The Munsters

The Munsters was an American television sitcom, depicting the home life of a family of horror movie monsters. Much of the humour derived from the fact that they did not have the slightest idea that they were in any way different from their neighbours.

It first aired on the CBS network from 1964 to 1966, and in continual syndication thereafter. The Munsters was filmed in black-and-white.

The family:

• Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Dracula Munster, a homemaker; she wore goth-style makeup, a decade before it became fashionable.
• Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster; bears a distinct resemblance to Frankenstein's monster as portrayed by Boris Karloff. For a man of 150, he behaves rather childishly, often throwing temper tantrums. He has an unspecified job at a local funeral parlor.
• Al Lewis as Dracula, commonly called Grandpa; he is a mad scientist and keeps a laboratory. Various potions and magic spells that he devises there make up a large amount of the plot devices. Unusually for a vampire in fiction, he appears to be able to naturally transform into a wolf as well as a bat.
• Butch Patrick as Edward "Eddie" Wolfgang Munster; a typical all-American boy werewolf of elementary school age.
• Beverly Owen / Pat Priest as Marilyn Munster; the daughter of one of Lily's sisters, niece Marilyn is young, blonde, and pretty, and attends Westbury College. The family is vaguely ashamed of their relationship to such a freakish relative.
• Spot, an immense fire-breathing dragon. He lives under the stairs; a section of them is hinged and opens up when one of the griffins on the balusters at the bottom is tilted back.
• Igor, a bat (or perhaps a transformed vampire) who lives in Grandpa's lab and assists with his work.
• Kittycat, an average-sized black cat who roars like a lion.
• A talking raven who lives in the cuckoo clock in the living room.

Several television movies were spun off from the series. The series itself was was remade in 1988 with a different cast, and the title The Munsters Today.

The show is often compared with The Addams Family, which began and ended almost simultaneously with it.