The Munsters
Synopsis: The Munsters is a ‘60s sitcom that aims to satirize the traditional movies with monsters as also the traditional American family life-style.
The Munsters are your typical American working-class family, with father, Herman Munster, working to support his family, with Lily Munster – born Dracula – as housewife, Eddie Munster as the average American kid, Grandpa, the father of Lily who is staying with them, often referred to as Grandpa Munster, although he is the father-in-law of Herman, and Marilyn, who is Lily’s niece, but being partially adopted by the family gets also to be called Munster – though her own surname is Mundane – the only difference from the “normal” American family is that they are monsters. And also, they have a raven as a pet.
Grandpa, Lily and Marilyn are all from Transylvania – from a combination of vampires, ghouls and werewolves.
Although the Munsters are obviously weird in appearance and manner, they see themselves as perfectly normal. Marilyn is the only one looking normal, she is an attractive young woman resembling Marilyn Monroe. Yet, she is seen by the family as ugly and bizarre.
My opinion: Grandpa, Count Vladimir Dracula, is an elderly gentleman, with outdated manners – the old-school type that could only be found in distant eastern lands, where economical backwardness is combined with gallant mannerism. The funny part is that when kissing the hands of women, he also tries to bite their wrists. Yet, he is a ladies’ man and has had 167 wives – as any “decent” oriental lord.
He appears to be a cuckoo, always trying to invent strange contraptions. His pet is a bat named Igor, from which one can understand that the difference between Romania and Russia is quite blurry.
He had a brother named Yorga – a rather strange choice for the name that reminds one of Nicolae Iorga, a prominent figure in Romania’s pre-communist times, but it only comes to show, satirically, that Grandpa was no commoner.
