Mockingbird Lane - New Munsters

Ah, man I forgot all about it...hopefully it will be On Demand...

We enjoyed it, too. Up to the first break, I think I was trying to compare it to the original, and was disappointed. However, as the show ran on, I grew to like it more. Izzard is definitely the main attraction.

Too bad Spot didn't come in until the end.

Seriously, I'd have liked it except that Grandpa had far too many new superpowers that Al Lewis's and Howard Morton's portrayals never needed (not to blame Izzard of course, but Fuller), and the emphasis on the cannibalism angle was a turnoff for me.  Otherwise I might have liked it and been disappointed that it won't be a series, and DeRossi looks much better when her hair matches her eyebrows.  All the way back to "Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher" this has to be the first time I've seen her not displaying her usual unpleasant-to-look-at bleach job.

I thought I'd hate this one, but I liked it a lot. IMHO, it has better writing than both Grimm and OUAT. If Grimm had these writers I think it would push it over the top into a Buffy-like hit status.

For instance, I loved the entire dinner conversation especially the following:

Grandpa: Eddie, stop playing with your food.

Eddie: I will if you will.

Grandpa: That's a gross cliche and beneath you.

Where did you here there are more episodes? Last I heard NBC had more scripts but the pilot was the only thing that was shot.

Something hit me later: if, as Herman told Eddie later, the boys who were attacked in the prologue were only scratched and none were killed, and the neighbor survived the fall, and the new town's scoutmaster played by Cheyenne Jackson died by falling down the stairs and not at Grandpa's hand, then none of the principals killed anyone in the pilot episode.

It's still a big plot hole that Herman and Lily, already knowing that Eddie is a werewolf, allowed him to go on a campout with humans during a full moon.  If he forged one of their signatures on the permission slip, that never came up in the dialogue.

Here's another disappointment: Spot should have been a fire-breathing, roaring dog, as he was implied to be in the original TV series, and not looked like a dragon.  The idea is that these people look, or can look, close enough to humans to pass in society, so Eddie would need to be seen with a pet of a commonly kept species.  Perhaps it will turn out that Spot can shapeshift between dog and dragon?

(This is the second post in which I've called the pet Spot as in the TV series.  Bryan Fuller may have had a different name in mind.)

That's interesting. I was always under the impression that Spot was a dragon.

So was I...and wikipedia and IMDB agree.

Well, OK; Spot was never seen on screen in the original series and I thought it was a fire-breathing, roaring dog.  Maybe after all these years I'm confusing the memory with "The Addams Family"'s Kitty, who was on screen as a housecat but who made a leonine roar instead of meowing.

I saw only one season of "The Munsters Today" and don't remember Spot's being in it at all, and in fact I don't remember their home from that series as even having a basement.

But let's take the "Mockingbird Lane" pilot, which was produced with the potential of airing additional episodes, on its own.  If Spot's job is to accompany Eddie and keep him in check when he's among humans during full moons -- unlike the original series, where Spot never left the basement -- shouldn't it have been a species whose own presence wouldn't send the humans running?

Shades of a running gag (pun intended) in the original series, where a boy would accompany Marilyn home, not be spooked by the sight of the house, but flee when Herman opened the door and suggested the Marilyn tell him they'd like to have him for dinner sometime.  Then Herman (and sometimes Lily, as DeCarlo was occasionally at the door with Gwynne for this gag) would attribute Marilyn's lack of dating life to her plain looks.  On "Mockingbird Lane," where cannibalism is in the story, those words might mean what the boys thought; on "The Munsters Today," Dustin Nelson (named after a crew member and played by Scott Reeves if I remember right) was unfazed and became Marilyn's boyfriend.
 
Edited by dattier - 10/28/12 at 11:34am

I'm not quite sure why you keep referencing cannibalism. Nobody is a cannibal on the show.

The "eating" reference is a common one when referring to vampires eating. Grandpa isn't actually eating anyone. He's drinking their blood.

As far as Spot, his tail was seen a couple of times on the show (and it didn't look dog-like to me) and his footprints were seen once or twice, and those didn't look like a big dog's, either. I'm guessing that if the original show had the same effects capabilities as the modern one, we probably would have seen Spot back then. However, at that time, it would have meant building some sort of large anamatronic puppet, which would have been far too expensive.

That assumes, of course, that him not being seen wasn't intended to be a running joke.

I would assume, if the show continued, that spot would likely stay invisible or change his form in some way to accompany Eddie.

I was prepared to dislike the remake but was pleasantly surprised.

I do think it should have been more visibly obvious that "Herman" had been built out of various individuals. Maybe not a bolt through the neck but possibly different colored arms, or two left feet, an extra thumb or finger perhaps.

My cat went nuts at the scene with all the rats. Kept snooping around the speakers looking for mice.

We really liked this, way more then I thought I would. The one liners were awesome. So, does anyone know for sure, are they going to air more episodes?

I always thought of Spot (on "The Munsters") as a dragon or monster.

I'd be happy if this became a regular companion for Grimm on Fridays. It's actually more entertaining than the other show by far.

@ WilliamR

Nobody knows. There are more scripts, but NBC decided not to commission the show for more episodes unless the ratings for the special were good. Perhaps one problem with the show was that the producers spent too much money on it. If they had made the pilot in a more economical fashion, NBC might have had more interest in picking it up. There isn't much point in making a flashy pilot if you don't have enough money to maintain that budget in future episodes, and the more expensive a show is to produce, the better its ratings have to be to keep it on the air. The visual effects were nice, but the writing was what made the pilot fun to watch.

Agreed.
It's possible NBC might have suddenly gotten gun shy when they thought they might have another Terra Nova situation.

Either that, or they showed it to a focus group and there were too many points where the knobs went left instead of right.

For example, I'll bet women (mothers, in particular) might be uncomfortable with all the hair, puberty and nudity talk surrounding the kid. Men might roll their eyes at the "breaking heart due to too much love" references. Perhaps the lack of an attractive male lead (minus scars and other makeup effects) might have been a turn off for female viewers. Perhaps younger viewers were saying "what's the deal with the dragon?" It could be anything.

Or, it could be the recent news involving the Boy Scouts might have made NBC nervous.
Which is likely why the show wouldn't work.

Clever writing only gets 3 million viewers or so.

You have to yell a lot and be insulting to others to get a good 8-10 million eyeballs.

Sorry, not up on vampire lore, didn't know the jargon.  That would explain it.
Don't recall either of those, nor whether Spot appeared in "Munster Go Home." Not unlikely, and if today's special effects had been available then, they'd probably have overwhelmed the comedy and I'd have watched only one or two episodes of it and skipped "Munster Go Home," "The Munsters Today," and "Mockingbird Lane." They'd work it out somehow.

Kitty was on "The Munsters".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Munsters_characters

Your memory sucks.

Aaargh ... the feline on "The Addams Family" was a tame lion [who even appeared in their opening credits] that had a name suitable for a pet cat, and it also roared but did no damage. Admittedly, at the time I was not giving the Munsters’ pets top priority among things to remember for the rest of my life.  I didn't even expect to be alive in 2012.

Edit: the Addamses’ lion, per a couple of sources on the net, was named Kitty Kat.
 

BTW, if you thought the pilot seemed a little short, it was. It only clocked in at 39:36 in length.

OUCH!

Isn't that about the same of any hour-long show?

Or are they usually longe rin prime-time.

I always figure by waiting until a currently airing hour-long show has been recording 20 minutes I can skip through all the commercials.

Hour long dramas typically run about 42 minutes of actual content these days. It's getting shorter all the time, but I haven't heard of them cracking the 40 minute barrier yet (probably only a matter of time). It's possible that this pilot was cut more severely than it would have been had it been taken to series.

The CW has done it with their shows, specifically 90210 and Ringer. Both clocked in at about 39.5 minutes, in the 2011 season. IIRC, an episode of a NBC show also clocked in under 40 minutes.

Yes, most hour-long dramas come in at 43 minutes +/- about 30 seconds. There HAVE been a few that were unusually short, and like mrvideo reported, Ringer was one of them. I don't think ALL of the episodes were under 40 minnutes, but a few were.

To see the lengths of all the episodes (but one) of Ringer, go to:

http://vidiot.com/Ringer/quickref1.html

You'll notice several that clocked in under 41 minutes.

The CW is horrible for short episodes.

NBC’s ‘Mockingbird Lane’ Officially Dead
By Nellie Andreeva, Deadline.com - Dec. 28, 2012

It’s officially over for NBC’s Munsters reboot Mockingbird Lane. The project’s creator/executive producer Bryan Fuller made the announcement earlier today on Twitter. “I tweet with a heavy heart,” he wrote. “NBC not moving forward with #MockingbirdLane. From producers and cast, thank you all for enthusiasm and support.”

This marks the end of Mockingbird Lane‘s two-year journey. The project was originally developed by NBC’s previous regime during the 2010-11 cycle. Fuller’s script was one of very few Bob Greenblatt kept in play when he took over the network in January 2011. It was redeveloped and, in November 2011, it was ordered to pilot, which was subsequently rolled to June because of difficulties with casting. The pilot landed Bryan Singer as director and eventually assembled a cast led by Jerry O’Connell as family patriarch Herman Munster, Portia de Rossi as his wife Lily, and Eddie Izzard as Grandpa. The pilot was lauded for its visual style but NBC brass felt the high-concept premise — a show about a family of “monsters” — didn’t quite work.

The network unofficially passed on the pilot at the end of September but opted to air it as a Halloween special, in part to offset its high cost, said to be pushing $10 million. The special did a so-so 5.4 million total viewers and a 1.5 rating among adults 18-49 in the Friday 8 PM slot, giving Fuller and the project’s fans a glimmer of hope that NBC may pick it up to series. Multiple additional scripts had been written, and there was speculation that the project may be reworked to focus on Grandpa and cousin Marilyn (Charity Wakefield). But I hear among top NBC brass the decision not to go forward with Mockingbird Lane had already been made, and it has now become official.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/12/nbcs-mockingbird-lane-officially-dead/

I know, we really liked it and was looking forward to it. Figures.