Munsters to be rebooted as Mockingbird Lane, created by Brian "Pushing Daisies" Fuller

NBC is rebooting The Munsters as a new series called Mockingbird Lane, created by Bryan Fuller (Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies), and incorporating Universal's stable of classic monsters. JoBlo's Alex Maidy has some information from Fuller on his vision for the series, and it sounds pretty swell to me:

According to Fuller "The Munsters actually do what monsters do. They eat people and they have to live with the ramifications of being monstrous. It's like grounding it in a reality because the half-hour was a sitcom, we saw the monsters: they were monsters on the outside and weren't monsters on the inside. For us, they're monsters outside and inside, and we get to double our story."
Sounds good to me. Fuller also says "Everything is a metaphor for something that you can identify with in a relationship. The fact that Herman is in a constant state of decay and he's married to someone who doesn't age. We get to play with all those insecurities. The fact that he was made by his father-in-law and then has to live up to those standards; he's always trying to find his own identity."

NBC's Munsters reboot Mockingbird Lane to capitalize on the Universal Monsters characters (via Super Punch)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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http://www.facebook.com/people/Amorette-Allison/1163340223 Amorette Allison

So, the whole point of the original series was these people LOOKED so different but were really just same as the rest of us. Quite a radical idea in the sixties. Now the idea is they look normal but are really awful. Not quite so radical. I suspect, not quite so funny as well.
- EH
  
  I think the idea is that you never know when your neighbor is a terrorist. The hidden horrors among us, discovering secrets, and that idle suspicion is something to be rewarded.
  - Andrew Singleton
    
    So a total reversal of the spirit of the original’s inclusiveness by flipping it to ‘BE AFRAID! BE AFRAID OF EVERYONE!’
    
    A Pox on this I say!I’d rather Grampa Munster be a batty old kook from the old world. Sure he’s a vampire but he had this bumbling charm about him.
    - Thad Boyd
      
      I’d rather Grampa Munster be a batty old kook from the old world.
      
      Sounds like Eddie Izzard to me.
      - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski
        
        It should be a riot. They had me at “Eddie Izzard as Grandpa.”
    - Preston Sturges
      
      There was a wonderful PBS interview with Grandpa Munster who was a veteran yiddish vaudeville burlesque guy. He actually had a horse drawn medicine show wagon in the Depression, and traveled from town to town in places like Oklahoma. There he was, the little New York Jew there to con them, and they knew he was there to con them, it was all understood. So if he failed to entertain the meanest rednecks in town and make them happy to be scammed out of a scarce dollar, they would lynch him.
  - donovan acree
    
    What’s he building in there?
    What the hell is he building In there?
    He has subscriptions to those Magazines…
    He never Waves when he goes by
    He’s hiding something from the rest of us…
    He’s all To himself…
    I think I know Why…
    He took down the Tire swing from the Peppertree
    He has no children of his Own you see…
    What’s he building in there?
    We have a right to know…
- Thad Boyd
  
  I suspect, not quite so funny as well.
  
  No accounting for taste. “Neighbors go out at night and fucking eat people” sounds a LOT funnier to me than “Generic schlocky sitcom with more makeup.”
http://devojane.blogspot.com devophill

A couple of transcription mistakes in that article. “We have universal monsters” should be “We have (the) Universal Monsters”;, “Metaluna monster from ‘Silent Earth’” should be “Metaluna monster from ‘This Island Earth’”.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=620862876 Bob Brinkman

So, a normal looking family who act monstrously? Sounds like they couldn’t license the Addams Family.
- http://twitter.com/trempls tré
  
  Or American Horror Story, from what I remember before I stopped watching it.
WillieNelsonMandela

Let’s hope grandpa drives a coffin car. It would also be cool if these new Munsters came home to find The Standells playing for a bunch of beatniks in the living room.
- http://monolithcreative.com thekinginyellow
  
  a “coffin car”? do you mean a “hotrod hearse”?
  - Andrew Singleton
    
    Could always pull out the Dragula for special occasions.
  - Yacko
    
    http://www.munsterkoach.com/Dragula1.htm
  - http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
    
    It’ll be that thing that travels on the roady tarway.
- EH
  
  Are you kidding? It’s going to be product placements for Priuses and One Dimension boy bands.
Xof

Well, calling the Addams Family “normal looking” is a bit of stretch, but point taken.

It sounds like they are aiming for something along the lines of Dexter. I’ll give it a fair viewing, but, well, NBC.
Boundegar

The Munsters was just a corny ripoff of The Addams Family, which was based on the wonderful New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams. So now we’re yet another generation away from originality. Awesome.

We can at least hope for the laughter of the dead.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/6IOUGPFXUL4SCJX4UQFBZA75RA CliffordS
  
  I wouldn’t be quick to dismiss Bryan Fuller. Pushing Daisies was one of the most original shows on television as was Wonderfalls.
  - EH
    
    Yeah, I have respect for him, but this idea is stupid. Oh well, in a bad economy you can’t really pick and choose. I don’t bear a grudge towards him for this.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  If you re-watch them, The Munsters holds up better than The Addams Family. The actors have better chemistry with each other.
  - theophrastvs
    
    nah.
  - David Hall
    
    I agree that The Munsters is much easier on the brain. But Morticia is much easier on the eyes.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Is this the goth version of Ginger or Mary Ann?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      It looks like this territory has already been covered.
  - BarBarSeven
    
    I disagree. Both are great!
  - Preston Sturges
    
    >>>The Munsters holds up better than The Addams Family.
    
    Well that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone say that. But Fred Gwynne had a lot of talent.
- retepslluerb
  
  It’s the homeopathic theory of humor.
Andrew Singleton

Consider me skeptical. Sure the Munsters were corny, but dagnabbit it was Funny.

As for being a bad adams family ripoff? Nah. The adams family were honestly monsterous/creepy where the Munsters all looked so completely not-human that they were terrifying people left and right wher they acted like some of the nicest folks you could ever want for neighbors (their sense of decorating and yard upkeep on the other hand…)
- billstewart
  
  Was _that_ what was supposed to be going on? Perhaps I just wasn’t the right age, but The Munsters was so appallingly cornball that I couldn’t sit through a whole episode of it, while Addams Family worked for me, in a snarky pre-teen way.
- Preston Sturges
  
  The Addams Family was a pretty well developed concept from the single panel cartoons of Charles Addams, which were like if Edward Gorey drew The Family Circus.
Thad Boyd

I wasn’t interested until I heard who’d been cast. Now it has my attention.
David Hall

It’s Eddie Motherfucking Izzard. If it sucks at least it will suck with style.
- Andrew Singleton
  
  Eddie Izzard as Grampa? OK. Now I’m curious on how this will work.
  - EH
    
    It won’t, but he’ll get paid.
    - Andrew Singleton
      
      Well in this economy take what you can get I guess. Still. He’ll have a sense of style about him.
  - David Hall
    
    Oh, and Portia with dark hair.
    
    The cast is double sploosh.
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HC1NqZvY_lA#t=6s
spacemunky

I don’t think I can live in a world where Lindsay Bluth is banging that kid from Sliders.
- http://openid.aliz.es/Botoraka Botoraka
  
  Well you do already live in a world where that kid from Sliders is banging Rebecca Romijn in real life, so there you go.
BarBarSeven

Everything is dour… Serious… Nonsense…

This is not The Munsters! This is $%#&ing Dark Shadows with Children… Screw this!
guygadbois

No Grandpa flapping his wings? No Herman in a lady’s wig? No hats flying off heads when people see the Munsters for the first time? Darn, darn, darn! Count me out!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Katrina-van-Malksvig/100000571611598 Katrina van Malksvig

Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis are spinning in their graves!
penguinchris

I probably won’t watch this but I think it has a chance to be decent. The aesthetic in these promo shots is surprisingly non-cliched, and I really can’t see how anyone could think it’s a bad idea to bring back the Universal monsters (and the This Island Earth aliens? you do know that movie is in the MST3K movie right? this is an amazing choice of monster to bring back). So long as they keep it humorous and a little bit campy, while being dark, it should be pretty interesting. Eddie Izzard pretty much guarantees that it will be humorous and campy.

I watched a lot of reruns of The Munsters as a kid; never got into The Addams Family because the movie remakes came out when I was a kid and they looked ridiculously stupid. Apparently that movie came out in 1991, when I was 5 years old… and I already knew it was stupid. I think it was also one of my earliest hipster moments, because everybody my age loved that movie and quoted it all the time for years. So I purposefully never saw it. The Munsters was a lot of fun though, and one of the most memorable of those old shows. I still regularly am reminded of scenes and plot points from The Munsters and Leave It To Beaver in everyday life, it’s good stuff.

Anyway, also I did watch Sliders when it originally aired, and recently watched a few episodes on Netflix – my brother watched the entire series a couple months ago. Never did like that guy who plays the main character. Worth watching for John Rhys-Davies and the cute geeky girl though.
Robert Little

I hear this strange, metallic screeching sound, like something sliding off rails…
http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis

So my gritty drama about an Iraq War soldier who finds a bottle with a beautiful genie inside could still work?
- Preston Sturges
  
  Or just reboot IDOG with Major Nelson as a closeted gay astronaut who is completely baffled by having a blonde slave girl who keeps offering to do “anything you wish Master” until he realizes he can can turn her into David Beckhamm, but there has to be some hitch like she has to hold her breath so she can only do it for like a minute at a time.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Or The Beverly Hillbillies, only with real people. Oh, wait. That’s already half the primetime schedule.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Sharp/1165272061 Mark Sharp

Since we are rehashing the past—why not new detective show -”Charlie Chan”-? Only this time Charlie is a real Chinese-American and it’s actually filmed in San Francisco and not LA or Vancouver. And hire witty British writers for Horus sake.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Lt. Charlie Chan lives in Honolulu and works for the Honolulu PD.