Fans may have recoiled in horror at this reboot of the original classic series, but – believe it or not – The Munsters Today lasted longer than the original.
In 1966 Grandpa conducts an experiment that backfires and places the family in a state of suspended animation. Twenty-two years later, the family awakens – still at 1313 Mockingbird Lane – to the new world of the 1980s and their attempts to adjust to society are depicted.
Herman Munster (John Schuck of Holmes & Yoyo) is six feet eight inches tall and works as a gravedigger for Mr Graves (Stanley Ralph Ross) of the Gateman, Goodbury and Graves funeral parlour.
Herman worships the ground his wife, the former Lily Ann Dracula, was buried under. Lily (Lee Meriwether, who had played Catwoman in the original Batmanseries) is 324 years old and married Herman 299 years ago in Transylvania.
Before Lily met Herman, she worked as a singer in Club Dead in Transylvania. She won the beauty pageant title, ‘Miss Transylvania of 1655’ and the Silver Shroud Award for Fashion Design.
Her normal body temperature is 25.8 degrees, and her favourite song is Transylvania the Beautiful. She gave birth to Eddie within 24 hours of becoming pregnant (a tradition in her family).
Grandpa, the original Count Dracula, is a mad scientist who enjoys conducting experiments in the lab beneath the Munsters home. He was married to a woman named Katja, but she left him when she got tired of ironing capes and mopping dungeons.
Grandpa attended the University of Transylvania and majored in philosophy. Grandpa is a member of the A.V.A. (American Vampire Association). Igor is his pet bat, Stanley his lab rat, and Leonard is the skeleton he befriended in his college days who now lives in the dungeon.
Grandpa also has a computer named Sam and once had a business in Transylvania sharpening fangs. His last job was guillotine janitor.
Neice Marilyn is blonde, beautiful and the black sheep of the family. She is 17 years old and attends Mockingbird Heights High School. She is a neat freak and desperately wants a bigger bosom (“I wanna be a 36D”) to attract boys.
Edward (Eddie) Wolfgang Munster, Lily and Herman’s son, attends Mockingbird Heights High School and wants to become a rock video producer. He has a pet Tasmanian devil named Irving.
The Munsters also own Munster Moor, a swamp at 1313th Avenue; their insurance company is Grave Diggers Mutual – “The Good Hands People.”
Spot, a fire-breathing dragon, lives under the staircase in the living room; Maxine is a sea serpent who lives in the moat that surrounds their home and Boris is the name of the boar’s head mounted on the living room wall.
Herman Munster
John Schuck Lily Munster
Lee Meriwether Grandpa (Count Vladimir Dracula)
Howard Morton Marilyn Munster
Hilary Van Dyke Eddie Munster
Jason Marsden
