The Corner Penthouse

The Munsters is an American sitcom depicting the home life of a family of benign monsters that originally aired on CBS from September 24, 1964 to May 12, 1966. Although the series was extremely popular during its original two-year run, it found a larger audience in syndication. This popularity warranted a spin-off series, as well as several films, including one with a theatrical release. The original series and some of the spin-offs have been released on DVD in the United States, and I will give a rundown of which releases you need to buy to have the most complete collection possible.

Before I get into the heart of this article, let me put a stake in it for a second for a disclaimer. I am not an expert of The Munsters. In fact, for the longest time, I never really cared much for the series. It was only recently that I gained a new interest in the series, and now appreciate its delightful wordplay and dark humor. The DVD releases I will discuss are ones that I personally own, and being a resident of the United States, I will not discuss anything from other countries. There are some DVD releases that will NOT be discussed because they are not needed. Now with all of that said, let's start with the base set. Oh, and FYI: You can click on all of the case art images for readable enlargements, and click on the titles underneath to buy the DVD at Amazon (or elsewhere, in the case of bootlegs).


This set provides all 70 episodes of the original 1964-1966 series, as well as the full-length movies Munster, Go Home! (1966) and The Munsters' Revenge (1981) - the former being a theatrical film, and the latter being a made-for-TV reunion film. Bonus features include the original 14-minute color Pilot #1 (starring Joan Marshall as Phoebe [instead of Lily] and Nate "Happy" Derman as Eddie), a colorized version of the episode "Family Portrait", and the four 45-minute A&E biographies: "The Munsters: America's First Family of Fright", "Fred Gwynne: More than a Munster", "Yvonne DeCarlo: Gilded Lily", and "Al Lewis: Forever Grandpa".

From what I've read, the original release of the two individual season sets were comprised of double-sided discs. They were changed to single-sided discs when the first "Complete Series" set was released in 2008. All was not good, however, as that first "Complete" set used two thick Digipacks with overlapping discs - as seen in the photo below.


I'm glad that I avoided that release because who wants a shelf-hogging set with a disc configuration like that?!? Thankfully, Universal re-packaged the set in 2016 with each of the seasons in a six-disc plastic case with no disc overlap; same as they were now available individually. Both of those plastic cases were put inside a slipcase with Andy Warhol-esque art on the front. While that bright and colorful imagery isn't as good as the first set's artwork, this "re-packaged" release is the best version to buy.


Although it's the "Complete Series", that set is not as complete as it should be. For the complete set of supplements, you will need to buy a few more DVDs.


This 2-disc set, in a VERY THICK plastic case, was produced by Image Entertainment in 2004, before the studios got wise to the idea of slimmer packaging. The first disc contains the same four A&E documentaries that are included in Universal "Complete Series" set. Disc 2 is what you want this set for, as it contains over an hour and a half of bonus content that isn't on the so-called "complete" set.


Not only do we get outtakes from the interviews from those four A&E documentaries, we get a slew of rare material from the series itself. You know, stuff that should have been on Universal's set!

• My Fair Munster - Presentation #1 (15:07) (this is Pilot #2, in B&W, with Phoebe instead of Lily)
• My Fair Munster - Presentation #2 (10:48) (this is an excerpt from Pilot #3, in B&W, with Lily and with Eddie having a "normal" hairstyle)
• The Munsters Main Title Sequence (Unaired Version with Portuguese Subtitles) (0:46) (this title sequence is excerpted from the complete Pilot #3, as found on the next disc listed below)
• Seven Wonderful Nights (Excerpt from CBS Special With Buddy Ebsen) (2:10)
• CBS Network Promo #1 (1:01)
• CBS Network Promo #2 (1:01)
• CBS Network Promo #3 (0:22)
• CBS Network Promo #4 (0:22)
• Wayne and Shuster Take an Affectionate Look at the Monsters (Munsters Segment Excerpt) (4:34)
• Marineland Carnival CBS Special TV Commercial (1:01)
• Cheerios "Big G, Little O" Commercial (0:31)
• Munster, Go Home Theatrical Trailer (2:46)
• Munster Go Home TV Spot #1 (1:02)
• Munster Go Home TV Spot #2 (0:21)
• Munster Go Home TV Spot #3 (0:22)
• Munster Go Home TV Spot #4 (0:12)
• Syndication TV Spot #1 (1:02)
• Syndication TV Spot #2 (1:01)
• Syndication TV Spot #3 (0:22)
• Syndication TV Spot #4 (0:23)
• Syndication TV Spot #5 (0:12)
• Universal Newsreel - New Studio Center (1:44)
• Universal Newsreel - Santa's in Town (1:09)
• Universal Newsreel - Movie Munsters (0:49)
• It's What's Happening, Baby (with Murray the "K") (2:09)
• Bonus Interview - Al Lewis (4:56)
  • Remembering the Munsters
  • Fred Gwynne in the Foam Suit
• Bonus Interview - Yvonne De Carlo (7:57)
  • Getting the Part of Lily Munster
  • Playing It Straight
  • Fred Gwynne and the Flu
  • Losing Her Wig
  • Teasing on the Set
  • Milton Berle and Marlon Brando
• Bonus Interview - Butch Patrick (4:50)
  • Getting Cast for "The Munsters"
  • The Success of the Show
  • Fireworks on the Set
  • Al Lewis
  • Makeup
  • Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Munster
  • The Only Kid at Universal
  • Favorite Episodes
  • On the Set With Al Lewis and Fred Gwynne
  • A Strong Memory
  • Al Lewis and a Sense of Humor
  • The Munsters Strike a Chord
  • Working Closely With Fred Gwynne
• Bonus Interview - Beverley Owen (8:57)
  • Meeting Fred Gwynne
  • The Actors and the Contract
  • Camaraderie and Success
  • Marilyn Munster
  • Fred Gwynne's Makeup
• Bonus Interview - Pat Priest (12:07)
  • Meeting Yvonne De Carlo
  • Yvonne De Carlo's Custom Car
  • Family Values
  • One a a Kind
  • The Tears of Al Lewis
  • The Adorable Grandpa
  • Al Lewis As Grandpa
  • Color Vs. Black & White
  • Joking With Al Lewis
  • Getting Teased
• Bonus Interview - Debbie Watson (9:02)
  • The Munster Originality
  • School With Butch Patrick
  • Fred Gwynne in Person
  • The Car
  • The Makeup Chair
  • The Munster Movie
  • A Wonderful Life
  • Getting Recognized
  • On the Set
  • Fred Gwynne and Yvonne De Carlo

If you're paying attention, you'll notice that I have mentioned THREE different versions of the pilot "My Fair Munster". Here's a quick overview of them. Do note that Pilots #1 and #2 are not full episodes, and they end after the scene in which Grandpa brews the love potion.

Pilot #1 - Color, 13:50, Filmed in the Spring of 1964 with Joan Marshall as Phoebe (instead of Lily) and Happy Derman as Eddie.

Pilot #2 - B&W, 15:07, with Joan Marshall as Phoebe (instead of Lily) and Happy Derman as Eddie. Besides being in black & white, this differs from the color version by including extra dialog, and extra or alternate shots.

Pilot #3 - B&W, 27:03, with Yvonne DeCarlo as Lily and Butch Patrick as Eddie. This is not the final episode as it aired on TV. For starters, Eddie has a "normal" hairstyle instead of his traditional "widows peak" style. The show opening and theme song are different. Also, considering the final episode runs 25:28, and this is 1:35 longer, it should come as no surprise that there is extra dialog, and extra or alternate shots.

The final episode could be considered "Pilot #4", as it uses footage from Pilot #3, but with all of Eddie's scenes re-filmed with him in his final appearance.

Pilot #1 is on the Universal set, and Pilot #2 is on the "First Family" set I just discussed. For Pilot #3, you will need to buy this disc:


If you look at the cover art above, you'll notice that although this release is meant to be titled "Munsters Rarities: un-aired TV Pilots, Rare Commercials, Promos & more!", it's actually titled "Munsters Parities"; with a "P" instead of an "R". The error is even carried forth to the back cover. Sure, I could easily correct it with a thin marker by drawing a "leg" on the "P", but it's more fun to leave it alone :-)

Slightly more significant is a disparity between what's seen in the Amazon listing and what you'll actually receive. Amazon's artwork clearly shows a 2004 release by Nostalgia Family Video under a "TV Pilots Vol. 4" banner, which seems to be an actual factory-pressed disc. What I received - and I bought it directly from Amazon - was a nice-looking manufacture-on-demand DVD-R with identical case artwork that removed all mention of "Nostalgia Family Video" and the "TV Pilots Vol. 4" banner (the UPC number is the same). Nowhere on the page did Amazon state that it was a MOD DVD-R, which leads me to believe that it wasn't one when the listing was first created.

As for what's on the disc, well there's only one thing here that's NOT on the First Family set. That would be Pilot #3, listed as "My Fair Munster", the first thing in the main menu.


Someone added a bogus "1994 Third Degree Productions" copyright text to the title screen, which isn't present in the copy currently on the Internet Archive. Although it's a minor "alternation", I'm a purist, so I don't exactly like that a fake date is there (especially since the show is from 30 years earlier). I'm not overly concerned about it, but had I known about it, and that the disc would be a DVD-R, and that it's the only thing on the disc that isn't found in better quality on the First Family set, I wouldn't have bought it. I would have downloaded it from the Internet Archive and authored my own DVD-R.


UPDATE - One of the lost treasures from the original series has finally been released on DVD.


This CBS TV special, which aired only once, was thought to be lost for decades. A kinescope (filmed off a TV monitor) film copy remained in a private collection until the late 1990s when it was donated to the Paley Center for Media in 1997, where it sat again for almost 20 years until being re-discovered in 2014. Although the lost special is now available for public viewing in Los Angeles and New York at the Paley Center for Media, Universal never released it on DVD, but MPI Home Video did (on October 4, 2022).

The DVD has the super-long title "Marineland Carnival with The Munsters TV Show Cast Members & More Lost Treasures", as it contains more than just the Marineland Carnival special. Below is a list of the disc contents, with everything being in black and white unless otherwise noted. Even if "Play All" is not used, everything plays one after another. There is one big negative to the DVD: All of the 4:3 content, which is nearly everything on the disc, is presented in 16:9 pillarbox format instead of 4:3 fullscreen format. To learn why this is bad, read my Pet Peeves article about it.

• Marineland Carnival with the Munsters (April 18, 1965) (51:54)
• The Danny Kaye Show with Fred Gwynne (February 3, 1965) / The Munster-Dracula Report (April 13, 1966) (Color) (10:22 total)
• The Red Skelton Hour with Fred Gwynne: Ta-Ra-Ra-Bum Today (April 27, 1965) (22:50)
• The Joey Bishop Show with Yvonne De Carlo (May 30, 1968) (10:00)
• Munster Memories with Butch Patrick (2022) (11:01) (Color, 16:9 Widescreen)
• Commercials with the Cast: Marineland Carnival, The Munsters TV Show #1, The Munsters TV Show #2, Cheerios, Kellogg's Corn Flakes [with Butch Patrick] (4:29)

The Marineland Carnival special is prefaced by a 10-second screen stating that it "has been restored from the best elements available. Certain video and audio imperfections are inherent in this historical program." The special does not appear to be edited, as far as I can tell. However, there are some strange edits where shots morph/dissolve from one frame into another, which I think was a way of covering up for missing or damaged frames in the original source material. I found them quite distracting, and would rather have seen the missing or damaged frames. The best example is during The New Christy Minstrels performance at 28:23 on a close-up of the guys. Pay attention to the guy on the left in the animated gif below.


Also, there are some instances where footage is played backwards and then forwards again for a second, which is another way that missing or damaged frames were covered up. The animated gif below is of that same Minstrels performance, at 28:17, where you'll see the group's movements appear this way.


There was a really poor quality copy of the special online at one point, which I downloaded before it was taken down, and at this "backwards/forwards" spot was some print damage. Since the two shots I used for the two animated gifs above are shown consecutively, here is an animated gif of both shots from the poor quality online copy. This will also show you how nice the DVD looks by comparison, even with the wonky edits.


The Marineland Carnival special does not include the original commercials, which makes the comments that The Munsters give which lead into the commercial breaks quite odd. For example, Grandpa mentions "something orange", which I suspect would have lead into a Hi-C commercial. (Hi-C and Minute Maid are the only sponsors whose promos are part of the show.) At another spot, Lily randomly puts on lipstick, which likely would have lead into a make-up commercial. I really wish the original commercials were included, but I'm guessing they weren't present in the source material.


This DVD provides us with two of Fred Gwynne's non-Munsters appearances as Herman Munster. If you didn't already notice the runtimes listed above, these are only the segments of Fred as Herman. The other parts of the show, including anything with him out of costume, are not included.

Two appearances of Herman on The Danny Kaye Show are included. The first is a short black & white clip from the February 3, 1965 episode. The second is a longer clip, in color, from an episode with guest stars Edie Adams, Fred Gwynne, and Glenn Yarbrough. The DVD gives the airdate as April 13, 1966, though my research back in 2019 stated that the episode aired on March 16, 1966. I do not know which is correct. This 1966 clip is "The Munster-Dracula Report", a spoof of NBC newscasters Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, with Danny as David Dracula, Fred as Chet Munster, and Edie as a female weatherperson whose name I don't remember. (I don't believe she was playing "Lily", as previously reported).

The Red Skelton Show: "Ta-Ra-Ra-Bum-Today" - This might be the near-complete episode, depending or whether the show ran for a half-hour or a full-hour. If it was a half-hour program, then I think that only Red's opening and closing remarks are missing. In this 23-minute "Freddie the Freeloader" sketch, hobo Freddie (Red Skelton) camps out in the spooky domicile of Herman Munster. This leads to Freddie befriending Herman because his ability to scare off people can be useful to cheapskate Freddie.

The Joey Bishop Show with Yvonne De Carlo only includes the Munsters-related part of the interview and a six-minute Q&A afterward with audience members. This is your chance to see Yvonne without her Lily make-up on.


Munster Memories with Butch Patrick is a new 2022 color interview with the actor who played Eddie in the original series. It's fairly short, and I doubt long-term die-hard Munsters fans will learn anything new, but I found it to be interesting. The "Commercials with the Cast" includes just five spots, one for Marineland Carnival, two for the show, the Munster family promoting Cheerios, and a young Butch Patrick shilling Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

That rounds out the original series, but there are other Munsters media to collect.

Let's jump ahead almost 20 years to the radical 1980s, where the Munster clan reawakens in 1988 for The Munsters Today This 72-episode series, which ran from 1988 to 1991, featured John Schuck (Herman), Lee Meriwether (Lily), Howard Morton (Grandpa), Jason Marsden (Eddie), and Hilary Van Dyke (Marilyn). (FYI: Jason Marsden would later voice Garrett Miller in Extreme Ghostbusters.)


This series has never been officially released on DVD, so we'll have to go the bootleg route. Thankfully, I found a bootlegger that has a high-quality set. Mantronix Retro TV has it on eCrater for $39.99 and on OnlineWeb for $49.49. The set includes all 72 episodes from all three seasons in fantastic logo-free quality. The 12-disc set has six episodes per disc, and they appear to be unedited, running approx. 21:30 each. The discs are stored in two six-discs-stacked DVD cases, each with the same artwork (seen above).

Please note that although this set includes all 72 episodes, it does not include the unaired pilot that sets up the series (as explained in the theme song) and features a different actress playing Marilyn.

Included in Mantronix's deal is a region-free NTSC copy of...


This TV movie, which aired on Fox on October 31, 1995, starred Edward Herrmann (Herman), Veronica Hamel (Lily), and Christine Taylor (Marilyn). It also included cameos from original Munsters surviving cast members Yvonne De Carlo, Al Lewis, Butch Patrick, and Pat Priest. The film told the story of the Munster family's arrival in America from Transylvania.

As of this writing, it's only been officially released outside of the U.S., which is the source for Mantronix's copy. Quality is excellent, though the film is presented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. I suspect that the top and bottom of the image has been cropped off, as the original TV broadcast in 1995 was in the 4:3 aspect ratio.


Yet another made-for-tv Munsters movie, with yet another set of cast changes. Taking up the mantle of ghouls is Sam McMurray as Herman, Ann Magnuson as Lily, Sandy Baron as Grandpa, Bug Hall as Eddie, and Elaine Hendrix as Marilyn. Originally airing on Fox on December 17, 1996, the plot sees Grandpa accidentally capturing Santa Claus and two of his elves, while Lily is trying to win the local neighborhood Christmas home decorating competition, and Marilyn has invited family and friends from the "old country" to stay for Christmas.

The movie was co-written by Ed Ferrara, who would later become a professional wrestling booker, writer and agent for the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling, often working alongside Vince Russo. In WCW, he portrayed the character "Oklahoma", a mockery of WWF's commentator Jim Ross, and was the heaviest WCW Cruiserweight Champion.

At this point, we have a lot of Munsters media on DVD, both officially and otherwise, but we don't have everything. Based upon this list by "Munsters#1" on the Sitcoms Online forum and my own research, the following are unaccounted for.

• The Mini-Munsters (Oct. 27, 1973) (animated episode, unsold pilot)
This is a one-hour animated special that was part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. Al Lewis provided the voice of Grandpa. It was the pilot for a series that never came into being. (You can view the episode online here and here.)

• The Munsters Today: Still the Munsters After All These Years (1988) (pilot for series) (not included in bootleg set)
The unaired pilot for The Munsters Today explained the 22-year gap through an accident in Grandpa's lab that put the family to sleep. They awake in the late 1980s and have to adapt to their new surroundings. Marilyn was portrayed by Mary-Ellen Dunbar in the unaired pilot, and by Hilary Van Dyke in the regular series.

• Mockingbird Lane (2012) (remake pilot)
Developed for NBC by Bryan Fuller, the pilot episode aired on October 26, 2012 as a Halloween special. It was not picked up by NBC as a series. It starred Jerry O'Connell as Herman, Portia de Rossi as Lily, Eddie Izzard as Grandpa, Mason Cook as Eddie, and Charity Wakefield as Marilyn.

Fred Gwynne made a few non-Munsters appearances as Herman Munster, and if we're striving for a "complete" collection, we should try to get all of them as well. What's listed below is still missing.

• Salute To Stan Laurel (Nov. 23, 1965)
This CBS special features a quick cameo from Herman, who bursts through a door while playing a violin in a sketch about making a silent movie. Others in the sketch include Cesar Romero, Tina Louise, Louis Nye, and Leonid Kinsky. (You can view the special online here.)

And that concludes my look at all of the DVDs you need to buy to have the most complete Munsters collection possible.

UPDATE, OCTOBER 3, 2022 - Universal Home Entertainment released a new The Munsters motion picture, written and directed by Rob Zombie, featuring voice cameos by original TV cast members Butch Patrick and Pat Priest. Please read my review of the Blu-ray for more details.