw grandpa as the only "ugly inside" one, as he is a centuries old vampire. He knows he has to murder to survive, and he accepts it and plans to keep on living. The rest of them don't seem to be bad people at all. They simply understand their positions as "monsters" and accept it. Hell, I thought it was adorable when Eddie was lamenting that Grandpa was going to eat the Wilderness Explorers leader, not because he thought it was bad, but because he sees it as normal. In his world, his family, it WAS normal.
As for the new Knight Rider which you mentioned.. I personally liked it.. I am a huge Knight Rider fan - I have all the original DVDs, the toys and the new Knight Rider series on DVD as well.. that series sucked at the beginning and was going nowhere.. but as the episodes went on the series progressed and got better and better...
This Munster's remake however sounds absolutely terrible.. and I agree 100% with you that writers are indeed running out of ideas for shows.. this is why I liked TV shows from the 80s and early 90s as back then the writers actually gave a damn about making the shows look good and have decent storylines and captivated the audience.
Today... its the opposite.. everything is too focused on reality TV and capping in on the past by making horrible remakes.. This is why my DVD collection ranges from Mork & Mindy to Tales From The Crypt.. I collect DVDs of TV shows from the 1960s to the 1990s... as shows from those time periods brought me the best joy when I watched them and I never get sick of reliving the classics in DVD form.
Kudos to you for an excellent journal which provided some very valid points as to why this Munsters reboot sucked.. I hate reading reviews on stuff where the person who wrote the review just says "This series sucked because I didn't like it." - you didn't do that.. you provided very valid points as to why it was bad - and thanks to your review - I myself, will likely avoid seeing this reboot in future as I to used to love watching The Munsters on TV as a child growing up.
I hope this gets picked up as a series
IF this had been an entirely new series, it would have stood up better, but not much. I mostly agree with your annoyances with the characters; people overlooking Herman's obvious scars, Lily being.... well... "Just A Pretty Face" (Felt so not-real a character to me), Grandpa's cynicism ..... and to think the thing I hated the MOST for poor Marlyn! She wasn't a Ne'er Do Well part of the family, she was a bi-polar doormat with Stockholm's Syndrome to me.
I will admit, there were some visual moments that were interesting; access to Herman's heart for instance. Who knew a luggage zipper was so handy?
Overall, yeah - I'm not going to lose any sleep over this one. But it wasn't NEARLY as bad as either 'Team Knight Rider', 'Knight Rider (2008)' or.... (*Dry Heaves*) 'The Munsters Today'.